"Have we so soon forgotten those four years of terrible carnage, the greatest war of all time; forgotten the millions of men who gave their lives, who made the supreme sacrifice and who today, beneath the soil of France and Belgium, sleep the eternal sleep?"

Frank B. Kellogg’s words evoke a profound sense of remembrance and warning, reflecting both the lingering trauma and the solemn duty following the devastation of the First World War. By referencing “four years of terrible carnage,” he summons the collective memory of a conflict unprecedented in its scale and brutality. The war, described as the “greatest war of all time,” casts a long shadow over humanity, setting a new benchmark for destruction and suffering. In his appeal, Kellogg highlights how easily societies might drift into complacency or amnesia, forgetting the costs borne by previous generations.

He centers the ultimate sacrifice made by “millions of men,” whose lives were claimed on the battlefields. Their deaths are not merely statistics but the supreme price paid for ideals or necessities, urging living generations to grasp the immediacy of their loss. The phrase “made the supreme sacrifice” elevates these fallen soldiers, recognizing their deaths as the utmost act of commitment to their nations or to the causes for which they fought. This recognition demands a reciprocal response: not only gratitude but an active resolve to honor their memory through actions, decisions, and policies that prevent such horrors from recurring.

Kellogg’s image of the dead, “beneath the soil of France and Belgium, sleep the eternal sleep,” is evocative and sobering. Europe’s landscape itself has become a vast graveyard, the land transformed by the war’s relentless violence. The phrase “eternal sleep” conveys both peace in death and a tragic finality, serving as a poignant reminder that the fallen cannot be reawakened. Their sacrifice is irrevocable, urging the living to shoulder responsibility for peace and reconciliation.

Ultimately, Kellogg’s passage serves as a poignant plea against forgetting the dreadful costs of war. It urges vigilance, reverence for the past, and a commitment to peace, emphasizing that forgetting the price of conflict courts its return, dishonoring the memory of those who gave everything.