Following the debate in several UK newspapers earlier in 2013 about whether the Centenary should be a celebration or commemoration, different perspectives came out during interviews carried out at the Great War Centenary Conference – held on Thursday 14th March 2013 at Wellington College in Berkshire.
The UK Government’s Special Representative for the Centenary, Dr Andrew Murrison, said “for me, it is vitally important to underscore commemoration, not celebration”.
But Professor Sir Hew Strachan, from Oxford University, said “this is a war… that Britain felt it had to fight and that it won, so I don’t think commemoration should elbow out celebration”.