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France's final WWI veteran dies

France's last surviving veteran of World War One, Lazare Ponticelli, has died at the age of 110.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death on Wednesday, paying tribute to the last "poilu", as French WWI veterans were known.

"Today, I express the nation's deep emotion and infinite sadness," he said.

Mr Ponticelli, originally Italian, had lied about his age in order to join the French Foreign Legion in August 1914, aged 16, Mr Sarkozy said.

There are a handful of surviving WWI veterans from other countries, including British pilot Henry Allingham and Austro-Hungarian artillery man Franz Kunstler.

France's oldest surviving WWI veteran, Louis de Cazenave, died in January, also aged 110.

The last of Germany's veterans from the war died also died in January.

Day of remembrance

Mr Ponticelli was born on 7 December 1897 in Emilia Romagna, northern Italy.

He made his way, at the age of nine, to France to join his two brothers, and worked in Paris as a chimney sweep and paper boy.

Mr Sarkozy said there would be a national day of remembrance for France's war dead in the coming days as he marked Mr Ponticelli's death.

"I salute the Italian boy who came to Paris to earn his living and chose to become French, first in August 1914 when he lied about his age to sign up at 16 for the Foreign Legion to defend his adopted homeland," the French president said in a statement.

"Then a second time in 1921, when he decided to remain here for good."

Mr Ponticelli, who lived with his daughter in a southern suburb of Paris, had initially refused a government offer of a state funeral, the AFP news agency reported.

But he later decided to accept "in the name of all those who died, men and women", during WWI.

"Poilu", a word meaning hairy or tough, is the affectionate name given since Napoleonic times to French foot soldiers.

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Only 13 left now, worldwide

RIP

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


You helped save many from death with your actions.
Rest in peace.

Go with God.

*Salutes*

*Moment of silence*

requiescat in pace.

Thank you for your service, sir.

In Flander's Fields

Hope you dodn't mind, Rochey.

Not at all.

Its sad that this war really isn't taught much in schools. I think we went over it a little bit in 9th grade and then I took 20th Century European history that went into a lot of detail but beyond that it was really skipped over

Very true. The influence of WWI on the climate of Europe, on technology, on the shape of future warfare, and many other factors is severely undervalued.

WWI gets just a passing mention in history books over here, due to the fairly controversial nature of our involvement. Despite this, I make sure to give my students a crash course in WWI before moving on to the pre-WW2 era.

Rochey wrote:WWI gets just a passing mention in history books over here, due to the fairly controversial nature of our involvement. Despite this, I make sure to give my students a crash course in WWI before moving on to the pre-WW2 era.

Are you talking about the UK or Irish involvement in particular? What was so controversial about it?

It's all mixed up in the rather touchy nature surounding Ireland's independance from Britain.

Well, at that point in history, Ireland was part of the British Empire. Naturaly, we sent soldiers to fight in the British army in France and Gallipoli.
Now, there was no problem with that originaly; we were all happy to fight alongside the British.
However, on Easter of 1916, Irish rebels staged an uprising in Dublin. They siezed several buildings around the city, and declared that Ireland was independant. Naturaly, the British were not too amused by this, and ordered soldiers in Dublin to beat down the rebels. The uprising was poorly planned, and a whole bunch of fuckups stopped it from being very effective in the first place. The arival of the British gunboat, the Helga, ended the uprising by shelling the hell out of the city.
So, we had quite a few civilian dead, and several large portions of the city blown up by the gunship and British troops. Most of the civilians blamed the rebels for this, as they thought correctly that this wouldn't have happened had these lot not tried to rebel. Because of this, the people weren't too happy with the rebels, and were quite happy to see them getting dragged off to jail.
Then the British began executing the rebel leaders. The people weren't pleased with this, and a surge of sympathy arose for the rebels. This was pretty much the start of Ireland's fight for independance from Britain.

So, how does this relate to WWI?
Well, because of this pro-rebel sentiment, there was also a surge of anti-British sentiment. This meant that the soldiers fighting for the British in France were seen as traitors by a large portion of the population. After all, they were fighting for "the enemy". So, the soldiers came back to exactly the oposite reaction they thought they would; they were hated. They had gone out to cheers and applause from the people, and came back to be spat upon and insulted by the people they had fought to defend.

Because of this whole thing, we tend to gloss over WWI over here. We're touchy about heaping praise on the soldiers, because they fought for the British, but we also want to recognise their sacrifice. It's a shame, really.

Mikey wrote:Are you talking about the UK or Irish involvement in particular? What was so controversial about it?

Irish I suspect - there was quite a bit of upset in Ireland about getting involved in a "British war". Have you ever heard of the Easter Rising?

EDIT: Rochey beat me to it.

Rochey wrote:Then the British began executing the rebel leaders. The people weren't pleased with this, and a surge of sympathy arose for the rebels. This was pretty much the start of Ireland's fight for independance from Britain.

I don't think the executions per se were the problem, so much as the manner in which they were carried out. If the leaders of the rising had been tried and executed en mass, without the drawn-out process used, and limiting the executions to those directly responsible (the signatories of the proclamation and the battalion commanders), I don't think there would have been the degree of trouble that resulted. Plus de Valera would have been offed, which would, I think, have been to the great advantage of everyone concerned.

Dang, thet sucks, Rochey.

Yeah, WW I is sorta like Korea to Vietman, the forgotten one. The one glossed over a bit.