"The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time" is a remark attributed to British statesman Sir Edward Grey on the eve of the First World War. It is also variously quoted as "The lights are going out all over Europe and I doubt we will see them go on again in our lifetime",[1] and "The lights are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime".[2] It is not certain whether Grey, who was the Foreign Secretary, in fact made such a statement. Nevertheless it has earned considerably historical and popular attention as an expression of popular perception of the war.[3]
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It is not certain if the comment can be confidently attributed to Grey, however he is generally accepted as the most likely source. His own memoirs mention the remark as taking place on 3 August 1914: "We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below on which we were looking. My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words: "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[4][5] In 1937, George Macaulay Trevelyan in his biography of Grey attributes the remark to him confidently.[6]
Norman Davies, in Europe: A History describes the events of Monday 3 August 1914, in Whitehall, London: "After a long speech in the House of Commons, Sir Edward had just helped the Prime Minister, Henry Asquith, to draft an ultimatum to be sent to Berlin if Belgium were invaded. It must have been 8 or 9 p.m., for he remembered the lamplighter turning up the gaslamps in the courtyard below. He turned to a friend who was with him and who later recalled his words."[7]
Grey's quotation has been used as a popular summation of the war in numerous historical works. Historian Ludwig Reiners published an account of World War I in 1955 entitled The lamps went out in Europe. Grey's comment is followed by the assertion that "the mistakes that have been committed in foreign policy are not, as a rule, apparent to the public until a generation afterwards."[8] Samuel Hynes began his 1990 A War Imagined with a paragraph covering the quotation, referring to it as the most remembered quotation on the war.[9] Historian of music Glenn Watkins used the quotation is a metaphor for the "sputtering in the world of music."[10]
The World War II song "When The Lights Go On Again" was written as a direct counterpart.
In the 1963 Theatre Workshop play Oh, What a Lovely War! the lines are given to an un-named Englishman. In the 1969 film adaptation they are spoken by the character of Grey, portrayed by Ralph Richardson.
In the Upstairs, Downstairs Series Three finale "The Sudden Storm", which concerns the beginning of the First World War, the Conservative MP Richard Bellamy (David Langton) tells his daughter-in-law Hazel Bellamy (Meg Wynn Owen) that he was in Grey's presence when he said it the previous day (3 August 1914).
The quote is sometimes referenced in discussions of current events. For instance, The Nation asked "Are the lights going out all over Nigeria?" in response to the 2010 Nigerien coup d'état.[11]
The Divine Comedy (band)'s song, 'When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe' from the Promenade album (1994) is a paean to the cinema stars of the 1940s and 50s.