History of the Great War and the Stories Behind It

Yesterday was the 99th anniversary of the end of the Great War: Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Veterans Day. Whichever name and vernacular we apply to it, it remains that the ending of WWI summons questions around whether WWI should ever have been started in the first place. Does the official story not center around the assassination in Sarajevo of a mysterious Archduke nobody amongst the populace had ever heard of: Franz Ferdinand? Did we have to escalate this into a World War and sacrifice 41 million people in the process as some form of retaliation? Or was there actually more than meets the eye?

War journal of French soldier Louis Barthas (1879-1952)

Those four years stood as the biggest wipe-out humanity had ever experienced in its entire History. August, 22nd, 1914 was the bloodiest day in French History, with 27,000 French soldiers killed. WWI tolled the end of times and destroyed the courageous, patriotic, hard-working young able men and their families, neighbourhoods and countries at large. Those who survived would never be the same again.

WWI is no shrinking violet territory. It is utter brutality. The scope of its horrors defy the imagination of even the most seasoned amongst us.

Hell on earth in a way we, 3-4 generations later, find hard to fathom in our relatively cocooned existence. The Great War was a bloodshed beyond comprehension that the French poilus (WWI soldiers) described laconically as grande boucherie.

Journal of Jean Galpin (1892-1915), lieutenant at the 119e French Infantry Regiment

Holocaust on the battlefields, in the trenches, across the blitzed-out towns, out at sea and up in the skies. It was the first all-encompassing war: on land, off-shore, underwater and airborne. WWI catapulted the West into the XXth century and heralded the rise of the nefarious military industrial complex and the coming of age of ruthless dynasties which have been calling the shots in the shadows of world governments and banking institutions ever since: the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers.

One year short of the centenary, we can safely argue from the comfort of our homes whether we can find 99 reasons why there shouldn't have been a war. In no way though would this resurrect the dead and heal the injured. The best we can do is to keep on honouring the brave and hold a flower in our hearts for the fallen. Pledge not to forget them and draw lessons out of the meaninglessness of war and the abject cruelty it inflicts upon the innocent that the elites summoned to fight their game of chess out for real.

Illustrated science lesson on sea mines by school teacher Aimé Vincent (1867-1933)

It serves to have at least a rough understanding of the war, its battles and key dates, from a historical perspective. But what is of greater service, in my book, is the collective of individual, personal stories and snippets of insightful information gleaned out of those who lived and/ or survived the War, soldiers and civilians alike, and which they passed down. Our duty today is to ensure those accounts, anecdotes, letters and other memorabilia are preserved and shared amongst us, and especially to the younger generations. By doing so, we keep alive the memory of those ordinary folks with ordinary lives who extraordinarily got thrusted onto the geopolitical scene and put their lives on the line for all of us.
 

Their patriotism, nationalism, the pride they held in the Nation State, means we stand here today in pacified nations which we can still call our own.

Each one of my four great-grandads, Louis, Marcel, Antoine and Joseph, fought in the Great War. I do not hold a personal detailed account of their whereabouts during the Great War as such but I remember a number of anecdotes. Those stick in the mind. For instance, Antoine and his comrades being out of drinking water in the trenches at some point had no other option than resort to drinking their own wee... On the Chemin des Dames front, Louis and his comrades were forced to imbibe strong potato liquor as way of Dutch courage when they could no longer fight their way across trenches and minefields, a desolate landscape that resembled nothing more than the death planes of the afterlife.

Illustrated war account by Marius Astier, accomplished in 1927

To stop indulging in our self-importance is paramount. We owe our WWI elders the respect and remembrance they deserve. We owe it to them to have honoured and served our nation the way they did, with infallible pride and bravery. We must make it our mission to not allow for our history to be edited by the Ministry of Propaganda. Oppose the deriding of national pride and its bizarre amagalmation with fascism and white supremacy. Support those who seek the truth and fight corruption on our behalf, whether as private entities, public figures or members of the Alternative media.

Now caught as we are in our First World problems (sic), the European Union Ponzi Scheme and DC Deep State, Cultural Marxism and its institutions engineering the hostile take-over of our society through globalisation stealth of our once-sovereign, Christian, economically-solvent, industrial powerhouse Nation States — would we be able at this point to regain enough bravery and nobility of heart to stand up to a horde of flag-burning millennial brats, and serve our emperiled nations should a call to arms be deemed necessary tomorrow in order to save them? This is no chess game: the ball is in our court.


Further Reading: 

• Remember the Fallen
• Little People, Big Hearts
• La Der des Ders
• Lest We Forget

Aerial Views of Bygone England

In order to visually grasp in one quick swoop the extent of Britain's heavy industrialisation during the 1920s (notwithstanding the fact that the bulk of its Industrial Revolution had already been through by then), seek no other evidence than photographic - and better still the aerial shots! Britain from Above has made this possible, not only for institutions and corporations but also for the general public, by releasing its impressive photographic archive collection (over 82,500 records for England alone!) which provides the tools for a spot of investigative geography and history, right from the comfort of your home. And fascinating it is bound to be to anyone with a connection to Britain and curious to discover the face of its past!

