1. It can't be underlined enough how important the First World War is to France's national self-conception. Trump's failure to attend the memorial is a huge diplomatic insult.
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5. By contrast, for the European nations, military deaths (as agains civilian) were much larger in WWI. France lost 1,150,000 soldiers in WWI, 210,000 in WW2. England: 744,000 in WWI, 383,700 in WW2
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6. But beyond the sheer numbers of dead, the war played a major role in shaping national mythologies. Verdun carries a resonance in France that it doesn't in the USA. Marne. Vimy Ridge, Gallipoli, the Somme. These are sacred names in other lands.
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7. (Sorry, in tweet #5 I should've said Britain rather than England).
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8. To underscore the argument: the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War is a really big deal in France, much of Europe, and the Commonwealth. Imagine a foreign leader shrugging off attending similar anniversary of, say, Gettysburg.
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I remember being told during French class that WWI and WWII killed 25% of French men. Being Native American on my mother's side, I think I have an inkling of how that feels to them.
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In the US, the war was also trashed culturally in everything from Hemingway to "Duck Soup." Our failure to secure a world peace, and then Europe's defaulting on war loans and exacerbating our Depression, left a bitter taste. Until "Wonder Woman," of course.
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And, again, the US entered late, after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941
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Huh? There's 117,000 dead. 26,000 in Meuse-Argonne alone
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