France’s last survivor of WWI dies

Earlier this month, the last remaining survivor of World War I died in France. Lazare Ponticelli was an Italian who decided to ‘fight’ for the French, for some strange reason.

The full story can be read here.

France’s last remaining veteran of World War I died Wednesday at age 110 after outliving 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in what they called “la Grande Guerre.”

Now, while I think it’s great that someone who was around in WWI is still alive, or was earlier this month, is it really that much of an achievement that a French ‘soldier’ managed to survive so long? Let’s face it, the French didn’t actually do a lot of fighting anyway. The Germans and the British were at it hammer and tongs the whole time, so any of them surviving today is something worth shouting about, but as France’s contribution to war is to eat some cheese, drink some wine, give a Gallic shrug and offer up an extensive collection of finely made white linen in exchange for their flag, any Frenchman surviving isn’t really that surprising.

If  Lazare Ponticelli put as much effort into war as his adopted countrymen then he was always going to last a good few years.

As for why an Italian would choose to fight for France, that’s a whole other ball game.

Darren Jamieson

Darren Jamieson, aka MrDaz, is the Technical Director and co-founder of Engage Web and has been working online in a career spanning two decades. His first website was built in 1998 and is still live today.

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