Armistice Day

[chani]

I learnt on television today that there were only 6 "Poilus" left in France and I wondered how many World War I veterans  were still alive in other countries...

 

 

I also wonder if that "Great War" is still taught in details in other countries. It seems that the 2nd World War and its genocide have taken such a room in our folk memory...and in the the way we teach History these days.

Who still remembers the horror that 14-18 war was? Or rather who, among young people, really knows about it nowadays? Who will?

Because there's a big difference between History and "Memory Duty" or commemoration. I know it's a commemorative day, but as a Historian I wish we'd stop get everything mixed up. I have nothing against commemorative events. They are a political ritual and it's important for the res publica to have such moments.

But History is another matter. It isn't about civics, nor morality nor about the society's needs nor about the political norm. It's a job for Historians, not for politicians who want to dig in to revel in politically correct or please certain lobbies (like with that outrageous law about teaching colonization by emphazing the "good sides" of it!). And nowadays politicians and lobbies are trying to interfer more and more with teaching, telling us what we should teach as a matter of priority and the way we should do it. It goes against the principles of  laïcité as well as the religious signs we ban inside of school. It's kinda like what is happening in certain American schools about biology courses and  the whole Intelligent Design vs Evolution.

It's the kind of thing you find in dictatures and totalitarian States. Something is going on, and I don't like it. I'm going to be very not politically correct and I might shock some people but I'm really fed up with all the Shoah stuff  I've been receiving in my teacher box, almost every week, for a few years. Stop covering me with that Gospel and let me do History damnit (and no, don't worry I am not a revisionist at all) !

Sorry for the digression but my point was that I have the feeling that War World I is going to be less and less known in the future because of some people's priorities. Yet it's a very interesting matter.

At least some film makers evoke it like in "La Chambre Des Officiers" a few years ago or Genet and his "Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles". But artists and films won't replace History. They should not.

Anyway I may go see "Joyeux Noël" tomorrow. It's a movie about Christmas 1914, when German soldiers did that incredible thing: they decided to fraternize with the ennemy, left their trench and shared that night with French/Scottish soldiers. And it's a real event. It happened despite all the propaganda and the horror that were the first months of that war (more soldiers got killed during those months than during the 4 following years).

But of course historical accuracy  in no way guarantees that the film will be a good one. I'm afraid it's gonna be a bit too tears-jerking and over the top. Sometimes when directors aim at moving people they overdo.

Comments

Well, this is the first time in Canadian history

[ladyemorgaine.livejournal.com]

there was not a WWI vet at the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa.

And yes, in Quebec at least, in English schools they do still study "The War to end all Wars". My grade 11 son just did a project for History comparing the strategy used at The Battle of the Somme and Vimy Ridge, both of which had a strong Canadian component.

He ended it with a poem by Wilfred Owen, who was at the Battle of the Somme, and later dies in 1918.

Anthem for Doomed Youth
 
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.