Beswick, Manchester (1927), via Britain from Above

Second to none, Manchester was once my second home; I spent 16 years of my life there. Naturally as soon as I came across Britain from Above, curiosity got the better off me and I sifted through Manchester's photographic records, seeking the familiar neighbourhoods I had lived in and semi-familiar environs which I had travelled through, worked in or visited for one reason or another. Needless to say that present-day Manchester bears little resemblance to its bygone self, bar for specific landmarks: town hall, churches, flagship stores (the Lewis's department store, now Primark), canals, railways, certain roads and playing fields, and the odd pub here and there that has survived the accelerated nationwide 'pub cull' of the last 20 years.

As shown in the Beswick ward above, like elsewhere throughout the working-class areas of the city radiating right out of its centre, row upon row of identikit 19th-century brick terraced and back-to-back factory houses used to be tightly laid out, taking up every inch of available space for cheap low-rise high-density working-class housing - which was turning to slums by the 1920s. Nineteen thirties Manchester was a crowded place; its population had peaked at 766,311 inhabitants in 1931 before steadily shrinking, in line with the collapse of the textile and affiliated machine tool industries, down to 404,861 by 1991, a massive 52% fall in numbers within 60 years! By 1991, the slum clearances and industrial wastelands were lending a surreal urban landscape, especially east (Ancoats to Ashton-under-Lyne axis) and northeast (Cheetham Hill to Oldham axis).

Ordsall Hall Paper Works, Pomona Docks and Manchester Ship Canal, Old Trafford (1929), ibid.

From such a bird's eye view, from such a height, with eveything appearing like distant patterns dotted upon a canvas, it is all too tempting to feel nostalgic and gloss over a time period that was actually anything but kind and sweet. Although full employment was on - except during the Great Depression, it still came at a price, even by 1920s standards: harsh working conditions, long working hours, low wages, poor health, cramped and unsanitary living conditions, not to mention the smog, a deadly combination of smoke pollution (from factory and domestic coal burning) and fog, creating pea soup, which plagued industrial cities with a thick yellowish toxic shroud, bringing asthma and other respiratory ailments and drastically reducing visibility.

Manchester Ship Canal and Partington Coal Basin (1929), ibid.

Furthermore, the nation was still recovering from the throes of WWI, where 23,792 men and women from Greater Manchester alone had lost their lives on the front! Extrapolate this to the number of households affected by loss, the mothers, widow(er)s and orphans, the harsh economic reality of daily life sharpened the grief some more. You can be certain that the photographed households you are looking at are testaments to pain and hardship.

Manchester's cityscape is industrial no more! Photography by Daniel Nisbet, 2008, via Flickr

Further Resources on Manchester and the British Industry:

• Shirley Baker: Snapping the Ordinary to Write Local History by LBM
• City Fizz by ibid. 
• Design Interlude by ibid.
• Chorlton vs. Didsbury by ibid. 
• Manchester, Blackley, part of the At Home in Europe: Europe's White Working Class Communities case-study series, by (billionaire globalist George Soros-owned) Open Society Foundations
• How the 1930s Changed Housing, by Find My Past
• Manchester in the 19th Century, by The British Library
• Unearthing Manchester's Victorian Slums by The Guardian
• Nick Hedges Photography has explored over the last 50 years the reality of life for working-class Britain, via the Slum Housing & Poverty series (late 1960s/ early 70s), showing the impact of sub-standard 19th century housing and economic deprivation. The City That Was explores working-class culture at the turning point of post-industrial Britain, while New Dawns Old Nightmares depicts the depersonalised 1970s utilitarian housing estates that came to replace the torn-down terraced housing communities - the solution to a problem became a problem itself. 
• Grace's Guide to British Industrial History

Lovely & Nice

Towards the back end of the 19th century, as the quaint small fishing harbours and coastal villages of southern France (Provence and Côte d'Azur) started morphing into the famed vacational hotspot now known as the French Riviera, Nice already was at its cutting edge: it had metamorphosed into a pretty butterfly, opening up to the pleasures of the sea and spreading its wings towards the future, embracing the Belle Epoque follies and later Années Folles (Roaring Twenties)... Its seaside mystique and splendour stretched beyond WWII, yet with less of its earlier upmarket gusto and panache, but this is a story for another time.

La Réserve, c.1900: a fantasmagorical - surrealist - folly that could have been dreamt up by Magritte!

Nice by name was Nice by nature back then: an almost pristine natural canvas of dramatic proportions, lending its coves and curves to architectural wonder, integrating the natural environment - its masterpiece - with style and elegance. The reworked landscape became imbued with a tangible frond of the exotic: imported Phoenix canariensis palm trees and other floral exotica that would lend themselves beautifully to the Orientalist trend of the times.  

Saint-Nicolas Cathedral, c.1935: testifies of the importance of the Russian community in Nice

La Promenade des Anglais would come to epitomise the renowned coastal seafront with dreams of odysseys to faraway exotic locales. A French Ipanema, a wide, tree-lined, five-mile sweep of a boulevard which was (and still is to this day) a destination point for leisure pursuits, parades and ceremonies, dotted with elegant Winter homes that later doubled as Summer villas, set in landscaped grounds and a seaview to boot.

