The French Connection

by Helene Garcon

As a French person, taking part with A440 in events marking the 100th anniversary of the 1914 war fuels many thoughts and considerations.Starting with the sounds of The Armed Man, reminiscent of the Crusades, then exploring Owen’s poems offers a unique journey into darker times. 

WW1 started 100 years ago (1914), the beginning of the End for WW2 was marked by D-day 70 years ago (in 1944), and fewer and fewer contemporaries of both periods are here to explain what it was like to live in those times.

One poem comes to mind in particular: Le Dormeur du Val. Even though the French poet Arthur Rimbaud died in 1892, his poem about a young soldier sleeping on the grass amongst flowers – only to notice the 2 deadly red wounds on his side in the final line of the poem – is fitting to reflect on all conflicts, all young lives wasted to wars. This is particularly close to images painted in Owen’s poem, Futility. As the “Kind Old Sun” fails to wake Owen’s young soldier, Rimbaud’s youngster is also lying on the grass, under the skies, pale in his green bed under a shower of light rays. In English or in French, inspiration from war times converges.

My own family’s “contribution” to WWI death toll includes a great grand father on my Mum’s side, Breton fisherman, lost at sea when the German navy sank his fishing boat – leaving the youngest crew as sole survivor to tell the story. This was navy vs civilian war activity. On my father’s side, his grand-father fought on the French “Eastern front” at a time when regional language was not necessarily French. Young Breton conscripts would often have badges listing their details when they were transported by rail or other means many miles away from their native western borrows towards the Eastern or Northern fronts when Breton speakers may have understood Welsh, but not necessarily French or “Alsacien” spoken near the German border.

My great grandfather suffered gas attack painted by the “green thick odour” of Death’s breath in Owen’s poem “The next war”.  He survived and actually lived a long life, returning to the French “Land’s End” in Finistere, to raise his family (5 children) and tend to his vegetable patch, by the Bay d’Audierne. Amongst ordinary country people, his generation did not speak much of their experience so I have no direct account of his war times. My Dad and his father passed on the details.

Another memory: my parents’ neighbours were a Breton man and a lady from Strasbourg. The lady’s mother was living with them when I was young. This old lady had changed nationality a fair few times as Germany and France battled over border lines in Alsace in the early part of the XXth century.

Another region? My husband Didier was born in the North of France, just miles away from “La Somme” where entrenched battles have raged and contributed to the massive death toll. Every cemetery in the region hosts foreign war graves always well tended at all times. Foreign army cemeteries are also part of the landscape, whether British or German reminding us of all those young men who never rose from undue sleep, to quote Owen: “even in France”.

While Britain has bravely fought off invasion attempts in the recent centuries, France has known the brutal advances of well equipped armies, occupation, mass exodus from the invaded regions. Were it not for the courage and generosity of foreign troops from all over the world, from Canada to Australia, US or Africa, who knows what the political map of Europe would be like today?

Visiting memorials in Verdun, Ypres for WWI – or the Normandy coast for WWII cannot leave anyone indifferent to the extreme gift of young lives laid down as sacrifice for the Freedom of France amongst other European countries.

Interesting for Owen to name his poem “The Next War” when WWI was known as the War to end all Wars – “La Der des Der” for la” Derniere des Derniere Guerres”. Soldiers were enlisting like Owen and Apollinaire only to face horrors and death.   When Owen describes “shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells” and “walking quite friendly up to Death” – it is in days when shell shocked and PTSD sufferers were treated as deserters, traitors and shot in disgrace. Psychology, understanding of post traumatic stress disorder were not part of the “tool box” of army infirmaries of the time…
We only know too well that so many conflicts have followed and renew themselves endlessly, ruining so many innocent lives – young and old – from Syria to war torn regions of Africa. Visionary then “The Next War”!
Yet many of us now – though notably not all – are spared the worry or the devastation of losing sons and daughters “of fighting age” as we live today in Reading, or in Brest. Are we at risk as the older generations disappear to lose the lessons of their memories? Our children have hopes to grow old, not to enter an eternal rest aged 19 or 22. 

While media and politicians with individual or party agendas stir emotions about Brussels, Europe, etc, – is it too soon to forget that warring enemies of yesterday, Britain and France, Germany and France, have known unprecedented decades of peace, cooperation, mutual exchanges, peace of movement, also advanced by the many links woven under some European agreements?

One thing to note with wars is the ingenuity of men to exploit science and technology at the service of conflicts. WWI was  started with infantries, horses, bayonets (OK guns too). Tanks, planes, chemical warfare, etc.. were part of armies resources by the time it had ended. Radars and computers, H-bomb had been invented and used by the end of WWII.
Whereas music and poetry unite people. WWII hit song Lily Marlene has been sung in German, English as well as French.  Poetry such as Owen’s finds echoes in contemporary poets such as Guillaume Apollinaire. While Owen was killed shortly before the November 1918 armistice, Apollinaire died in the 1918 flu pandemic, 2 days before the Armistice, 2 years after receiving a head wound fighting on the front line.
 Apollinaire mixed poetry with the display of evocative graphs called “Calligrammes” such as “The stabbed dove and the water spray”.

With echoes of music, harmony, union of voices, words and sounds,experimenting with newer combinations, let us dream of that “Der des Der”, let us compete on the sports fields, Olympics/Paralympics and World Cups, choral competitions, dance challenges, poetry contests, share food and other traditions with other cultures, support student exchanges and town twinnings, and hope that diplomacy, common sense, friendship – learning and understanding – amongst mankind will increasingly resolve conflicts and allow us to cherish warless times.