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World marks 90th anniversary of the end of World War I

This week marks 90 years since the end of World War I, surely the last major anniversary for its handful of aging veterans as what was dubbed the “War to End All Wars” slips from memory into history.

In reality, rather than marking an end to human conflict, the Great War merely set the tone for the 20th century’s litany of brutality, although in terms of sheer mass killing on the battlefield it has rarely been equalled since.

Many conflicts followed but Nov. 11 — the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when the World War I armistice was signed — has become the moment when the world remembers the dead from all of them.

Today’s ceremonies will be solemn, but in some countries a little less personal, as the last of the combat veterans from World War I pass on.

Erich Kastner, the last of the German troops, died on Jan. 1, aged 107. The last French veteran, Lazare Ponticelli, died on March 12 aged 110.

Since the two faced each other across the Western Front, their countries have become allies at the heart of a united Europe.

But as French Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Jean-Marie Bockel said last week: “Reconciliation is not forgetting. To forget would be the worst thing.”

“Now that the last veteran has gone, 90 years on we once more share a moment of awareness. This war is part of our collective memory, and he who does not know his past has no future,” he said, inaugurating a memorial.

There are three surviving members of the British forces that joined France, Russia and Italy in the battle against Germany and other Central Powers.

Henry Allingham is the oldest at 112. As a naval air service mechanic he served in the 1916 Battle of Jutland in the North Sea, before joining the new Royal Air Force at the Somme. Harry Patch, 110, fought in the trenches opposite the Belgian town of Ypres in the Light Infantry, and the Royal Navy’s 107-year-old Claude Choules served on board HMS Revenge.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain’s Prince Charles, the Speaker of the German Parliament Peter Muller and Australia’s Governor General Quentin Bryce will hold a solemn ceremony of remembrance today.

They will meet at Fort Douaumont, epicenter of the 1916 Battle of Verdun, for speeches and prayers at the ossuary where lie the remains of 300,000 men cut down by machine-gun and artillery fire in 300 days and nights of hell.
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