ne Sunday morning in the 11th Arrondissement of Paris, lured by hydrangeas, roses and pigeons, I strolled past a playground filled with children's voices. The cool white Parisian sky made me want to sit on a bench and do nothing. Behind the playground a church bell tolled the hour, a crow told time in its own voice and a breeze suddenly hissed through the maples.
It was a hundred years since the First World War had come to an end. Earlier that morning, approaching Paris by taxi, I passed an exit sign for the Marne, reminding me that in one of the many emergencies of that war thousands of soldiers were rushed from Paris by taxi to fight the First Battle of the Marne. Now a couple sat down on the bench next to me and began kissing. Who is to say that what they were doing wasn't a better use of their time than studying and carefully remembering war? And how then shall I recommend the Great War to you? Let me try: Its hideous set pieces retain their power to balefully dazzle us right through the earthen darkness of a hundred years! Let its symbol be the 198-pound German Minenwerfer, which a Canadian eyewitness described as follows: “At night it has a tail of fire like a rocket. It kills by concussion.”
