Shunning Mnemosyne by West Europe including the Baltic
In 1915, if not a world war had broken out, the centenary of the Battle of Waterloo (1815) would certainly have been organised. Imagine the following situation when it had been. None of the other combatant nations sides with Great Britain's centenary party crossing the Channel toward Belgium's monumental venue close to capital. As a matter of fact, in the recent case of the final World War One anniversary, on 28 June 2019, this trail of thought came to pass. None of the European nations showed any engagement. The centennial party in Versailles turned out to be an all-American one.
After almost five years, the Great War was formally terminated in France's royal residence. At the end of the World War One Centennial (2014–2019), whose commencement intersected with the beginning of a more than decade-old armed conflict in Ukraine, a considerable memory gap has been revealed. In all the formerly warring states, except for one, the celebrations respectively commemorations were completed in November of 2018. Memory's grand exception will be outlined in the following. After England's National Committee for the Centenary of the First World War released its evaluation in the above mentioned month of the Armistice, it took the French until late spring of 2019 to take stock of it with their Bilan publication. As of December 2018, a state of historical amnesia may be diagnosed for the Netherlands, a neutral state at the time, the House of European History in Brussels as well as the former Entente powers. Being the 1919 democratic diktat's singular addressee, Germany, nowadays, performed slightly better. The state of war was formally concluded on 28 June 1919, the day the Armistice ended. In Europe's memory cultures, ignorance of the fifth and final year of the war prevailed.
Apart from a Hungarian photographer and a few scattered historians as well as a female artist in Germany, was there anybody to uphold a mirror to the largely ignorant Europeans? The United States did so by going their own way. The US World War One Centennial Commission (WWICC) may be credited for a variety of mnemonic performances. One after another, the events of the seven months between Compiègne in 1918 and Versailles in 1919 were recalled in multifaceted podcasts and newsletters. Much more than producing some extraordinary podcast or newsletter on 28 June, the commission organised an educative and festive program at the Versailles courtyard. A selection of teachers was invited to join the apparently all-American party. Furthermore, the completion of the commission's weekly newsletters was a long time coming. This fascinating series was not completed until the end of 2019.
However, the question remained, why the Europeans, including the host country, failed to embark on an obviously shorter trip. Did anyone argue against siding with the diverse and flamboyant representatives of the 1917 associated power?
When the historical facts are observed, this singular appearance at the palace and courtyard is even more striking. The Entente's junior but decisive partner was not at all involved in the implementation of the Versailles order. Returning from a four-week interrupted stay of altogether half a year in Europe, US President Woodrow Wilson's intensive campaign for the treaty's ratification failed. It was impaired by his deteriorating health. He would never fully recover. For the emergent nation as a whole, the Paris Peace Conference provided it with momentous gains. Firstly, the surprisingly favourable outcome of the trench warfare should be principally ascribed to the American Expeditionary Forces' shouldering the Entente powers. In 1917, even when the Central Powers faced the US declaration of war, Paris's mutinous troops could only have dreamt of this. Once in Paris and Versailles, the great powers acknowledged the US military being on a par with each one of their armies. Secondly, US emancipation materialised in finance and economics. Notwithstanding both the 1919 and 1920 votes against ratification, the American age had begun. A hundred years later, Versailles was celebrated as the cradle of the Pax Americana.
In a presentation from Doughboy Foundation in January 2025, Theo Mayer highlighted an interesting Europe-States comparison. As a WWICC member in 2014, his internet query on WWI related keywords exposed his country for having an about twenty time less search rate than Europe as a whole. However, the relatively premature timing at the start of a five-year perspective should be taken into account. Furthermore, the US did not go to war before 1917. The Aufa100 team put Mayer's early web research in the perspective of Europe's historical amnesia on 1918−1919 (apart from Armistice Day). How can therefore Europe's unflattering dichotomy between these favorable statistics at the anniversaries' outset and a particularly negative report on the designated follow-up to the 1918 commemoration be explained?
Self-supporting Aufa100 could not but put the project of arranging for interview sessions with Europeans on hold. Instead, DF's bilingual manager of the Education Outreach Program was proposed to reach out to its comprehensive target group by joint efforts. In retrospective, the attendees of the 2019 memory events would be called to actively hold up a mirror to their sisters and brothers in the Old World. In the end, we would like to engage anyone interested in a transatlantic interview project on the WWICC participants at the sparkling event in Versailles. Students in search for a project may be offered a great opportunity. At the same time, any other parties in the United States may be interested in anticipating the formation of a follow-up agency that may be termed, surprisingly, the World War Two Centennial Commission. Learning from the recent experiences means imagining the challenge to get the Europeans on board for a common 1939–1945 centenaire/centennial project.
Peter de Bourgraaf
Footnotes
1. Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, In the Centennial Footsteps of the Great War. From Sarajevo to Versailles, Volume I–II, Budapest 2023, exhibition, Sarajevo 2019; German actors listed in Aufa100 mission statement.
2. Two interview formats may be outlined. Depending on the scale of financial support, a questionnaire for the anniversary attendants may be complemented by interviews with some of the teachers and commission members. Different parties may be brought together by Theo Mayer, the bilingual manager of the Education Outreach Program.
