History October William T. Vollmann; Photographs by Tomas van Houtryve. The cool white Parisian sky made me want to sit on a bench and do nothing. Behind the playground a church bell tolled the hour, a crow told time in its own voice and a breeze suddenly hissed through the maples. It was a hundred years since the First World War had come to an end.
Earlier that morning, approaching Paris by taxi, I passed an exit sign for the Marne, reminding me that in one of the many emergencies of that war thousands of soldiers were rushed from Paris by taxi to fight the First Battle of the Marne.
Now a couple sat down on the bench next to me and began kissing. And how then shall I recommend the Great War to you? Let me try: Its hideous set pieces retain their power to balefully dazzle us right through the earthen darkness of a hundred years! It kills by concussion. This essay, my attempt at remembrance, is, like any of our efforts, peculiar, accidental and limited. I should have visited Berlin, London, Vienna, Flanders, the city formerly known as Brest-Litovsk, and the various territories of the warring colonial empires.
For instance, the , Australians who fought, and the 46, who died, will be barely mentioned here. I would also have liked to see my own country as it was in Quentin Canal. Like Hitler, the aspiring British poet Robert Graves joined the colors almost immediately.
Other Britons were as enthusiastic as Hitler. One might equally well blame diplomatic incompetence, Austro-Hungarian hubris or the partially accidental multiplier effect of a certain assassination in Sarajevo.
