France’s last remaining infantry veteran of World War I died earlier this year. Lazare Ponticelli, who was born in Italy and moved to France before he war began, lived to be 110. Millions of men his age died very young, and it took Europe fifty years and another horrific conflagration to recover from the first. Ponticelli saw it all, from disintegrating royal houses to integrating European states. That’s a lot of changes for one man's life.
The Economist magazine excels in the art of the elegiac obituary, with one appearing in each weekly issue. These remembrances are by no means limited to the rich and famous, and they are written in classical sense of the genre, comprising mini-essays on life and important lessons that range beyond the mere chronology of the deceased. Ponticelli’s obituary in The Economist is available on-line alongside death notices for Ian Smith, Charlton Heston and Benazir Bhutto, but also Marie Smith (the last remaining speaker of the Eyak language) and Ollie Johnson, Walt Disney’s key animator.
Back in the early 1960’s, there was a black and white documentary series about World War I shown on network television. It may have been a summer replacement series. The episodes were a half-hour in length, and were narrated by the actor Robert Ryan. Years later these were rerun on cable, and studiously videotaped by my history buff friend Barrie, who currently teaches at Scribner.
The grainy, ghostly black and white film clips told the story of the conflict from start to finish, but the episode we always returned to watch again and again was "Tipperary and All that Jazz," which was quite innovative for the time. In effect, it was a music video of World War I, with archival film footage as the backdrop to song snippets, all popular ditties of the day. Some were recorded, but most performed live in parlors or at public gatherings -- remember, radio didn’t exist until after the war had concluded.
One of the songs was “There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding,” much later used as a poignant ending for an episode of M*A*S*H – the television series that told the story of war’s tragic futility in a different time and a different place than the Somme and Argonne … through the imagined experiences of Col. Sherman Potter, a fictional character, and without Lazare Ponticelli and his real-life comrades staring back into the moving picture’s lens.
So very many of them died before their time, and now only a handful remain, and the long trail keeps a-winding.
There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding
Nights are growing very lonely,
Days are very long;
I'm a-growing weary only
List'ning for your song.
Old remembrances are thronging
Thro' my memory.
Till it seems the world is full of dreams
Just to call you back to me.
Chorus:
There's a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing
And a white moon beams:
There's a long, long night of waiting
Until my dreams all come true;
Till the day when I'll be going down
That long, long trail with you.
All night long I hear you calling,
Calling sweet and low;
Seem to hear your footsteps falling,
Ev'ry where I go.
Tho' the road between us stretches
Many a weary mile.
I forget that you're not with me yet,
When I think I see you smile.
Chorus:
There's a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing
And a white moon beams:
There's a long, long night of waiting
Until my dreams all come true;
Till the day when I'll be going down
That long, long trail with you.
Guess I will be the only one to make comment on this subject, but it happens to be a study of mine. WWI was and will go down in history as THE war of the 20th century. It set the stage for the rest of the century and will live way past its time both socially and militarily. If one does not know much about WWI, read Jon Keegan's novel titled The First World War and I will venture to guess that most folk will get a new perspective on life in the prior century world wide. Roger, one of the best pieces you have written in months, hats off!
ReplyDeleteEd
Here is something that has always bugged me.
ReplyDeleteI keep reading about the (insert derogatory adjective here) French, their defeat in World War II, and their place in the world. It often strikes me that people are truly ignorant of World War I and how incredibly devastating it was to France. When you add World War II into the mix, wow.
We've all gotten used to seeing the trenches from the First World War, the fruitless charges, the poison gas, the staggering death tolls. Most of those who died, died in France. France was devastated by the war and lost a large part of an entire generation of young men.
World War II was a debacle for them. They had a large army that was very poorly led and had dreadfully obsolete tactical understanding. The French underground torment and killed many Germans at great loss to the citizenry. Night and day Allied bombers destroyed the French infrastructure. The Battle for Normandy BEGAN at D-Day but dragged on a long time. Around the hedgerows, General Omar Bradley would eventually write, NOTHING lived. There were dead people and dead animals everywhere. He remarked that even the insects were mostly dead.
Ed is so right about World War I. it was devastating and the incredibly arrogant and ruthless Allied response to Germany set the stage for World War II and it reshaped the world.