Excelsior Régina Palace, 1912: fit for Queen Victoria

The properties unashamedly belonged to British and Russian aristocracy (and later the nouveau riche) who - it seemed - altogether led the way in terms of the resort culture before the French had even conceptualised it, at least outside their colonies. Progressively the Winter resort turned into a seaside resort with the construction of residential apartments, and leisure establishments such as luxury hotels (palaces) and casinos celebrating luxe, leisure, insouciance and joie de vivre. 

Nice, Jetée-Promenade, c.1900: an exotica showcase to itself!

In terms of turn-of-the-century architecture, we find a marked influence towards neo-classicism, with oodles of orientalism and a hint of Victoriana: Le Negresco Hotel is a perfect example. Or how about the (now defunct) Orientalist-inspired casino of the Jetée-Promenade? The concept was influenced by the Brighton Palace Pier, while Crystal Palace was the initial inspiration to the project instigator, marquis d'Espouy de Saint-Paul. The casino was designed by British architect James Brunlers. There is no denying that Brits shaped the French Riviera.

Nice, Jetée-Promenade, 1897: the Orient has landed!

La Promenade would be further celebrated with the advent of the automobile era as a G-spot of sorts. Any show-off driver and social climber worth their salt would make a point of showing up and down the Promenade. Success, it was thought, would rub off if only you showed up on the Promenade, unashamedly pretending to be someone you're not for a part of the action while secretly standing in awe of it all.

Nice unfolds from the Mont Boron, 1891

Only a small number of the original villas are still standing on the Promenade today. Some look sorry for themselves, locked in limbo, in need of refurbishment. Land value comes at a premium on the Promenade and it is likely that some of the older properties are locked down in hostile takeovers, expired leases, inheritance issues, tax conundrum or other legal and financial predicaments, ultimately pending a demolition order to make way for yet another high-rise. In the world of real estate emotion hardly has a say, even less so when the matter at stake is located in a sought-after, world-renowned tourist area.

Nice Opera, 1885: all about flamboyance!

Sorry to rub it in but as it stands today the Promenade has lost its lustre. Now it is easy for nostalgia to cloud one's judgement and I recognise that I sometimes allow it to take over my objectivity, yet I approached this particular subject with an open mind and visited the Promenade on at least three separate occasions that I can recall over the last seven years and everytime the lack (loss) of architectural cohesiveness hit me.

Promenade des Anglais and Palais de la Méditerranée, c.1930: cheek to cheek

Clearly building clearance took its toll. Relentless since after WWII, it has left battle scars in the form of an incongruous mish-mash of styles, some of questionable appeal. Cue the gutted Palais de la Méditerranée, whose Art Déco façade was salvaged at the eleventh hour... in order to be incorporated to the Hyatt behemoth. Elsewhere the Promenade is compromised by styleless cheap-looking condos and other bland hotel chains like Le Méridien (which replaced the stylish Hotel Ruhl). These modern structures may unashamedly steal the seaview; they however steal neither the looks nor the spirit of a time where elegance and refinement were the byword.

Avenue de Verdun, c.1920: just off the Promenade

It is understood that Nice City Council wishes for the Promenade to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site contender, and therefore is currently sprucing up its image. Who are they kidding? In this vanity exercise no amount of landscaping or carpark redesign will compensate for the negative architectural impact caused by waves of property clearances that made way for a non-descript, non-cohesive Promenade.

Nice from the Jetée-Promenade, c.1900: a view at your beck and call

The Nice seafront is certainly a tale for the unashamed: bold and beautiful yesterday, bland and brash today. What remains of its bygone golden age, if not found in pockets in-situ, will be appreciated pictorially in the comfort of your home. Prolific and talented French photographer Jean Gilletta (1866-1933) made sure of that by taking thousands of pictures that wrote all to themselves an anthology to Nice, Marseille, the Riviera as a whole, the southern Alps and further afield! He followed the muse and she never left him! His photography froze people, places and time for posterity, immortalised a depiction of Nice that is both haunting and promising, an epoch where all seemed possible...

Motorcar, c.1925: sweet and fancy!

Source: All photography by Jean Gilletta. Take a peek at his impressive collection... and sweet dreams to you! Hey, happy shopper: all the (repro) prints featured are for sale by the way!

'Bateaux dans le Port de Nice', by Tony Minartz (1870-1944)

Further Reading:

• [English edition] La Promenade des Anglais, by Paul Tristan Roux, published by Editions Gilletta (July 2016), 64 pages
• [in French] La Promenade des Anglais, by Nice City Council
• [in French] Le Casino de la Jeté-Promenade, by Jean-Paul Potron, published by Editions Gilletta (October 2014), 176 pages.

Remember the Fallen

Hold Remembrance Day tight in your heart, high and proud, in your quiet moment of life. Do not let it fall off the wayside like a discarded wrapper. Do not allow for the vagaries of time to fade it away, trivialise it and ultimately engulf it into oblivion, to have it replaced by the false urgency, the false gratification offered by the trappings and lures of modern day, namely entertainment and other self-centred leisurely pursuits.

Find solace and fortitude in Remembrance for the Fallen shall have not fallen vainly. Make them proud like they make us proud. Hold the sanctity and dignity of their souvenir within you and pass it on to your children. Your great-grandparents history is your history and that of your descendants. Wear your poppy or your cornflower with pride.

