Remembrance Day

[Louis VI the Fat]

Especially for Maniac:





French president Mitterand holding hands with German chancellor Kohl. In the coffin, an unknown soldier beneath a combined French-German flag. His nationality? Nobody knows, and it doesn't matter.

[LittleGrizzly]

Cool picture Louis, when was it taken ?

All my respect to those brave young men who died serving thier country's....

[Andres]

Every evening, since 1928, the Last Post has been sounded under the Menin Gate in Ieper (Ypres) as a salute to those who fought and died in Flanders Field between 1914-1918.

Lest we forget.

[LeftEyeNine]

[InsaneApache]

Indeed.

They fought so that we may have freedom.

As an aside, do other nations have the poppy as the symbol of rememberance?

[Ser Clegane]

Thanks for posting the pic, Louis

It is gestures like these (or Willy Brandt's kneeling down in Warzaw, or the donations of British people for rebuilding the Frauenkirche in Dresden) that show what progress we made in Europe witn regard to putting past hostilities behind us.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

May they rest in peace, and may we never forget -- nor stop trying to better the world they helped create with -- their sacrifice.

The Green Fields of France (Wille McBride)

Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been working all day and I'm nearly done
I see by your grave stone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in nineteen sixteen
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or, young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the dead march as they lowered you down
Did the band play the Last Post and Chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen
In that faithful heart are you always nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed and forever behind the glass frame
In an old photograph, torn and battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

Chorus

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no man's land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

Chorus

Now young Willie McBride I can't help but wonder why
Do all those who lie here know why they died
And did they believe when they answered the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars
Well, the sorrows, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Chorus

[Tribesman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc1r...eature=related

[Louis VI the Fat]

Cool picture Louis, when was it taken ?

On September 25, 1984, 70 years after the start of the First World War, French president François Mitterrand and federal chancellor Helmut Kohl participated in a memorial service for fallen soldiers at Verdun. The Battle of Verdun (February-December 1916) had claimed the lives of more than 700,000 soldiers and came to symbolize the horror of war for both the Germans and the French. A catafalque with French and German flags was laid out in front of Douaumont Ossuary, which contains the remains of 130,000 fallen soldiers. As the national anthems of both countries played, Mitterand and Kohl joined hands – a gesture of friendship symbolizing the lessons learned from a frightful past.

It is a very iconic image.

A lot can be said of Franco-Germanic relations, or of Mitterand and Kohl* - none of which I'll go into here - but for all of that, the gesture remains a potent symbol of Europe's twentieth century.
Of all the continents, Europe is the most dramatic, the most hauntingly beautiful.

Verdun is the central place of remembrance for France. The place of myth, honour, sacrifice. Of madness and of reconcilliation. Unlike the Somme or Ypres, Verdun was never really cleared after WWI. The devastated villages were not restored, the fields were not recovered for farmland. Rather, trees were planted. It is a big forest nowadays. The soil, which received about a thousand shells per meter over the course of the war, remians very instable. Being in the north, it is also very wet. The forest is always cold and misty. To this day, lots of remains are uncovered each year, or come simply floating to the surface. The forest is haunted, souls dwell there that know no peace.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The forest. Note the shell crater. The very soil is poisenous.

It is impossible to tell most of the time whether uncovered remains belong to a German or Frenchman. They are put in the ossuary of Douaumont. 130.000 men lie there alone. This ossuary is what both men are looking at.


*For example, as a fun fact: before Russia bought German chancellors, France used to do so. Mitterand secretly paid Kohl 15 million euros for his election campaigns.

[seireikhaan]

A haunting image indeed, Louis.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Especially for Maniac:





French president Mitterand holding hands with German chancellor Kohl. In the coffin, an unknown soldier beneath a combined French-German flag. His nationality? Nobody knows, and it doesn't matter.

That image remains a potent symbol of our past and our future. It is good to see our past hostilities behind us.

[Kralizec]

WW1 is possibly the most tragic, devastating and at the same time most influential event in modern history. For all the fallen:

[Reverend Joe]

There's something far more holy about Armistice Day than the American Veteran's Day. Therefore I disregard its existence and assume that Veteran's Day is a mere clerical error, and we should all be observing Armistice Day instead.

[Peasant Phill]

Lest we forget.

There's something far more holy about Armistice Day than the American Veteran's Day.

Probably because the 11th of November is remembered by far more in far more places.