Thursday 31 July 2014

Second try

Apologies for my triteness by if at first you don't succeed, try try again.  I'm at the airport again, attempting to go to Frankfurt once again.  I was hoping to have more time to get my bearings in Germany but this is also why I put in a reasonable buffer before August 4th.

I had an interested experience passing through security.  This is the first time I've traveled under the TSA's "pre-check" program.  It was kind of bewildering!  I think we've become very accustomed to the stress of pass through airport security and having to take everything off and everything out of out bags.  With pre-check, you don't have to remove your shoes or take your computer out of your bag.  Nor do you have to go through the full body scanner.  The lack of confusion actually caused me quite a bit of confusion, and the other busy-bodies around me were quite impatient.  I guess I'll be ready next time.

On the topic of checkpoints, I was kind of hoping to take a historic break at a checkpoint between Belgium and Germany when I passed through.  However, a colleague mentioned to me that it's very unlikely there will be another other than a sign indicating that I'm traveling between countries.  I don't feel very much disappointment there.

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Ominous sign of things to come? I hope not.

Today is the day that I am meant to fly out to Germany in preparation for my trip.  In fact it is the hour.  Or is it?  I've just received a message that my flight to Frankfurt had been canceled!  Alas, a false start.  Hopefully it will be resolved in an orderly fashion.  The Schlieffen plan required keeping to a very precise schedule.  If I'm not there on time the train will leave without me.  Good thing I prudently planned for a few days cushion.

Wednesday 23 July 2014

The trip to end all trips

One hundred years ago, the European continent was on the verge of self destruction.  While most of the ink spilled about this destruction focuses on the frenzied latter stages of this decline (casually known as The Second World War) and the astonishing recovery that eventually followed, most of it swirls past and ignores what in my (most likely ignorant) view was the more significant event.  As an engineer I know how much easier it is to build upon an empty field.  Maybe this is the secret of Europe's post Second World War renewal.  However, I also know how difficult it can be to remove something once it has become robust and entrenched.

"Entrenched."  This is an appropriate word for describing the Europe that the First World War destroyed, as it describes the armies which fought it.  When the armies were destroyed, so with them was Europe.  In my view, it's this destruction, by their own design, which is much more interesting, and the ultimate cause for why the modern world is the way it is today.

Now let's not get carried away here.  I'm not a historian of any stripe.  Most of my understanding of the outbreak of the war is from Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August".  So I'm sure there are many people far more knowledgable who can say I am speaking out of turn.  But speak out of turn I shall.

King Albert I of Belgium wearing a military uniform
King Albert I is in charge of the army.
One hundred years ago, King Albert I of Belgium is said to have uttered the words "Belgium is a nation, not a road" when Kaiser Wilhelm, demanding no resistance, informed him of German plans to march through Belgium in order to encircle the French.  Barbara Tuchman claims that the month of August 1914 was the main decisive moment of the war, and everything that followed was just killing.  If she is right, I feel like King Albert and Belgium's decision to stand up in the face of very certain defeat is the pivotal act of the war.  Belgian resistance, though doomed, delayed the Germans long enough for France to stop them just outside Paris.  One could reasonably speculate that if the Germans had won Paris, they would have won against the French, and without a western front one might reasonably speculate that they would have won against the disorganized Russians.

Belgium was also important because Germany's decision to violate Belgian neutrality is the reason why an essential power, the United Kingdom, entered the war.  Its decision to resist also evoked a punitive response from Germany who took reprisals against Belgium's civilian population.  While German crimes were likely exaggerated, these atrocities helped form the moral basis for the UK's commitment to the war, and was an important development as the world began to develop the concept of human rights and codification of acceptable laws of war.

I think King Albert I was wrong about one thing.  The course of European history ran right through Belgium.  It's fitting that the Belgian city of Brussels is the European Union capital.  Flawed as the European Union may be, its creation represents the best hope for the Europe of war and aggression permanently transformed (at least for western Europe), a continent that has warred for thousands of years at peace.  In these days, Belgium faces internal challenges, including pressure from some quarters to its own existence.  They will decide in the coming years and decades how much longer they remain united, but they should never forget that Europe runs directly through them.  Right now, Belgium a nation AND a road.

On August 4th, 2014, I will cross the frontiers form Germany to Belgium at Gemmenich, one of the sites where 100 years ago to that day the first German soldiers began their march to Paris.  While I'm uncertain where I will go after that, I'll spend most of the month of August making my way through Belgium from the point of view of both the invaders and the retreating defenders.  The First World War is in all practical sense no longer in living memory.  But I wonder if the people along this road have heard stories or things about what happened in that brief interval.  Perhaps I will ask them.