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The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Monday, November 12, 2018 3A
In remembering horror of WWI, world
warned of resurgance of ‘old demons’
BY JOHN LEICESTER,
RAF CASERT AND
LORI HINNANT
Associated Press
PARIS — World leaders
with the power to make war
but a duty to preserve peace
solemnly marked the end
of World War I’s slaughter
100 years ago at commemo
rations Sunday that drove
home the message “never
again” but also exposed the
globe’s new political fault
lines.
As Donald Trump, Vladi
mir Putin and dozens of
other heads of state and
government listened in
silence, French President
Emmanuel Macron used the
occasion, as its host, to sound
a powerful and sobering
warning about the fragility
of peace and the dangers of
nationalism and of nations
that put themselves first,
above the collective good.
“The old demons are ris
ing again, ready to complete
their task of chaos and of
death,” Macron said.
“Patriotism is the exact
opposite of nationalism.
Nationalism is a betrayal
of patriotism,” he said. “In
saying ‘Our interests first,
whatever happens to the
others,’ you erase the most
precious thing a nation can
have, that which makes it
live, that which causes it to
be great and that which is
most important: Its moral
values.”
Trump, ostensibly the
main target of Macron’s
message, sat stony-faced.
The American president has
proudly declared himself
a nationalist. But if Trump
felt singled out by Macron’s
remarks, he didn’t show
it. He later described the
commemoration as “very
beautiful.”
As well as spelling out the
horrific costs of conflict to
those with arsenals capable
of waging a World War III,
the ceremony also served
up a joyful reminder of the
intense sweetness of peace,
when high school students
read from letters that sol
diers and civilians wrote 100
years ago when guns finally
fell silent on the Western
Front.
Brought alive again by
people too young to have
known global war them
selves, the ghostly voices
seemed collectively to say:
Please, do not make our
mistakes.
“I only hope the soldiers
who died for this cause
are looking down upon the
world today,” American sol
dier Capt. Charles S. Norm-
ington wrote on Nov. 11,
1918, in one of the letters.
“The whole world owes this
moment of real joy to the
heroes who are not here to
help enjoy it.”
The Paris weather — gray
and damp — seemed aptly
fitting when remembering
a war fought in mud and
relentless horror.
The commemorations
started late, overshooting
the centenary of the exact
moment when, 100 years
earlier at 11 a.m., an eerie
silence replaced the thun
der of war on the front lines.
Macron recalled that 1 bil
lion shells fell on France
alone from 1914-1918.
As bells marking the armi
stice hour rang across Paris
and in many nations ravaged
by the four years of carnage,
Macron and other leaders
were still on their way to the
centennial site at the Arc de
Triomphe.
Under a sea of black
umbrellas, a line of lead
ers led by Macron and his
wife, Brigitte, marched in
silence on the cobbles of the
Champs-Elysees, after dis
mounting from their buses.
Trump arrived sepa
rately, in a motorcade that
drove past three topless
protesters with anti-war
slogans on their chests who
somehow got through the
rows of security and were
quickly bundled away by
police. The Femen group
claimed responsibility.
French authorities said the
three women faced charges
of sexual exhibitionism.
White House press secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
cited security protocols for
the presidential motorcade’s
solo trip down the grand
flag-lined avenue, which was
closed to traffic.
Last to arrive was the Rus
sian president, Putin, who
shook Trump’s hand and
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FRANCOIS MORI I Associated Press
Heads of states and world leaders attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, in Paris. Over 60 heads of
state and government were taking part in a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mute and powerful
symbol of sacrifice to the millions who died from 1914-18.
flashed him a thumbs-up.
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel was positioned in
pride of place between
Trump and Macron, an
eloquent symbol of victors
and vanquished now stand
ing together, shoulder to
shoulder. Overhead, fighter
jets ripped through the sky,
trailing red, white and blue
smoke in homage to the
French flag.
The geographical spread
of the more than 60 heads of
state and government who
attended, silent and reflec
tive, showed how the “war
to end all wars” left few cor
ners of the earth untouched
but which, little more than
two decades later, was fol
lowed so quickly and cata
strophically by the even
deadlier World War II.
On the other side of the
globe, Australia and New
Zealand held ceremonies
to recall how the war killed
and wounded soldiers and
civilians in unprecedented
numbers and in gruesome
new, mechanized ways.
Those countries lost tens
of thousands of soldiers far
away in Europe and, most
memorably in the 1915 bat
tle of Gallipoli, in Turkey.
In central London, Britain’s
Queen Elizabeth II, clad
in black, watched from a
balcony as her son Prince
Charles laid a wreath on
her behalf at the foot of the
Cenotaph memorial that
honors the fallen. Britain
had 880,000 military dead in
the war.
The gulf between Trump’s
“America First” credo
and European leaders was
starkly underscored again
later Sunday, when Trump
went his own way.
He visited an American
cemetery outside Paris at
precisely the moment that
Macron, Merkel and other
dignitaries were open
ing a peace forum where
the French leader again
sounded the alarm about
crumbling international har
mony as he ruminated about
the legacy of the morning’s
commemorations.
“Will it be the shining
symbol of durable peace
between nations or will it be
a picture of a last moment of
unity before the world goes
down in new disorder?”
Macron asked. “It depends
only onus.”
While praising France
for “a wonderful two days,”
Trump described his rainy
stop at the American cem
etery at Suresnes as “the
highlight of the trip.”
On Saturday, Trump drew
criticism for canceling a
separate commemorative
visit to the Belleau Wood
battleground northeast of
Paris because of rain.
Remembered for brutal
trench warfare and the first
use of chemical weapons,
WWI pitted the armies of
France, the British empire,
Russia and the U.S. against
a German-led coalition that
included the Austro-Hungar
ian and Ottoman empires.
Almost 10 million soldiers
died, sometimes tens of
thousands on a single day.
The U.S. came late to the
war, in April 1917, but over
U/2 years it became a key
player and tipped the scales
for the allies. At the war’s
end, the U.S. had 2 million
troops in Europe and another
2 million ready to cross the
Atlantic if needed, a force
that turned the United States
into a major military power
whose soldiers then fought
and died again for Europe in
World War II.
Even though Germany
was at the heart of provok
ing two world wars over the
past century, the nation has
become a beacon of Euro
pean and international coop
eration since.
With so many leaders in
Paris, the commemoration
also provoked a flurry of
diplomacy on the sidelines,
with conflict in Yemen and
Syria among the hot-button
issues.
On Sunday, Merkel met
with the head of the United
Nations, an organization bom
from the ashes of World War
II, and the president of Ser
bia. It was a Serb teenager,
Gavrilo Princip, who assassi
nated the Austro-Hungarian
crown prince in Sarajevo in
1914 to set off events which
led to the outbreak of war.
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