LONDON (AFP) - Queen Elizabeth II led ceremonies to remember those who died for Britain in two world wars and other conflicts, as historians rush to record the accounts of a fast dwindling group of surviving soldiers.
A somber-looking queen dressed in black laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in London, the monument to the dead of World War I, followed by other members of the royal family and politicians, including Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The queen`s grandson Prince William watched the wreath-laying and ceremonies from a first-floor balcony in the Foreign Office overlooking London`s Whitehall.
It was the first time the 22-year-old prince took part in "Remembrance Sunday," the showpiece follow-up to Thursday`s ceremonies for Armistice Day, when the nation annually marks the dead of World War I and other wars.
It came as British troops were under fire in Iraq.
"In our television age, every death is noticed now, weighed in the balance against the decision to go to war," the BBC`s veteran broadcaster David Frost said during the ceremonies broadcast nationwide.
Britain`s decision to join the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 has become increasingly unpopular in the absence of any evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the main argument for the war.
"In the two world wars, which are the main focus of this remembrance Sunday, for whom these wreaths are still being laid, hundreds of thousands died, many of them young men in their teens or their early 20s," Frost said.
Frost then compared the grief felt of relatives and friends of soldiers killed in those wars with those killed during the current military campaign in Iraq which has cost the lives of more than 70 British soldiers.
Five hundred veterans of Scotland`s Black Watch regiment, which are serving in Iraq, joined 9,000 other ex-servicemen and women from the marines, air force, navy and army and other personnel during a march past the Cenotaph.
Bells peeled at Saint Paul`s Cathedral, which survived the Nazi blitz in World II, and at churches across the nation.
What was to have been the war to end all wars -- but which was in reality only the prelude to the next -- officially ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, six hours after the signing of the armistice in Compiegne, north of Paris.
Eleven in the morning is still a solemn moment in the many countries that were dragged into the conflict, largely fought out in Western Europe, although only a handful of centenarians are still alive to tell the tale.
World War I, the Great War, as it became known, lasted from 1914 to 1918 and took the lives of 956,700 British Empire soldiers, some 705,000 of them British.
Historians tried to record the memories of the oldest surviving soldiers, The Observer on Sunday reported.
Henry Allingham, a wheel-chair bound 108-year-old, is the oldest veteran of World War I.
Two years ago he was one of 60 known veterans in Britain, The Observer said. Last year, the number halved to 30, and last week it dipped below 20, when Tom Kirk, once a surgeon on the destroyer HMS Lydiard, died aged 105.
Max Arthur, military author and historian, is interviewing the last veterans of the Great War for a book, "The Last Post", due to be published next October.
"I did the book `Forgotten Voices of the Great War` and realised the survivors are a depleting band, so we need to get them while we can," Arthur was quoted as saying.
"They all have a unique story," he said. "Some find it easier to talk than others and still have vivid details of their time on the Western Front. There was no particular reason why they should have been the ones to survive and they`re grateful to have got through."
11/14/2004 - 20:44 GMT - AFP