As Australia paused at 11 am today for Remembrance Day to mark the 102nd anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War on 11 November 1918. The national ceremony to commemorate Remembrance Day at the Australaian War Memorial was broadcast live across Australia by the ABC and streamed online.

The ceremony was closed to the public and delivered in a revised format, with about 200 people, including the Governor General of Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd), and the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Scott Morrison MP, in attendance.

Between 1914 and 1918 a newly federated Australia sent 414,000 of their citizens to face the horrors of modern industrialised war. By 1918, almost 62,000 Australians lay dead among the mud and destruction of the trenches in Europe, the sands of Sinai, Palestine and Syria.

On this day each year, people around the globe observe a minute’s silence in memory of those who have died or suffered in war and on peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, a tradition the Australian War Memorial continued at its National Ceremony in Canberra this morning.

The Commemorative Address was delivered by Corporal Daniel Keighran VC.

A moving Last Post Ceremony will be held this afternoon at the Australian War Memorial honouring the Unknown Australian Soldier, whose tomb rests in the Hall of Memory.

Thousands of people have continued to leave virtual messages of support on the Memorial’s interactive poppy wall.