Remembering Armistice Day in Europe: Liberty should be cherished and defended
Published: 11 November 2024
By Raf Casert and Virginia Mayo
via The Associated Press website
Paris November 11 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer lay a wreath during ceremonies marking the 106th anniversary of the Armistice, a celebration of their countries’ friendship, as nations across the world pay tribute to their fallen soldiers in World War I, Monday, Nov. 11, 2024 in Paris, (AP Photo/Michel Euler, Pool)
BRUSSELS (AP) — With armed conflict again on their continent, many European leaders marked the end 106 years ago of World War I with warnings that liberty, so often taken as self-evident, should be cherished and defended.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, leaders both of nations with nuclear arsenals, were in Paris under the Arc de Triomphe, where dozens of wreaths were touched by a milky light and the eternal flame flickered to honor sacrifices of unknown French soldiers who perished in the first global conflict. That war killed almost 10 million soldiers.
“I am honored to be in Paris to stand united with President Macron in tribute to the fallen of the First World War who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom we enjoy today,” Starmer said.
His Defense Secretary John Healey told Sky News the ceremonies amounted to a reminder that “we can never take the freedoms we enjoy in Europe for granted”.
World War I pitted the armies of France, the globe-spanning British empire, Russia and the United States against a German-led coalition that included the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Leaders from as far away as Australia, Canada and South Africa all joined in the remembrance.
Sometimes tens of thousands on a single day in northern France or in Flanders’ fields just across the border in Belgium along a front line that barely moved in four years. Such carnage was remembered under Ypres’ Menin Gate in western Belgium, engraved with the the names of some 55,000 soldiers whose remains were never found.
Yet the horrors of the loss of life stood in sharp contrast to the gratitude of liberty regained for which the soldiers paid the ultimate price.
“This was the dilemma facing the men whose names line these walls. Back in 1914, should they fight to maintain values and a way of life in which there was a place for everyone? Or should they accept a false peace dominated by dictatorship?” asked Benoit Mottrie, chairman of the Last Post Association, which makes sure a bugler plays a tribute to the fallen every day under the gate — to this day.
“We all still benefit from their terrible sacrifice, which is why we remember them with such gratitude,” said Mottrie.
Read the entire article on the AP website.
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