Europe marks end of First World War

DOUAUMONT, France—Leaders of a united Europe today marked the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, which tore the continent apart and cost millions of lives.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s Prince Charles attended the solemn ceremony near one of the conflict’s bloodiest battlefields. It was held in the northeastern French town of Douaumont, near the site of the Battle of Verdun.

There, an estimated 300,000 soldiers lost their lives in 300 days of ferocious fighting between French and German troops for control of the River Meuse—a key strategic post on the eastern approach route from Germany to Paris.
The French forces prevailed in December, 1916.
Charles, Australia’s governor-general Quentin Bryce, Sarkozy, and Peter Mueller, president of German Bundesrat, laid wreaths at foot of a massive French flag that soared over an esplanade between two large fields of crosses—the burial markers.
Sarkozy stressed how far Europe had come since the end of the conflict.
The leaders had come together, he said, to honour “all those who fought to the extreme limit of their strength, their hearts full of love of country, and the conviction they were defending a just cause.”
Veterans Affairs minister Greg Thompson represented Canada at the ceremony.
“Today is a national holiday here. Huge crowds have come out to say ‘Thank you’ to Canadians and all those other nations that helped liberate France in both wars,” Thompson told CTV’s “Canada AM.”
Hundreds of people, including veterans from other wars, stood outside a huge stone ossuary in Douaumont, where the remains of unknown soldiers from both sides of the war are buried.
Gerard Aprile, a 59-year-old former French military parachutist and a regular at Armistice Day ceremonies in France, said the death this year of 110-year-old Lazare Ponticelli, the last of the 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in the conflict, had changed the tone of the event this year.
“The ceremony will always be there, but without a human witness, there is an emptiness,” said Aprile, who wore his military uniform.
Germany’s last veteran from the war also died earlier this year, leaving only a handful of living veterans from that conflict.
In London, three frail British veterans honoured the sacrifice of more than 700,000 fallen comrades at a ceremony.
The tributes were led by Henry Allingham, 112, who was in the air service, Harry Patch, 110, the last British survivor of the trench war, and Royal Navy veteran Bill Stone, 108.
Applause swelled from the crowd surrounding the cenotaph memorial as the three old warriors were rolled out in wheelchairs into the intense sunlight.
Allingham said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that he was determined to be at the cenotaph monument for the two-minute silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
“I want everyone to know,” he said. “They died for us.”
Some five million people served in the British forces during the war.
Patch was called up in 1916 and fought at the Battle of Passchendaele, which he has described as “mud, mud, and more mud mixed together with blood.” He was seriously injured in 1917 when a shell exploded near him, killing three of his closest friends.
Patch, a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, gave his verdict on the conflict at a veterans’ event last month: “It was not worth it, it was not worth one, let alone all the millions [who died],” he said.
Stone joined the navy in September, 1918 and was still in training when the war ended. He remained in the service to see action in the Second World War, including the evacuation of Dunkirk and the invasion of Sicily.
“I am very happy to be here today,” Stone said today. “It is not just an honour for me, but for an entire generation.”
“It is important to remember the dead from both sides of the conflict. Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims.”