'A Front Line Near St-Quentin' (1918), oil on canvas  by C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946), via Art UK

The Fallen fell for their Nation. They fell so you wouldn't have to. Therefore I plea that never under any circumstances shall you allow for the love of your nation, for national pride and patriotic values to be questioned, to be derided and to fall into disrepute. National sovereignty is sacred,  national identity is which cements a nation together and makes it whole, not fragmented.

May you not be fooled by the smarmy politicians and the snake oil salesmen who seek to mislead you off the path of progress, prosperity and integrity, by firing up dissent amongst their people, especially the misguided youth, allowing them to orbit off the moral compass of society, to trample their own flag rather than salute it. Deafen the brouhaha from the divisive media Medusa and keep to the legacy of those who made your nation great.

Whenever the dissenters seek for unity to be disbanded, urge for division to be pacified. Make your nation proud and it shall be proud of you. Work for it and it shall work for you.

(pict source)

Further Reading:

• Little People, Big Hearts
• La Der des Ders
• Lest We Forget 

Little People, Big Hearts

I have a problem with today's society. There is an urge for 'being somebody', for being noticed, being with it, breaking it, making it, becoming famous. What rigs it even more is that the quest for be(com)ing somebody is defined by one parameter - the popularity contest. It is driven by celebrity culture, inflated by social media (creating the ephemeral buzz and elusive cool factor) and misguided by the reality TV agenda (whereby we are sold the idea that anyone - just anyone - can be someone). In a world where individuals are hungry for fame and still stand famished as the fame they're craving for does not sustain in the long run, I am wondering: what's wrong with just wanting to be/ stay ordinary - as in not famous - at all?

My great great grandad Ferdinand's village in Picardie, France (pic source)

Ordinary and be of worth, able to accomplish worthwhile things, like a job done right, and be a caring child, spouse, parent, friend, neighbour. To establish and maintain one's value system and cause no harm nor prejudice. Respectful of life in all its representations, down to nature that surrounds us. Give a meaning to life that is not dependent upon external objects.

I have discussed the ordinary folks before now and to me they are anything but ordinary. I hold so much respect for them! No need to be searching high and low for we are surrounded by them in our own lifelines. Take my maternal great great auntie, Claire, an industrious Corsican woman who worked her land her entire life, with nothing like a day in lieu or a pension to fall back on. Take my paternal great grandad, Louis, who started work at 6 years of age down his local textile mill in Picardie, northern France, and later took his leave... to experience the trenches of the Great War. Or how about Louis's dad, Ferdinand, a weaver and family man whose life was stolen off him at 45 on his way to work, engulfed by snow drift in the wee hours of the morning... His tragic passing didn't make the news.

Ferdinand is buried in the Fluquières cemetery (pic source)

Those are ordinary folks, working-class heroes in their own right. They glide in and out of the grand scheme of things, and get no mention in history books. Yet in the great architecture of the universe, those are the artisans who laboured their lives away and still managed to grow spiritually and enrich their communities with a strong set of values. 

Dignity, pride, honour, honesty, respect, grace, compassion, loving care, knowledge, inner wisdom, gratitude, acceptance, resilience, bravery, labour - and an immense strength of character that we, the modern folks in quest of the un-ordinary, should take a leaf out of. These 'behind-the-scenes' folks were used by governments and corporate but still held their all while acting as the cannon-fodder that fuelled the mills during peace and the artillery during war. They still found the time and energy to be creative in their frugal ways, attend to their land agroecologically (way before the term was coined!), make do with little they owned, fix and build things, make life beautiful, feed a family and raise the kids right, go to church, believe in Heaven and redemption and hone their own conception of the after-life, and an earnest belief in the continuous betterment of man.

They lived in rural communities and were in tune with nature that they nurtured, knew every plant, concocted herbal remedies, understood the weather patterns, nature cycles, the seasons and the lunar calendar, and referred to the almanac. They were fabulous story-tellers, and the guardians of family anecdotes, local legends and folk tales. They met up with family and friends in a spirit of conviviality. They always had a bowl of soup at the ready for someone even poorer than themselves who would come knocking on their door. They were hardly school-educated, and so what? They could function autonomously, solidly grounded in common sense and observation. They were entrepreneurial, inventive and never backed down. They lived a simple life but that didn't make them the commoners they may be described as by whoever is hungry for fame and a material lifestyle that ends up tarnishing their soul. For to be rich is to own inner riches, and these cannot be bought.

Gâteau Paris-Brest

Serves: 8
Preparation: 40 mins (choux pastry) + 40 mins (filling and dressing)
Cooking: 20 mins + extra 5 mins + leave in the open oven for an extra 5 mins

If a French pastry ever were to be described as la crème de la crème (in every sense of the phrase), then Paris-Brest would be it. The gâteau is classic in style and celebratory in mood, and a piece of French culinary heritage all to itself that goes beyond anything cream cake. If I wax lyrical so readily about this particular pâtisserie, it is simply because it stands as my all-time favourite!

The Paris-Brest dates back to 1910, which despite making it a centenarian, also brings out its timeless appeal! Its circular shape is in reference to the Paris-Brest cycle race. A pâtissier from the Parisian suburbs, Louis Durand, had been tasked by the race manager to create a cake that would commemorate the event.

