Presidents honour World War One dead

ONE HUNDRED years to the day after Germany declared war on France, President François Hollande and his German counterpart Joachim Gauck yesterday remembered the sacrifice of soldiers in the First World War in Alsace.

Mr Hollande and Mr Gauck embraced in front of media cameras on Hartmannswillerkopf mountain in Alsace, where more than 30,000 French and German soldiers died in World War One.

The mountain, near the French-German border, became known to soldiers on both sides as “The Man-Eater”. It had been declared strategically vital by the military leaders of both countries - and control of the mountain changed hands eight times during the conflict.

The two presidents stood for a minute of silence in the crypt on the mountain, where the ashes of 12,000 unknown soldiers from both sides are buried.

“France and Germany, beyond suffering and grief, had the audacity to reconcile,” President Hollande told those gathered for the ceremony. “It was the best way to honour the dead and give the living a guarantee of peace.

“The history of France and Germany demonstrates that the will can always triumph over fate and that of the people who were regarded as hereditary enemies can be reconciled in a few years.”

And President Gauck said: “It’s true, Europe is a difficult project, but the generations that preceded us, our ancestors who fought here on Hartmannswillerkopf, on the Marne or in Verdun, would gladly have faced our difficulties.

“We commemorate the dead, the missing, the injured on both sides, and we honour their memory. They are not forgotten.”

The two presidents laid the foundation stone for a new memorial at Hartmannswillerkopf, and signed a joint statement that will be sealed in a cylinder and placed in the cornerstone of a museum there that will open to the public in 2017.

It was the second time the two presidents have used a commemorative event to stress the underlying relationship between France and Germany remains strong despite current political and economic tensions. They held hands at a ceremony last year in Oradour, the site of the Nazi massacre of civilians in occupied France during the Second World War.

Germany declared war on France on August 3, 1914, a day before Britain formally entered the war. A series of commemorative events will take place across Europe today, with numerous world leaders and dignitories including the British and Belgian royal families attending a service of remembrance in Liege, Belgium, to mark the centenary.

Image: France 3 screengrab