Battlefield foes discover friendship in peace
Posted 2 months ago
Eric Margolis
Sun Media
PARIS — On Wednesday, Nov. 11, the strains of Germany's national anthem rang out beneath France's most hallowed site, the Etoile, or Arc de Triomphe. Then came France's heart-stirring La Marseillaise, originally known as the War Song of the Army of the Rhine.
For the first time, a German chancellor joined the president of France to commemorate the First World War's Armistice Day. Bells tolled to remember the nearly six million French and German soldiers killed or wounded in the First World War.
Germany's former chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, had been invited to attend a previous ceremony at the Etoile by former president Jacques Chirac, who still remains France's most popular, respected political figure. But Schroeder declined, fearful of provoking anti-German sentiment.
Not so this time: The stolid German conservative chancellor, Angela Merkel, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy to proclaim Franco-German amity a "national treasure" and vow to defend it at all costs.
Twenty-five years earlier, Franco-German reconciliation was cemented by two great European leaders, France's Francois Mitterand, and Germany's Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In 1984, they met at the nightmare battlefield of Verdun, the graveyard of nearly a million French and Germans soldiers.
In an impromptu gesture, these two most formal of men silently linked hands, bowed their heads and stood before the ossuary containing bone fragments of 120,000 unknown soldiers as dark November clouds rolled low over the battlefield.
There could have been no fitter, nor more touching symbol of Franco-German reconciliation than their "beau geste." The two leaders swore on the dead before them that henceforth France and Germany were brother nations. Teuton and Gaul would never war again.
Ten years later, in 1994, in another first, a contingent of German soldiers led by a German general marched down the Champs-Elysees in the national July 14 military parade, cheered on by Parisian crowds. Such a gracious act would have been impossible in North America where the constant incantation of the Second World War has become a virtual state religion.
It used to be said: "Germans love the French, but do not respect them. French respect the Germans, but do not love them."
That was long ago. The new generation of French and Germans has been educated to esteem and value one another as the core members of united Europe.
As one who has walked almost every Franco-German battlefield and fort from the three wars they fought from 1870 to 1945, these ceremonies on the Champs-Elysees fill me with awe, profound emotion — and, yes, hope. Hope that if the French and Germans, who lost millions of their sons in fratricidal wars can truly become mutually respecting brother nations, that there is hope for Palestinians and Israelis, Pakistanis and Indians, Turks and Armenians and other perennially warring peoples.
Today, the Berlin-Paris entente is the world's most important alliance. NATO is clearly unwinding.
United Germany and France form the keystone that holds the edifice of the EU firmly in place. Much of the credit goes to France's former president Charles de Gaulle, who had the courage and foresight to surmount wartime hatreds and lay the foundations for a peaceful, modern Europe.
Britain would have made the ideal third key member. But Britain is so tied to America, it has become a negative influence on the European Union — some would even say a Trojan Horse. The EU should demand Britain act as a full member or leave the union. Today, the European Union (not counting its new east European members) leads the world in human rights, environmental protection, culture, good governance and civilized behaviour.
As Europe continues its slow, painful process of continental unification, we sadly see the U.S. slipping ever backwards. The daft war in Afghanistan is consuming Washington and has become an anvil chained around President Barack Obama's neck.
Europe long ago learned the painful lessons of colonial wars — and wants no more of them. America, it seems, still has painful lessons to learn.