So here we have a gâteau whose popularity has surpassed that of the actual race. It is made out of light and airy choux pastry (cream puff dough), and sprinkled with a generous helping of aromatic roasted almond slivers, finished off with a fine dusting of icing-sugar. The filling is nothing less than a dreamy fluffy praline mousseline cream whose nuttiness echoes that of the almonds, and peers out of its fine corset of piped pastry to doom us into sweet temptation some more.

The Paris-Brest might appear daunting to bake, only if you follow some of the eccentric variants out there, that make it sound more complicated than it actually is! The best thing to do is to follow my step-by-step foolproof method, and you'll be coming back for more!

[Recipe adapted from Maxi Cuisine magazine from a few years back.]

Choux pastry:

• 10cl (1/2 cup) milk (whole or half-skimmed)
• 10cl (1/2 cup) water
• 80g butter (1/3 cup), cut in small chunks
• 140g (1 cup) all-purpose white flour, sieved
• 4 middle-size organic eggs
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp white caster sugar

Filling (praline mousseline cream):

• 1l (2 pints) milk (whole or half-skimmed, but not fat-free)
• half a vanilla pod
• 6 egg yolks
• 80g (1/3 cup) white caster sugar
• 25g (1 heaped tablespoon) all-purpose white flour, sieved
• 25g (1 heaped tablespoon) cornflour 
• 180g (1 cup 1/2) chopped French pralines (a confection of almonds with caramelized sugar)
• 100g (1/3 cup + 1 oz) softened butter (left out of the fridge)

Topping:

• 50g (1/2 cup) almond slivers
• 50g (1/3 cup) icing sugar

P.S: For baking ingredient conversions, refer to this.

P.P.S: PRALINES-- French Pralines are caramelized almonds. They are sold either whole as a confection, or chopped into a rough granulated texture (see above picture), called 'Pralin' in French. However depending upon which country you live in, French Pralines may not be readily available to purchase. Therefore you may have to resort to making your own, and this easy-to-follow online recipe will do the trick. If you are based in the US, you may want to opt for Glazed Pecans or Praline Pecans from Southern Candy Makers as your closest shop-bought alternative to French Pralin - and for that little Southern touch... All you will need to do is chop the whole glazed pecans/ praline pecans through a food processor until they turn to a granulated texture.

All in all, please be warned about the confusion between Pralines (as in Southern Pecan Pralines) and French Pralines, despite their common French origins. The Pecan Pralines (described by Southern Candy Makers as "similar to candied pecans, only creamier, [they] resemble a cookie, but are actually a crumbly candy patty [made] from fresh cream, butter, sugar, and Louisana pecans") are not suitable for Paris-Brest. Do aim for Glazed Pecans or Praline Pecans instead.

Now back to our Paris-Brest. Preheat the oven (200°C/ 392°F). Prepare the choux pastry: In a medium saucepan and on medium heat, combine (without whisking) milk, water, butter, salt and sugar. When the mixture starts to simmer, add the flour in one go. Then for about one minute and on lower heat, mix together vigorously with a wooden spatula so as to dry out the dough without it sticking to the pan, and you should get a thick and smooth consistency.

Then transfer the dough from the saucepan to a mixing bowl. Add the whole eggs, one at a time, thoroughly incorporating each single egg into the dough with the spatula as you mix together, before you add on the next. Carry on until the dough gets elastic and smooth and comes off the sides of the bowl.

Optionally trace a loose circle (approx. 20cm diameter) on a sheet of parchment paper with a pencil. Then lay the parchment paper onto a baking tray and lightly grease the paper with cooking oil. Then spoon the dough into a piping bag and trace a circle onto the parchment paper and then another circle inside the first (right next to it with no gaps), so that you get a one-inch wide circle. Then pipe a third circle to rest on top of the junction between the first two circles.

You may use a teaspoon as an alternative to the piping bag (which is what I did here) and painstakingly spoon one teaspoon of dough at a time onto the paper until forming a full circle of dough (one inch wide). The finished article, once baked, might not be as full and rounded as the classic (piped) Paris-Brest, but this will not impair the taste whatsoever. And eh, who said Paris-Brest couldn't look rustic round the edges? Actually, [purists, look away now!] should you find convention a tad tricky to handle, you may want to adjust the shape of your Paris-Brest to rectangular, as this will neatly fit in the baking tray (which is what I did here too!).

Sprinkle a generous handful of almond slivers all over the choux pastry. Bake in the oven (200°C/ 392°F) for 20 mins. Never be tempted to open the oven during the baking process or the pastry will deflate and never raise again! When the 20 mins are up, turn the oven temperature down to 180°C/ 356°F and bake the cake for a further 5 mins. Then turn off the oven completely and open its door and leave the cake to cool off for 5 mins before taking it out of the oven. This will prevent it from deflating too much. The pastry should be golden in colour when it comes out of the oven.

Only when the cream puff pastry has thoroughly cooled off, should you split it in two equal horizontal halves, carefully and using a bread knife. Personally I find that a serrated grapefuit knife will do the trick nicely, thanks to the fact that the centre of cream puff is hollow.

