World leaders yesterday commemorated the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, a small Balkans conflict that went global with the German invasion of neutral Belgium in August 1914.
In Liege, a gritty industrial town in eastern Belgium, security was extremely tight yesterday, with access to the ceremonies closely guarded. In the center, all streets leading to the great square and town hall were cordoned off, with a heavy police presence.
Belgium’s King Philippe led dignitaries, who included Britain’s Prince William, new Spanish monarch Felipe VI, French President Francois Hollande, German President Joachim Gauck, plus other heads of state and representatives of the more than 80 countries invited.
Photo: Reuters
“It is a first for us, an event with such a high level of security,” Liege Mayor Willy Demeyer said.
“Some delegations wanted a very high level of security,” said Commander Stephane Pelet, who was in charge of operations.
Belgium was badly shocked in May by the killing of four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, officially classified as “murder in a terrorist context,” and security at sensitive spots was stepped up as a result.
Photo: EPA
In the early days of August 1914, Liege put up ferocious resistance against the invading German forces, delaying them just long enough to derail Berlin’s quick-victory war plans.
Reduced to rubble, Liege’s bravery was such that France awarded the city the prestigious Legion d’Honneur and the battle remains a source of national pride to this day.
It was the German invasion of Belgium that brought Britain into the war, the last link in a chain of interlocking alliances that were meant to preserve the peace but instead plunged Europe into the abyss.
The rest is history — 10 million troops dead, 20 million injured, millions of civilian victims, empires toppled, the world remade.
The main ceremony in Liege was at the Allied War Memorial of Cointe, overlooking the city where a tower complex sits beside a weathered grey-stone church with a massive cupola, streaked green and brown after many years.
On Sunday, the centenary of Germany’s declaration of war on France, Hollande and Gauck remembered 30,000 soldiers killed fighting over the rocky peak of Hartmannswillerkopf, in the French border province of Alsace.
Sharing a common theme, they recalled the sacrifices made, but also celebrated their countries’ friendship and the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.
“France and Germany, beyond their suffering and bereavements, had the courage to make up — it was the best way to honor the dead and provide a guarantee of peace to the living,” Hollande said.
Such reconciliation was a lesson for all, he added, citing current conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine and beyond.
After Liege, the focus was to shift later yesterday to Mons on the French border, scene of a do-or-die rearguard action by the first British troops committed to the war, as London and Paris scrambled to prevent a German breakthrough in late August.
Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, along with Prince Harry and Prime Minister David Cameron were to lead the tributes in Mons where the first British soldier died.
It was also here that the last British soldier was killed on Nov. 11, 1918, the very day of the Armistice that ended hostilities after four bloody years.
The Mons ceremony was to focus on the small military cemetery of St Symphorien, where 229 Commonwealth and 284 German solders were buried together in a gesture of reconciliation even as the fighting raged. St Symphorien “is a uniquely fitting place for us to gather in a spirit of common remembrance,” the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said.
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