Driving along the quiet, secluded roads of southern Belgium, the towns of Liège, Dinant and Namur chequer the landscape, stopping points on the roads leading towards France, Luxembourg and Germany.
On Monday, heads of state from around the world, including President Michael D Higgins, the king of Belgium and the president of Germany, will gather in Liège to mark the outbreak of the first World War. Although the atmosphere is expected to be one of sombre commemoration and reconciliation, for many living in the area the question of how to commemorate a war whose scars still run deep is more complex.
As Paul Breyne, the director of the Belgian government’s commemorative programme, explains, finding a common vision of the war is not always easy. “There’s a phrase in French, la couche mémoriale. It means there is a history and then there is the memory of the history.”
The four-year conflict, which began 100 years ago on Monday, left a continent shattered and contained the seeds of another war, two decades later. Much of the fighting of the first World War took place in Belgium, and it was a key setting in the opening weeks.
A century on, the dominant image of the conflict is of trench warfare. By late 1914 the Western Front, running from the North Sea to Switzerland, had begun to take shape, and the conflict quickly slipped into stalemate and defence.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/a-war-that-has-not-ended-1.1884076
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