YPRES, Belgium – Red poppy flowers were dropped onto soldiers, politicians and onlookers from across the world who gathered Tuesday in western Belgium for a ceremony to commemorate the end of World War I.

The attendees laid wreaths at a newly renovated memorial for the fallen in Ypres, the Belgian town that earned the grim honor of being synonymous with the brutality of conflict.

Tuesday is known as Armistice Day – or Veterans Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – marking the end of WWI.

“Many of the men who fought in the Great War believed that they were fighting in a war to end all wars. Sadly, they were mistaken,” said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association, whose volunteers honor the dead by playing bugles

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