Prepare the praline mousseline cream filling: A mousseline cream is basically pastry cream (crème pâtissière) to which butter has been added. Note that the cornflour will lighten the cream consistency. However if you have no cornflour handy, then adjust the all-purpose white flour quantity accordingly, i.e. to 50g (1/3 cup OR 2 heaped tablespoons).

Pour the milk into a saucepan. Split half a vanilla pod lengthways and scrape the seeds into the milk and add the pod shell to it. Bring the milk to the brink of simmer, whisking frequently so as to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Meanwhile combine the egg yolks and sugar into a big mixing bowl and cream until white and fluffy. Then add the combined white flour and cornflour in one go. Whisk together. Strain the vanilla pod out of the warm milk.

Add the warm milk to the yolk and sugar preparation in the mixing bowl. Note that the milk must not be boiling hot or it will cook the egg yolks, which is NOT what we want! Whisk together and then pour the cream back into the pan, on medium heat, until it has thickened up and a couple of bubbles have risen to the surface, indicating that the flour has cooked. Turn off the stove. Add the chopped pralines and mix with a wooden spatula, together with the softened butter, cut in chunks.

P.S: For the purists! Some pastry chefs would recommend that you go the extra mile with the praline cream. Once it has cooked - and before any of the softened butter has been added to it - pour the cream into a mixing bowl that sits in a bigger bowl that is filled with ice cubes. Leave the bowls in the fridge for one hour. When the time is up, take the cream out of the fridge and beat it to unset it. Then deal with the softened butter by creaming it with an electric whisk. Add the creamed butter to the praline cream, a little at a time, so as to get a smooth consistency.

Pipe the praline mousseline cream onto the lower half of the choux pastry circle, or alternatively dollop it with a spoon, and then either smooth the edges with a small pallet knife or shape them with a fork (which is what I did). Carefully position the upper half of the circle (i.e. the cake lid) onto its creamed-up lower half. Refrigerate the Paris-Brest until ready to serve. Liberally sprinkle icing sugar before taking to the dinner table, and just let your guests do all the swooning for you!

Psssst! Do not throw out those left-over egg whites! Whip them into Macaroons, a sweet teatime companion.

La Der des Ders

One hundred years ago our elders were about to get bogged down in an absurd, relentless, psychological trench war in the soggy mud fields of northeastern France, staying put for weeks on end under undescribable stress, inching their way through, losing those inches, fighting on, turning the trench war underground, 'while a clique of portly generals and high commanders watched from a safe distance, smoking cigars, clinking Cognac glasses and pushing clusters of batallion figurines across a battlefield map that might well have been a chessboard' (cf. Lest We Forget by La Baguette Magique).

Remembrance Poppy, via IWM

Remembrance Day leaves me humbled - and powerless - as a day where words are nothing but mere encumbrances, as they sit pretty on a page and console the writer in some sort of vanity of gratitude while failing to express meaningfully what is in our hearts and souls, and failing to soften the hurt and pain of the fallen who long passed away, and the absurdity of war that the international political and financial establishments inflicted to our young men in a collusion of shame, going as far as ordering the shooting down of soldiers by their fellow regiment comrades in order to 'set an example' to the troops. In France, (at least) 650 soldiers died of the sort.

A generation of soldiers got wiped out by the millions and the war irrevocably sent a ripple effect of loss and destruction far beyond the battlefields into the families and local communities, with the increasingly flimsy hope and belief that WWI was the obligatory evil that would lead to eternal peace on earth, and the history of wartime thus had to culminate into this WWI grand finale as it were to be 'La Der des Ders' (The Last Ever War), thus giving our elders the meagre validation as to their ultimate sacrifice of life and sanity.

'The Cemetery, Etaples' (1919), by Sir John Lavery (1919), via IWM

I was born in the French northern town of Saint-Quentin, Picardie, only a few miles away from The Somme and Chemin des Dames battlefields. My hometown was rased down to the ground during WWI, and both the town and countryside bear to this day a continuous reminder of war, through the myriads of war cemeteries, cratered landscapes, down to the Art Déco architecture that bears legacy to the fact that once stood a building that got wiped out by war.

Each of my great grandads fought the war and I remember Louis, my paternal great grandad, telling our family a few chosen anecdotes from the front, after some convincing. He was private in his thoughts and views and we respected his pauses and silences and restraint and each of his carefully-uttered words. He saw death in the face, he lost comrades, many were kids no older than 20. Louis got impacted by a shell in the nape of neck that left him with a cross-shaped scar, like the protective hand of God. For he survived the war, resumed his life, returned to work in the textile mill, raised two kids with his wife, fed the family on his fruit and vegetable garden, haunted till death by the horror of war. And tragically La Der des Ders never was to be the last ever war...

P.S: La Der des Ders, a contracted form of La Dernière des Dernières (literally 'the last of the last'), is loosely translated as 'The War to End All Wars.'

The 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings

This year we are commemorating two major historical events. One tragic, as the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI, and the other, an ode to hope and promise, as the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings, where Allied Forces (USA, Canada, GB and Captain Kieffer's 1er BFM Commando consisting of 177 elite French fusiliers) liberated France and neighbouring occupied nations from Axis domination. No doubt that every single one of us has a tale or two from our (great) grandfathers or uncles (and the grandmas) who were involved in the war(s) one way or another. I wanted to pay a heartfelt tribute to our lads. They displayed immense bravery - paid with their lives even - to pave the way for the modern Western society as we know it but which we tend to perhaps take too much for granted at times.

