Earned right to be

Surrender Monkeys.  I know the power of the myth of the potato famine in the Irish diaspora, even though most of our forebears wandered away before or after that episode of despair. But, there are tales told below the skin, and Chemin des Dames is certainly one that haunts France. Of course, a lot of things haunt France. Still, the collective saying of "You're fucking kidding me, right? Screw you!" is rare.

I was a soldier. I was lucky -- none of the dumb things I had to do got me killed. Most soldiers are lucky; most of the idiots in successful armies manage to either get out of the line on their own or they get killed through their own ignorance, vanity and bullshit. But, every now and then you bump into someone or something so ludicrous that all that can come out of it is despair, death and memories. Deep, deep memories.

The image of drunken troops singing to the their incompetent masters despite the inevitable logic of bureaucracies is vivid, don't you think..."In April 1917, all the basic ingredients for mutiny were present: three years of mud, rats, and lice in the trenches; mild spring weather; political revolt in Europe; and a classic tale of hubris.

Nivelle, a hero of Verdun the previous year, wanted a quick breakthrough, and he did not relent, even when nearly all signs pointed to defeat.Meantime, revolution was in the air in 1917. The czar had abdicated a month earlier, and units of allied Russian soldiers scattered through the Chemin des Dames were restive, singing "The Internationale." ...

"Visitors to Chemin des Dames today will find a two-lane highway straddling a crest with engaging hilltop views. There is nothing in the landscape to alert the casual traveler that this was once, in the writer Louis Aragon's words, "that living ridge of slaughter."

But three roadside placards near Craonne, sponsored by the local authorities and the European Union, tell a story of men driven to exhaustion and quote the "Song of Craonne," a ballad whose lyricist remains anonymous: Now it's your turn, you bigshots, to climb the ridge, because if it's war you want, pay for it with your own skin."  Are you listening, Dubya? Probably not...