France's final WWI veteran dies (1 Viewer)

[Gideon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7292109.stm

 

[maloyalo]

This reminded me of an newspaper clipping I found in an old book on Napoleon. It was from 1905 and talked about the last living survivor of Napoleon's Grande Armee. He had been a Polish Lancer and was living in Warsaw in a state of poverty. I always hoped it prompted some assistance on his part.

 

[Warrior]

Thanks for posting that Gideon; pretty amazing, THE LAST French WWI veteran. Thanks as well for your post Maloyalo. The last member of The Grande Armee, very sad about his situation at the time, a once great and proud warrior reduced to poverty........

 

[Gideon]

It's just hard to fathom. The LAST of such an experience. If I read correctly, or last surviving WWI veteran didn't see combat as he was sent in at the tail end of the war.

 

[maloyalo]

Once, around 1982 when I was on leave from the military, I became very ill and went into a local hospital. I shared a room with a WWI vet, I think in his eighties. He was in the army and moved supplies from rear areas to the front by horse-drawn wagon. He said he was sniped at frequently, but they were trying to kill the horses, not him. He would leave them and run away. They left him alone, he felt, so he could bring more horses the next day.

I was on a strict diet as I recovered, but he used to hide the food he didn't eat (he was very thin and didn't eat much) and give it to me after dinner.

Its all about food sometimes!

 

[Saber]

Great story. WWI has largely been overshadowed by WWII but when you look at pictures of places like Flanders and imagine living in a hell hole like that, it is beyond comprehension what those soldiers endured. Stuck in static rat infested trenches, zereod in by enemy artillery, poison gas, its a wonder anyone kept their sanity out of that war.

I don't believe anyone I work with even knows what Armistice Day is.