You might remember my moving tribute to my maternal grandad, Armand, who worked in transmissions for the French Navy, before joining the US Navy in the Pacific. Oh boy, my grandad, a Général De Gaulle supporter, was immensely proud to have teamed up with the Americans! My paternal grandad, Léon, was less lucky in that he was made a prisoner of war at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940 and sent out to the work camps of Germany - yet thankfully not the death camps!

'Into the Jaws of Death — U.S. Troops wading through water and Nazi gunfire', by Robert F. Sargent

When Americans landed in Normandy, they brought with them Showtime! Supplies aplenty, modern technology, Jeeps and GMC Trucks, Big Band music, corned-beef, chewing-gums, benzene, Lucky Strikes, cartoons... and Hollywood propaganda! Ask my star-struck dad, a toddler when US Troops liberated our Northern border town of Saint-Quentin in August 1944. "Quand les Américains ont débarqué... c'était l'Amérique !" (When Americans arrived... it felt like America had landed!). This American officer spotted my dad in a crowd of people queueing up for food. He asked my dad to come over, then lifted him up into his arms, tearfully called him 'baby' as he showed my dad a photo of his kids. Then he told my dad he could have whatever he wanted. My dad's eyes sparkled. He felt like a kid in a sweet shop. 'I want gum, Sir... and benzene too for the bonfires!'

Further D-Day Resources:

• D-Day Overlord
• D-Day by the Numbers - Operation Overlord (infographics)
• The D-Day Landings (BBC Animated Map)
• GI Veteran James Kelson, 92, from DC, is Reunited with His Millitary Dog Tag (France TV Info, 01-Apr-13, in French, no subtitles)
• Swing - The Best Of The Big Bands
• 06-Jun-14 Update: Check out Daily Mail's comprehensive review.
  

Lest We Forget

We had been given no choice. We were working-class lads who'd been taken off the factory floor or agricultural field and summoned to serve the powers that be for a war we had little or no understanding of.

Our infantry battalions marched on for days and nights and we fought as we were ordered, a horrid relentless raging battle that symbolises the absurdity of the human race. To kill or to get killed. Those who disobeyed military orders were simply shot down 'to set an example' to the rest of us.

'Stormtroops Advancing Under a Gas Attack' (1924), by © Otto Dix, via National Gallery of Australia

As much as the humanitarianism of our luminary counterparts (free thinkers, scientists, professors, etc.) had helped raise awareness and manifest, support, promulgate and protect all aspects of educational, philosophical, social, legal, political and technical progress and advancement aimed at bettering the life conditions of our peers regardless of their social origins, for the greater good of all individuals as the ultimate purpose, the abnegation, destruction and annihilation brought about by war came as a contradiction.

Our regiments were deployed to the front battlefields of The Somme, Chemin des Dames and Verdun to feed the heavy cannon-fodder artillery machines, while a clique of portly generals and high commanders watched from a safe distance, smoking cigars, clinking Cognac glasses and pushing clusters of batallion figurines across a battlefield map that might well have been a chessboard.

The irony of it was that we were sent to fight working-class lads who'd been taken off the factory floor or agricultural field from the other side of the border and summoned to serve the powers that be for a war they too had little or no understanding of.

Reality was stranger than fiction! 'Paths of Glory' (1957), by Stanley Kubrick, with Kirk Douglas

One day when the battle wasn't raging on in our neck of the woods, three of my comrades and I had a chance encounter with a couple of those lads on our way to the river, ordinary folks like us, with a wife and kids back home. We quickly realised they weren't out to kill us. They looked weary, sick with anguish like us, they too had witnessed the unspeakable horror of the front, and a part of them had died in the soggy trenches, across the desolate no man's lands, through to the muddy fields strewn with putrescent corpses and body parts, and agonising comrades begging to be shot dead as death was their only deliverance from this living nightmare.

We swapped a cigarette or two as an ice-breaker. Then we got those old crumpled family photos out of our pockets and we showed them to those guys. They did the same. We kept quiet for a moment, fighting back emotion, standing next to one another in silent dignity. Then we smiled, exchanged a few words, despite the language barrier we did understand one another. We knew the odd German word, "Krieg, großes unglück !", we used sign language, we nodded together empathetically. One of us even started humming 'Mademoiselle from Armentières' and we swayed along to the song.

Then a younger lad from their regiment - who couldn't be older than 15 - came up with a football and we all started kicking the ball around. We ran around like reborn teenagers and we cheered as each team scored. I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed. We played for 5 minutes, possibly longer, who knows? Then we patted each other on the back as we parted, wished one another luck and went our separate ways. The night after this encounter, each one of us prayed to God that we would stay safe, and that they too would stay safe, and that if we were to see them in person again by a curious twist of fate, it would be like today - as friends. To swap a word, a smile, a cigarette, and to kick a ball around. Like friends. The most human and humane act of friendship that comes to mind.

