Across the English-speaking world today is Remembrance Day (except in the US, where it’s Veteran’s Day); on 1918/11/11 the armistice ending the Great War was signed. We wear poppies on our lapels, and my little guy came home yesterday and told us about the Assembly they’d had at school, where they learned about the war, and it was sad, there were tears in his eyes. Good. In Flanders Fields was written by a Canadian; my Mother is the youngest of six and the second-oldest, Allan Scott, died among the fields of Flanders near the end of WW2, and is buried in Bergen op Zoom. There are some fine remembrances here on the Web: Libération is running a remarkable audio interview with Lazar Ponticelli, one of the last six living Poilus, born in 1897: he’s a little hard to understand, but it’s a living voice coming from way back in History. Also, check out The Heritage of the Great War, a Dutch site that includes a remarkable collection of color photographs, some hand-colored (many of them postcards), some using the old Autochrome process. They even have a picture of the real dogs of war.
