Armistice Day 2018
Adam Hochschild of the New Yorker reviews three books on the armistice. "The war ended as senselessly as it had begun."
Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. -- from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
Richard Lough of Reuters: "French President Emmanuel Macron will be joined by some 70 world leaders on Sunday to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice that brought World War One to an end, and to honor the millions of soldiers who died in the conflict. One hundred years later, Macron will pay tribute to those soldiers and their families in an address delivered at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, built by Emperor Napoleon in 1806, where an unknown soldier killed in the Great War is buried.... In a rare public display of emotion by the leaders of two world powers, Macron and [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel held hands on Saturday during a poignant ceremony in the Compiegne Forest, north of Paris, where French and German delegations signed the Armistice that ended the war."
Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post: "In hosting the ceremonies, French President Emmanuel Macron hopes to score a political point. World War I was a clash of violent nationalist passions, fueled by a coterie of power-hungry elites. Now there’s a rising tide of nationalism in Europe, with far-right leaders in Western Europe and illiberal statesmen in countries such as Hungary challenging the liberal ideals of the European Union and the cooperation and multilateralism that once guaranteed its prosperity.... Macron wants that story of unilateralism and conflict to be a cautionary tale for his contemporaries. 'A survival-of-the-fittest approach does not protect any group of people against any kind of threat,' he said recently.... That message is unlikely to get through to Trump. His treaty busting and ally bullying have strained trans-Atlantic ties and encouraged Europe’s anti-establishment forces. His overt nationalism and embrace of protectionism, critics say, have undermined American leadership and called into question the future of the international order constructed by the United States after World War II."
Mickie Lynn of the Albany Times Union: "This Sunday will mark the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, a celebration of the peace treaty signed at the end of World War I. A bloody war that killed tens of millions of people, and was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Clearly as we look back over the century that isn’t how things turned out. In fact, since then the United States has been involved in many wars. Most of them wars of choice rather than self defense. For many years the United States celebrated Armistice Day or Remembrance Day but then in October of 1954, after WW II and the Korean War, which never did end in a peace treaty, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a proclamation changing the name of the commemoration to Veteran’s Day. From his farewell speech later where he warned about the Military Industrial Complex It seems that he was trying to bring US public awareness to the dreadful costs of war by making people think about the suffering and loss of life and limb.... So it’s time to change the narrative from honoring and celebrating war and violence to that of celebrating peace through treaties, alliances and negotiations with all parties.... Although he didn’t get his expensive military parade, President Trump will be joining about 60 world leaders to celebrate Armistice Day this weekend in an event hosted by President Emmanuel Macron. There will be a Peace Forum held later but our President has no plans to attend that.... Trump’s Nationalism is in contrast with the spirit of the celebration but that he’s not alone since there are a growing number of Nationalist leaders in Europe and the rest of the world."
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Reader Comments (5)
I so appreciate the three videos displayed here–-especially the Owen poem which always makes me sick at heart. Owen died fighting for England in that horrific war, a week before the armistice.
Thanks for the videos. Wilfred Owens' "Exposure" is one of my favorite poems. Its understatement, in contrast to "Dulce..," is expressive of another side of the horror of war: when nothing happens and no one is doing anything.
Don't know if I recommended it before. If so apologies.
During out September in Europe, read "1945" by Ian Buruma, a wonderful account of Europe and Japan in the year immediately following WWII. Framed by Buruma's father's experience as a forced laborer in Germany during the war, it present an unforgettable picture of war's physical, material and psychological wages, made even more forceful for me I suspect because I was visiting the places he described as I read it.
But you don't have to be there (like the Pretender now is) to get it.
I echo the thanks for these videos. Every age needs its poets, its artists who chronicle the truth that historians later strive to communicate with numbers and empty caves and reconstructed railway cars.
I took on a new client earlier this year, a woman whose great-great-uncle served with the Marines in France in 1917-1918. He wrote long, detailed letters to his parents and siblings, and my client--who had never heard of this uncle--found the letters in a trunk in the attic of her family's Midwestern farmhouse after her mother died. She has written a book that is part history of the Marines' role in France and part memoir as she followed her uncle's footsteps through France. Mostly, the book is his letters, wonderfully written, witty and intelligent letters--and inspiring and tragic. A true chronicle of how war can bring out the absolute best and the absolute worst in humankind.
And that petulant punk of a president*, who parades around, pretending he is worthy, couldn't be bothered to show the slightest respect for the millions who died. Words fail me.
@Elizabeth: Thank you for this contribution. When the book is published, could you please let us know? I'd like to buy a copy. I can well imagine your author finding those letters in the attic & finding them overwhelmed.
When I was growing up, we had a copy of a book on our bookshelves called "Our Educational Racket." The author was my grandfather, & my mother (his daughter) was very proud of the book. Nevertheless, I don't think she ever actually read it.
Decades later, I was helping her clean out her attic when we discovered she had several copies of my grandfather's book. My mother said I could have a copy. It took me a year or two to get around to reading it.
It was awful! Well-written (my grandfather was a professor of literature), but the ideas were horrifying: he thought women should not be allowed to teach boys because women didn't have the "authority" & having female teachers caused boys to disrespect education as a trivial, "girly" pursuit; he thought land-grant colleges were terrible compared to the Ivies (he went to Harvard all the way thru). For one thing, many of them allowed women to teach. He thought U.S. public schools were terrible (again, partly because of the lady teachers -- um, his mother was a teacher), & that German schools were much better (he went to a toney private secondary school in Germany; it probably was much better than most U.S. public schools). What a shame, he wrote (the publication date of the book was 1939) about the Nazis and all, because, you know, those authoritarian schools were very good. I forget what-all other great ideas he had, but I gasped as I read it.
It was useful reading the book, though, as it gave me a better perspective of the disadvantage my mother had. The best part about growing old is new discoveries you make along the way that help explain some of those things you couldn't understand when you were younger.