WW1 was one of the greatest disasters ever to fall on mankind. Millions marched to war, millions died of war of hunger of illness. If you were in a front line regiment it was often a miracle to survive more than a few weeks. Men or rather Boys died at 16, 17, 18 many never even saw an enemy soldier and many so young they had never had a girlfriend.
Of those who died and had a sweetheart or young wife, she was very likely to remain a Widow or spinster for the rest of her life, there being such a shortage of men in that age group.
William Stone, one of the three remaining veterans of the great war, was laid to rest in a churchyard in Oxfordshire.
William Stone of Oxfordshire has just been buried (Jan 2009) leaving Henry Allingham, 112, and Harry Patch the Last Fighting Tommy, 110, as the last flesh and blood links to the 1914-1918 conflict, and robbed Britain of the only living man to have fought in both world wars.
There are no Axis survivors left at all and just a few Americans.
So death claims them all in the end, the heroes, the cowards, the lucky, the long-livers , words fail me.