They were two left last year, but now it's over.
Lazare Ponticelli, the last living French WW1 veteran has left us.
He was an italian imigrate in France who enrolled to defend his new country. 110 years old, he still had a clear mind and regularly expressed strong views about peace and social justice. He refused national honors for himself because he thought he was no better than his fallen comarades. However, when he became the last poilu standing, he accepted a national cermony in memory of the 700.000 French soldiers killed during the first World War. A whole generation of young men from 18 to 30 was wiped out.
For French speakers, the following link where he told us his "dirty war" story is a extraordinarly moving and powerfull. A must see.
The first sentence is:
"I have never known what we were fighting for. We had some men in front of us, and we did not know them, and they did not know us..."
http://www.libelabo.fr/2008/03/12/lazare-ponticelli-le-dernier-poilu/
Last World War I veteran in France, Lazare Ponticelli, dies
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
PARIS: Lazare Ponticelli, France's last veteran of World War I, has died. He was 110.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed "deep emotion and sadness" at Ponticelli's death, which Sarkozy's office announced in a statement Wednesday.
No cause or details of his death were given.
France planned a national funeral ceremony honoring its last "poilu" — the term meaning hairy or tough and given to those who fought in the Great War, as World War I is called here. The 1914-1918 conflict tore Europe apart.
Only a handful of World War I veterans are still living, scattered from Australia to the United States and Europe. Germany's last veteran from the conflict died on New Year's Day.
Ponticelli was born Dec. 7, 1897, in Bettola, a town in the foothills of the Apennines in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy.
To escape a tough childhood, Ponticelli trooped off alone at age 9 to the nearest railway station, 34 kilometers (21 miles) away in Piacenza, where he took a train to rejoin his brothers in France, eventually becoming a French citizen, according to the veterans' office in the Yvelines region west of Paris.
In the French capital, where he was when the war broke out, he worked as a chimney sweep and then as a newspaper boy.
Ponticelli decided to fight for France, because it had taken him in.
"It was my way of saying 'Thank you," he said in a 2005 interview with the daily Le Monde and officials from France's veterans' office.
The last French "Poilu" is dead
"Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." Mark Twain
from what i have heard there may be something like 8 Great War survivors (maybe it was the number before Lazare died) in others country involved in the war like australia, USA,...
a site in french about the survivor of this war :
http://dersdesders.free.fr/
a site in french about the survivor of this war :
http://dersdesders.free.fr/
Pocus wrote:may he rest in peace.
are there some others alive in others countries?
The last German veteran, Erich Kastner, to have served in the German army died in January.
The last Scottish veteran, William Young, died in July, 2007. He had served on the Western Front from 1914.
The remaining veterans by country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_World_War_I
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'Nous voilà, Lafayette'
Colonel C.E. Stanton, aide to A.E.F. commander John 'Black Jack' Pershing, upon the landing of the first US troops in France 1917
'Nous voilà, Lafayette'
Colonel C.E. Stanton, aide to A.E.F. commander John 'Black Jack' Pershing, upon the landing of the first US troops in France 1917
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