World recalls end of World War I
2008-11-11
ヨーロッパでは戦争の記憶を辿る時に第一次世界大戦の存在がとても大きいんですね。飛行機、戦車、毒ガス、地雷、が戦場で初めて使われ、兵士だけでなく、一般人までもが殺される存在に堕落させられてしまったのが第一次世界大戦だっだのです。BBCの記事を眺めて、西洋と東洋との歴史経験の差がポンと頭に入ってきまして、勝手に転載した次第。
日本にいると第一次世界大戦ってのはすごく遠く感じますからね。でも、大日本帝国はドイツの植民地やなんかを自らの領土にしましたし、先進の帝国さん達が戦っている間に調子に乗って中国に対華二十一か条要求なんてものを突きつけましたし、欧米の工場が戦時経済に突入したもんで、その隙間を突いて、経済をぐぐっと成長させたわけです。そんあもんで、地理的には遠い戦争でしたが、諸々の関係性は深いわけです。
当たり前ですが、場所が持つ記憶というのは、ちょっと位置が変わっただけでホントに非常に違ってくるもんだ。そうすると、あんまり勝手に自分の立っている位置から見た景色だけが絶対だ、なんて云えなくなるもんだ。
以下BBC記事より転載。
Ceremonies are being held across the globe to mark the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I.
At a service in Verdun, north-east France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has paid tribute to the millions who died during the four-year conflict.
French and German troops fought for eight months at Verdun in the longest battle of a war that reshaped Europe.
In London, three of the four surviving British World War I veterans are attending a ceremony at the Cenotaph.
Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, are representing the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively.
Mr Patch, Britain's oldest survivor of the trenches, is to read an act of remembrance.
At 1100 GMT, a two-minute silence was observed, marking the time - at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - when the Armistice Treaty came into effect to end the war.
No survivors
Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, and the Duchess of Cornwall were French President Nicolas Sarkozy's guests of honour at the event.
But no veterans were in attendance, says the BBC's Europe correspondent, Jonny Dymond. Not one member of the two huge armies that clashed on the fields of Verdun survives. France will never forget its children who have suffered for its sake
Only the dead are left to be remembered, and the backdrop of the service was a huge stone ossuary, which contains the bones of 130,000 men who died in the fighting, as well as the unidentified remains of soldiers from both sides.
Mr Sarkozy, Prince Charles, Australia's Governor-General Quentin Bryce and Peter Mueller, the president of German Bundesrat, laid wreaths in a field of 15,000 graves in front of the building.
The silence was followed by the tolling of the bell inside the ossuary, as sombre-faced dignitaries processed inside to watch Mr Sarkozy light a memorial flame before a male choir sang the French national anthem.
The French president then addressed the hundreds present, paying tribute to all who had died, as well as the suffering of the bereaved who lost loved fathers and sons in the fighting.
"France will never forget its children who have suffered for its sake," he said.
He then paid respect to the soldiers from Europe, North America, Africa and Australasia "who died far away from their countries to defend our liberty".
Since the war, Verdun has become a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.
But its hillside has come to symbolise the conflict's awful savagery, says our correspondent: During the fighting, more than 60m shells fell on the land, transforming it into a pitted piece of hell on earth.
Pacific century
Remembrance ceremonies have already been held in Australia, which lost 60,000 men in the conflict.
Services were held across Australia to remember the dead
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd used a speech at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to issue a call for peace.
"We have all endured a most bloody century," he said.
"Let us resolve afresh at the dawn of this new century... that this might be a truly pacific peaceful century."
A lone bugler then played the Last Post, which is used to to commemorate the war dead in Commonwealth countries.
World War I was the world's first industrialised war.
It toppled four European empires, led to the creation of the Soviet Union, and marked the end of Europe's long global hegemony
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