A 1913 Rolls Royce passes over Westminster Bridge as part of the Great War Centenary Parade. Photo: John Stillwell/PA

Ceremonies were held in the UK, Belgium, France and Russia yesterday to mark the day 100 years ago when Britain entered World War I by declaring war on Germany.

As violence raged in Gaza, Libya and Ukraine, dignitaries and citizens of the nations that waged the “war to end all wars” came together in sombre commemorations.

In Malta, on August 5, 1914, the Governor Sir Leslie Rundle made the announcement in a Proclamation now held at the National Archives.

“We hereby announce...the outbreak of hostilities in humble trust in the guidance and protection of Divine Providence and in assured confidence in the cordial support and tried fidelity and determination of the people of Malta.”

World War I, which cost the lives of an estimated 10 million military personnel and another seven million civilians, had begun. If the Maltese had known the horrific consequences of that conflict they may not have reacted quite in the way they did when they read the news on a red poster attached to the notice board of the Daily Malta Chronicle on the same day.

Proclamation by the Governor Sir Leslie Rundle announcing the start of hostilities.

It “evoked a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm amongst all classes of the population” the paper reported on August 6.

As the crowd in front of the newspaper’s offices in Strado Teatro grew, it “broke out in rapturous applause and gave loud and resonant cheers for the Union Jack”.

The next four years were virtually unsurpassed for the carnage and destruction.

In one of the ceremonies yesterday, held in Belfast, the head of the Anglican Church in Ireland, Archbishop of Armagh Richard Clarke, said: “War must always represent the abject failure of the human spirit and of humanity itself. It can never be other and we should never pretend it is other.”

It could not be spiritually separated, he added, from carnage in Gaza and other contemporary trouble spots.