World leaders gather in Paris a century after WWI armistice

World leaders with the power to make war but a duty to preserve the peace gathered by the dozens yesterday to mark the end of World War I’s slaughter 100 years ago, turning Paris in the epicenter of global commemorations that drove home a powerful message: never again.

Over 60 heads of state and government took part in a solemn ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mute and powerful symbol of sacrifice to the millions who died from 1914-18.

The commemorations started late, overshooting the centenary of the exact moment when, 100 years earlier at 11 a.m., the eerie silence of peace replaced the thunder of guns on the Western France. As bells marking the armistice hour started ringing out across Paris and in many nations hit by the four years of slaughter, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders were still on their way to the centennial site at the Arc de Triomphe.

Under a sea of black umbrellas, a line of leaders led by Macron and his wife, Brigitte, marched in a stony silence on the cobbles of the Champs-Elysees. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was positioned in pride of place between Trump and Macron, a powerful symbol of victors and vanquished now standing together, shoulder to shoulder. Overhead, fighter jets ripped through the sky, trailing red, white and blue smoke.

The geographical spread of the leaders in attendance showed how the “war to end all wars” left few corners of the earth untouched but which, little more than two decades later, was followed so quickly and catastrophically by the even deadlier World War II.

On the other side of the globe, Australia and New Zealand held ceremonies to recall how the war killed and wounded soldiers and civilians in unprecedented numbers and in gruesome new, mechanized ways.

In Paris, the jewel that Germany sought to capture in 1914 but which the Allies fought successfully to defend, the armistice commemorations were followed by the opening of a peace forum pushed by Emmanuel Macron. Trump was the most notable absentee at the forum, where Macron’s defense of multilateralism took center stage.

In the four years of fighting, remembered for brutal trench warfare and the first use of gas, France, the British empire, Russia and the United States had the main armies opposing a German-led coalition that also included the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Almost 10 million soldiers died, sometimes tens of thousands on a single day.

The United States came late to the war, in April 1917, but over 1½ years it became a key player in the conflict and tipped the scales for the allies. When the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, the U.S. armed forces was on the cusp of becoming the major military power in the world. MDT/AP

Femen claims Trump protest

THE FEMINIST activist group Femen has claimed responsibility for topless protesters who disrupted U.S. President Donald Trump’s motorcade on its way to a ceremony commemorating the end of World War I. One woman easily breached tight security along the Champs-Elysees avenue, walking on the midst of the motorcade and shouting “fake peace maker” as the cars passed. Officers seized her afterwards. At least one other topless protester also made it into the avenue, but was unable to reach the cars.