“The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.”

Those words, from British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, have come to be seen as a portent of the doom that was to be unleashed on the European continent as the major powers declared war on each other and the First World War began, 100 years ago on Monday.

Even Grey, Viscount Fallodon, however, could not have imagined just how terrible the following years would be.

By the end of the conflict nine million soldiers, sailors and airmen had been killed, over a million of them from Britain and its empire.

The map of Europe would be changed forever, royal dynasties that had stood for centuries were to fall, cities laid waste and the modern era of warfare brought into being.

It was supposed to be The War to End All Wars. At least that was how those who survived the horrors were to explain the terrible conflagration that took so many of the youngest, brightest and best of a generation. We know now this was not to be.

Was it worth it? That debate will range for as long as man exists. What is certain from the archives of the Daily Echo and its sister publications from those days is that the vast majority of people here in Hampshire supported the aims of the war.

Patriotic fervour may have given way to an acceptance that the battles would grind on with no easy victory, but morale, both at home and at the front, never appears to waver.

In the coming days, weeks, months and years, as the anniversaries of those dark days pass – Somme, Passchendaele, Ypres – we will be reporting how our publications brought news from the front and the home hearth to our readers. We ask you to look again at the faces of men going to war and see lads exactly in the image of young men who live and work here in Hampshire today.

None of us alive today has lived in times without war. That is our tragedy. That others answered the call to defend our liberties 100 years ago, many making the final sacrifice, is our inheritance.

We do not forget them.