War and Memory

Today is the 11th day of the 11th month.  A holiday that I grew up with as Veteran's Day, which if I had any time off school at all, was lumped onto the nearest weekend to make it a three-dayer, and which, since I it is meant to honor the veterans of all foreign wars, was easily confused in my mind with Memorial Day.  Not so here.  This is very specifically Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of what was supposed to be the war to end all wars. 

I spent the night in Nevers last night, and when I finally made my way outdoors, into a very cold and rainy morning, it was just past 11.  As I headed into the Place Carnot, the large square at the edge of the city center, I came upon a crowd of mostly older people, standing grouped around a statue that I had never really looked at before, but which I now realized was a memorial, with a female anthropomorphic personification (probably France, or possibly Liberty)  standing by the side of a soldier.  Today it was hung about with flags, and there was some kind of a ceremony going on at its foot, with speakers, a brass band, and military personnel--both army and navy--in uniform.  I did not stay to watch the proceedings, mostly because I couldn't see more than the top of people's heads through the crowd, but after I had circled through the city center (to get a pain au chocolat, I admit) I came back to the Place Carnot to sit in the Cafe l'Agricole and watch the end of the ceremony through the window.  It finished with all the the official participants forming up behind the band (which included a souzaphone and buglers whose horns were hung with blue, white, and red) and marching off down the street.

Watching that kind of an event I was struck by several things.  One is that the dress uniforms for the French Navy are completely awesome.  They include white berets with red pompoms and white spats.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, and when you google "French sailor uniform" the most appalling things come up, so I am not able to illustrate this point.  You will have to take my word for it.

On a less frivolous note, witnessing the ceremony also made me think a little bit about how the world wars (both One and Two) are remembered very differently here.  The event I saw was a very somber one, and that was not just, I think, because it was a cold gray day and the members of the citizenry who were interested enough to show up were older people.  It really was a memorial, and not a vaunting of military glory.  It made me think about the fact that the last war that took place on American soil passed out of living memory a long time ago.  That is a big difference about being here.  Of course, there aren't many people left who fought in World War II, let alone in World War I, but the memory still feels very close, especially of the second.  There is another monument, not half a block from where I live in Cosne, that commemorates the site where a handful of members of the French Resistance were tortured, killed, and buried by the Nazis.  That is not the sort of memory of a twentieth century conflict that you would see at home.  All our wars are far away, in time or in space, and perhaps that helps us keep the awareness of their brutality at more of a distance.  I am not saying that French culture does not have its own myths and blind spots about national conflicts (as I spent most of last fall having drummed into my head by the inestimable Carol Gluck, everybody has myths about the second world war and their part in it), but it is a different set of myths.  Perhaps, as an outsider, I see them more acutely than somebody who has grown up with this memory of wars fought with battles and casualties practically on ones doorstep within the lives of our parents and grandparents.