November 11

By Christian Morisot

As president of a veterans' association, I became interested in the national holiday of November 11 to recall the "mourning within the celebration" that mobilized veterans of the Great War to hold a commemoration three years after the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, thus marking what they called "the end of the most appalling slaughter that has ever devastated the modern world."
Thus, it was the veterans themselves who established November 11 as a national holiday. In 1921, Parliament, anxious to combat long weekends, postponed the Armistice Day celebration to Sunday the 13th. This provoked a general outcry from all veterans' associations, who ultimately prevailed.

The appeal to the people to celebrate this national holiday was expressed as follows:

“For fifty-two months, entire nations clashed on vast battlefields. Forty million men fought. The men of war want their victory to consecrate the crushing of war.”

Beyond its emphasis and grandiloquence, this text is highly significant; one would search in vain for praise of the Army or an exaltation of French strength. The refusal to make November 11th a military event was made explicit at the 1922 congress of the Federal Union of Veterans, held in Clermont-Ferrand, where the method for celebrating the new national holiday was discussed. Furthermore, the veterans' newspaper, equally determined, states: “What matters is that the national holiday of November 11th be devoid of all military pomp. No arms presentations, no reviews, no troop parades. It is the holiday of peace that we celebrate. It is not the holiday of war. We want the living to be left with the memory where they truly savored the admirable thought that they would henceforth be able to live for civic causes.”

But then, what about the flags, the bugles, the singing of the Marseillaise? Doesn't the unfolding of the November 11th ceremonies betray these intentions? Isn't it a concession to militarism?

“Absolutely not,” reply the representatives of the disabled veterans: “These ceremonies must be interpreted as a series of interconnected signs. The site of the event, as the name suggests, is the war memorial. It is not an altar to the Fatherland, but a tomb. Some, it is true, feature a triumphant soldier, although most are simple stelae, without any glorious or patriotic connotations. In any case, the monument plays the role of a tomb in the ceremony.”
Since then, monuments have sprung up everywhere, where schoolchildren often place a flower or a small bouquet at their base. A minute of silence, a secularized form of prayer, is observed, followed by the roll call of the dead. This protocol is part of the customary conduct during the funeral ceremonies of November 11th. Thus, what is celebrated at war memorials is not the cult of the victorious nation, but rather the cult of the dead (this celebration does not mean All Souls' Day, which is reserved for November 2nd).

At the time, schoolchildren more often sang Victor Hugo's "Hymn to the Dead" than the "Marseillaise":

We are not celebrating nationalism in the face of foreigners, but the citizen who died for liberty: Victor Hugo's anthem was composed in honor of the victims of the 1830 revolution. This is a prime example of republican civic duty…
This is confirmed by the nature of the exchanges and the movements. The ceremony is not presided over by officials, but by veterans, who symbolically stand with their flags on the side of the monument, that is to say, on the side of the dead. The officials come and lay a wreath or a wreath; they are the ones who move and show respect to the dead. To join in this tribute, the flags are lowered respectfully, as a sign of mourning. There is no marching past them, no homage is paid to them. As symbols of the community, they express their gratitude and respect for the citizens who died in the war. This is not a glorification of the triumphant nation, but rather a tribute paid by the community to the war dead whose names are engraved on the monument in alphabetical order.

Should we, therefore, make November 11th a commemoration of all wars together?

Chantal Dupille, a humanist unaffiliated with the “lies of Groupthink” (*), begins to answer:

Generally speaking, in those times, one would not find any veteran to offer even the most timid praise of war. Nothing is more instructive in this regard than listening to Sergeant Tapin, who refuses to breathe in the scent of chrysanthemums and offers astonishing advice:

“Teachers must prepare their students for the coming war, following the current jingoistic movement that perpetuates the bellicose spirit of the past and makes us appear imperialist in the eyes of foreigners? Is propagating these tendencies a work of national utility? Isn’t it going against the great principle of the transformation of the human mind, which can be temporarily halted but never interrupted, and whose stages constitute progress…?”
Let’s talk about progress, especially when, within a generation of the armistice, a new world war “returns to the fray,” this time with more than 60 million deaths, or 2.5% of the world’s population, plunging the world into unspeakable horror where the imagination for destruction surpasses comprehension, enough to seriously question whether humankind will ever be able to live in peace. The soldiers who returned from the horrors of war didn't know that it would all begin again, even more horrific, and that their magnificent speeches were useless, inaudible to a warlike humanity whose motto: "Si vis pacem para bellum!"... If you want peace, prepare for war!... fully justifies its actions, to the point of discouraging even the most fervent goodwill, confronted with a world constantly embroiled in major conflicts that could, at any moment, plunge humanity into oblivion.

I will be present with the members of my association to commemorate the Armistice of the Great War. Before the war memorial, we will offer a fraternal thought for our soldiers, and in particular for one of our own, Lazare Ponticelli. I will explain to anyone who will listen that November 11th cannot be relegated to being just one page among all those that have shaped our history. A terrible realization is inescapable: we fail to heed the message of soldiers returning from the front, who explain to us in their simple words that we will never be able to cope with this inhumane world, beset by religious, political, and economic conflicts where humanity has no place. This is the message that our veterans, drawing on their experience of war, wished to convey to us!
For the veterans of the Great War, the outbreak of the Second World War was a grave failure, especially since they had mobilized in support of peace. The survivors did not conclude, however, that their efforts had been in vain. Public opinion is slow to be convinced. Today, we see that our country is suffering from a moral, social, economic, and political crisis that jeopardizes peace. We will humbly be there on November 11th to express, through our presence, the vital importance of remembering the message of peace that our soldiers, drawing strength from the experience they gained in the war, wished to convey to us.

(*) Groupthink: An expression used in the European political and media world to accuse someone of conformity. The accusation of "groupthink" is often used to shut down debate, whereas true thought lies in the exchange of ideas. Often, "groupthink" serves as an alibi to avoid the debate of ideas…