1. It can't be underlined enough how important the First World War is to France's national self-conception. Trump's failure to attend the memorial is a huge diplomatic insult.
2. One thing that Americans need to ponder is that the first world war looms much larger in the national memories of the European countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand than it does in the USA.
3. For Europe & British commonwealth countries, WWI remains "the great war" -- the mountain under whose shadow we still live. Very different than USA, where "the big war" is the second world war.
4. Partly its a matter of timing & of casualties. USA entered WWI very late (in 1917), missed the brutal years of trench warfare and ended up with 53,402 dead (as against 4 year of WWII with 291,557 dead.
5. By contrast, for the European nations, military deaths (as agains civilian) were much larger in WWI. France lost 1,150,000 soldiers in WWI, 210,000 in WW2. England: 744,000 in WWI, 383,700 in WW2
6. But beyond the sheer numbers of dead, the war played a major role in shaping national mythologies. Verdun carries a resonance in France that it doesn't in the USA. Marne. Vimy Ridge, Gallipoli, the Somme. These are sacred names in other lands.
7. (Sorry, in tweet #5 I should've said Britain rather than England).
8. To underscore the argument: the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War is a really big deal in France, much of Europe, and the Commonwealth. Imagine a foreign leader shrugging off attending similar anniversary of, say, Gettysburg.
