François is Belgian, and, well, we are at war since a year and half ago. It used to be an administrative formality, an oddity even. But, with his employers, the CEM, headquartered in Paris on the wrong side of oceans, the Demarcation Line, trenches and U-Boats, it has become a…
The team is 20 men: not Special Forces, nor even secret agents, just motivated volunteers, officers, NCOs and soldiers, high-ranking administrators and even 2 priests, Fathers Dehon and Pouille, to act as liaison. The British commander in Nigeria is dismissive of the ragtag band. But the British governor in Lagos…
When does a country die? When it loses its territory, its people, its institutions, its leaders? All of it? Part of it? France is a 1000 years litany of implosions, of losses, of separations: sliced by Carolingian infighting, partly sold to the Vikings, split up during the Hundred Years War…
War. Or something like it.
On every frontpage of the “Eveil du Cameroun”, whenever she can get her hands on it, that is. There, Suzanne can read the war updates, rendered in pretend-military language. It turns into a laundry lists of ships sunk, damaged, troops sent here or there…
1917, The Last Push To finance the war effort during WWI, France balanced money printing and war bonds. The war bonds were not a novelty, and had been used since the French revolution in every national emergency situation. No “whatever the cost” then, but “mobilise your savings for victory!”. Different...
1914-1918 War Memorials that list in every village strings of similar names, as if entire families were decimated in one event. They were. Signs for cemeteries and ossuary’s of every nation pointing in every direction at every crossroad. Barren fields still peppered with ammunition, squelching mud still spitting out the...
Henri Penotet, the father of my grandmother Suzanne Dulière of Jadotville fame, was around 44 when he was posted in Soissons, France during WWI. As a newly appointed police commissioner, his job was (probably) to secure the rear lines, as the city had been near the frontline or the frontline itself...
War is coming. Every commander-in-chief, active or retired, from every country, even China, has confirmed it was their current scenario. The invasion of Ukraine tipped over 10 years of wobbly international relations. It made the impossible possible again. Mutually Assured Destruction is an actual potential scenario, as demonstrated since 2 years. ...
Apocalypse, S1Ep5, the End is nigh-er The 4 riders of the Apocalypse have been cantering around for some time now. Like some kind of screen savers. They just seem to endlessly circle the flaming skies, as prophesied. The End Times. The 4 Horsemen. Pestilence? Covid. Check. War? Check and re-check! ...
March 2020. A weather so balmy, yet most of us locked up. It did not take long before many came up with grand plans for the future. All would be well in the “world after”. Certainly, a sound intellectual exercise during an enforced pause in our life plans. At least,...
August 16, 2024
My Heritage | Travel Trunks and Suitcases
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From Ghent to Likasi, the Heart of Darkness
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WWI in Soissons, Henri Penotet and the Big Bomb
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