La Fête du Muguet

Last Sunday, 1st May, was a busy day in the diary. Firstly it is referred to as Labour (Labor) Day as a homage to 1st May 1886 when a workers strike in Chicago (USA) pledging the 48-hour working week (6 days x 8 hours a day) ended in a bloodbath when the police force fired gunshots at them. Three years later, in 1889, the Paris International Socialist Congress decided to symbolically dedicate 1st May in support of the 8-hour working day plight. This would eventually be ratified through Parliament no less than thirty years later, on 23rd April 1919...

Ensley Furnace (Alabama c1906), via Shorpy (Juniper Gallery)

Labour Day, as it symbolically became known as, is recognised in many countries around the world. Labour Day became a paid bank holiday in France in 1947; employees working it would be granted double pay. Traditionally in France on 1st May, trade unions march down the streets peacefully across the main French towns and cities, to perpetuate the tradition, while using it as a platform to voice any griefs they might have, usually with some political connotation. Human rights groups join the march.

Meanwhile each year in Britain the first week-end of May (known as the May Day bank holiday week-end), spans a three-day week-end (i.e. including Monday). Village fêtes traditionally commemorate it one way or another (market stalls, morris dancing, medieval re-enactments, etc.). This year, our lucky neighbours will have enjoyed a four-day bank holiday extravaganza, courtesy of the Royal Wedding celebrations.

Now back to France and on a much more romantic and sweeter note than Labour Day, the French celebrate 1st May by purchasing (or picking in the wild) a few twigs, a bouquet or pot of muguet (lily of the valley). Fabulously fragrant and the darling of couture house perfumes, lily of the valley is also reported to bring good fortune to those who take it home on 1st May (not exactly the latest fad as this French tradition dates back to 1561!). French trade unionists marching down the streets on 1st May wear the flower on the buttonhole as their symbol for Labour Day.

My mum keeps her muguet for a whole year (admittedly the plant has no super powers that enable it to keep that long, especially if cut, or kept indoors in its original pot), before replacing it with a fresh one the following 1st May.

Now that's a fragrant talisman that everyone should treat themselves to, if only to take Spring home and enjoy the wonderfully fresh and infinitely feminine aroma. Meanwhile La Baguette belatedly wishes everyone: Bonne Fête du 1er Mai!

A Week-End Wonderweb 26-02 (Art Nouveau)

Towards the end of the 19th century, at the peak of industrialisation in our Western societies, artists, designers and aesthetes turned to the natural world for inspiration and solace, and this is how the Art Nouveau movement came about, as an extension of William Morris's Arts & Crafts, feminine, voluptuous, foliate, adorned, with emphasis upon the curved and linear, while fauna, flora and nymphs became the focus of attention and desire, translated not only onto building façades, but also via illustrative forms (most famously Hector Guimard's signage for the Paris underground), and Applied Arts: interior design, furniture, glass and pottery ware.

Sources (top page down):

• 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I' (1907), by Gustav Klimt, featured on Canvas Replicas
• Alpha Stamps, Art Nouveau collage sheets, Perfume Labels, by Gatochy via Flickr
• Vase (1893-96) designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, made by Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, currently on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
•  Art Nouveau façade in the Northern French town of Douai

Further resources:

• Art Nouveau explained by The Artchive and ArtLex
• Art Nouveau architecture by Europa 1900.

A Week-End Wonderweb 04-12 (Saint-Quentin)

European hub halfway between Paris and Brussels, London and Bonn, a strategic station stop on pre-TGV* international railway lines (Paris-St-Quentin-Brussels/ Aachen/ Köln/ Amsterdam/ København/ Москва), home to artists, free thinkers, formerly known as the French Manchester thanks to its strong textile manufacturing and trade legacy spanning centuries, the most Flemish of French towns is also a beacon of Art Deco style and more, with two jewels in the architectural stakes, namely its magnificent gothic basilica (as a tribute to Quentin, a martyr) and 500-year-old town hall; a no-mercy outpost, taken over by the Prussians in 1870, flattened out by the Germans in WWI, and again damaged in WWII, at the heart of war cemetery graveland, only a few miles away from the notorious Somme Valley, here is a town of contrasts, a land of invasions, a pool of invention, disillusion, vision and reinvention, welcome to my hometown of St-Quentin, Picardie.

Sources (top page down):

• Brooklyn Museum Libraries & Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection, Church of St-Quentin, France, 1907
• The U.S. NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), Archival Research Catalog, View of ruins in front of the Cathedral of St. Quentin, France (October 14, 1918), ARC Identifier 530770 / Local Identifier 111-SC-28224
• Nathalie Hachet @ La Baguette Magique, St-Quentin basilica, Quentin's ossuary
• Pascal Stritt, Le Parcours Art Déco, detail of an Art Deco façade (rue de Baudreuil)
• id., stained glass detail on St-Quentin train station's listed Art Deco façade
• Inventaire du Patrimoine Culturel de Picardie, La Cotonnière de St-Quentin (cotton mill), 1950s branded stationery. Let us note that by the end of the 1950s, La Cotonnière employed over 2500 workers spread across 7 manufacturing sites in St-Quentin. Find out more from La Baguette Magique.

Additional Resources:

• Aerial views of St-Quentin from here.

* TGV = Trains à Grande Vitesse, the French fast trains