Virus makes for one of Europe’s loneliest WWI remembrances

YPRES, Belgium — When a dawn fog lifted over countless World War I battlefields, cemeteries and monuments in Belgium and France Wednesday, the pandemic ensured that the remembrance of the millions killed in the 1914-1918 conflict was one of the loneliest ever. One WWI ceremony outside Europe fell victim to current-day violence when an improvised explosive device slightly injured 3 people at a gathering of French, American, British, Italian and Greek officials in the Saudi city of Jiddah. In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to wartime Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau at a statue in his honor, then laid a wreath of red, white and blue flowers representing the tricolor French flag at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and re-ignited the flame. Several military figures wore blue masks decorated with blue cornflowers, France’s symbol of World War I. Macron wore a cornflower pin on his lapel and a black mask.