[lit-ideas] Carrying On - Horticulturally
- From: epostboxx@xxxxxxxx
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 14:56:13 +0200
On 01 May 2015, at 23:35, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Among this weekend's projects will be to put the "Victory of the Marne" in
our clay. I couldn't believe when I came across this flower in Costco that
you could buy a healthy peony for thirteen bucks, or that anyone could sell
in America a plant that commemorates a French victory in the First World War.
About the cultivar Paeonia lactiflora 'Victoire de la Marne' - here's a mention
from THE BOOK OF THE PEONY (Harding, Alice Howard, Philadelphia & London: J.B.
Lippincott company, 1917):
http://archive.org/stream/bookofpeon00hard/bookofpeon00hard_djvu.txt
"THE peony has been such a familiar flower in humble gardens in this country
that
many persons are not aware of its aristocratic and extended genealogy. The
descent of the
peony can be traced through numerous periods of history even into mythology ;
indeed in Greece,
the Roman Empire, China, Japan, France, England and America, its relation to
mankind has
been considerable.
"In medicine, art, commerce and science, the peony has played a part which not
only entitles
it to general recognition, but which is also absorbing in detail. At different
times in the past,
it has been the object of many journeys and voyages, the subject of years of
painstaking study,
and to its improvement men have lovingly devoted a large portion of their
lives. From Leto,
mother of Apollo, who appears to have been the original " introducer " of the
peony, down to M.
Dessert, the great French grower, who in 1915 sent out his latest peony under
the name of
'Victoire de la Marne,' we have a long and entertaining story, of both
horticultural and human
interest."
Speaking of long and entertaining stories ...
There were TWO victories of the Marne - both pivotal in the history of WWI.
Here's a condensation of the material found in Wikipedia about the two battles:
The Battle of the Marne (French: Première bataille de la Marne;
also known as the Miracle of the Marne) was the First World War
battle fought from 5–12 September 1914. It resulted in an Allied
victory against the German Army ... The battle was the culmination
of the German advance into France ... The counterattack of six
French field armies and the British Expeditionary Force ("BEF") along
the Marne River forced the German Imperial Army to abandon its push
on Paris ... The Battle of the Marne was a victory for the Allies and set
the stage for four years of trench warfare on the Western Front.
The Second Battle of the Marne (French: Seconde Bataille de la Marne),
(15 July – 6 August 1918) was the last major German Spring Offensive
on the Western Front ... The German attack failed when an Allied counter-
attack by French AND AMERICAN [emphasis added] forces ... overwhelmed
the Germans ... The German defeat marked the start of the relentless Allied
advance which culminated in the Armistice with Germany about 100 days later.
... The primary importance of the battle was its morale aspect: the strategic
gains on the Marne marked the end of a string of German victories and the
beginning of a series of Allied victories that were in three months to bring
the German Army to its knees.
Relations between America and France have cooled somewhat in recent years (as
illustration I need only mention the phrase 'Freedom Fries'), but if we turn to
the pages of the DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION MAGAZINE of 1918, we find
a much more intimate relationship - and reference to the TWO victories of the
Marne (the first of which, coincidentally, fell on the 157th anniversary of the
birth of Marquis de Lafayette - known as "The Hero of Two Worlds" for his
accomplishments in the service of both France and the United States).
As the edition of the magazine available on the Internet is somewhat garbled by
transcription errors and sloppy editing (the pages are not always presented in
the correct sequence) I am including a rather long quotation here which I am
sure will be of interest to some (i.e., 'at least one') of our list members:
From DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION MAGAZINE - 1918
https://archive.org/stream/daughtersofameriv52daug/daughtersofameriv52daug_djvu.txt
LAFAYETTE'S BIRTHDAY
CELEBRATED AT WASHINGTON, D. C.
THE joint celebration by the National Society of the Daughters
of the American Revolution, Sons of the Revolution in the
District of Columbia, and the District of Columbia Society,
Sons of the American Revolution, of the 161st anniversary of the
birth of Marquis de Lafayette, and the fourth anniversary of the
Battle of the Marne, took place at the Lafayette Monument,
Washington, D. C, on Friday afternoon, September 6, 1918.
There were present the President of the United States and Mrs. Wilson;
the Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Josephus Daniels; the Count de
Chambrun, representing the Ambassador of France ; Mr. Louis F. Brownlow,
President of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and
various representatives from the Embassies of the Allied Powers, and other
distinguished guests, as follows:
General and Mme. Vignal, French Embassy; Honorable Thomas B. Hoehler,
Charge d' Affairs, British Embassy; M. K. Debuchi, Secretary Japanese
Embassy ; Senor and Mme. Belisaris Parras, Panamanian Embassy ; Senor
Don Ignacio Colderon, Bolivian Embassy; General and Mrs. J. D. Cormack,
British War Mission; French High Commissioner, M. O. Guerlac, and several
members of the Belgian Embassy.
...
Secretary Daniels' eulogy of Lafayette was frequently interrupted by en-
thusiastic applause. In referring to the date, September 14, 1914, he said:
"Do noble natures of separated centuries have communion? It has been said that
it was an
accident of fate that made the first victory of the Marne fall on the birthday
of Lafayette.
Should we not say it was a glorious coincidence? Or, better still, that Marshal
Joffre's
victory was a providential and fitting celebration of the hundred and
fifty-seventh birth-
day of Gilbert du Notier de Lafayette? We come now to another victory of the
Marne,
thankful for the genius of Foch, who wears worthily the mantle of Lafayette.
And again
on Lafayette's birthday victorious encounters by the Allied armies in France
bring us nearer
to the success at arms which will mean to the whole world what Yorktown meant
to the
Western Hemisphere. "
Further on in his address, the Secretary said :
"Lafayette is the type of eternal youth. With years come prudence and caution
and
conventions which aid knowledge, but youth has the courage of its ideals, the
audacity of its
faith, and the readiness to risk all, even life itself, for Liberty. All great
wars have been
fought by what older people call 'mere boys.' In the war between the States the
vast majority
of those who followed Grant and Lee were youths, hundreds of thousands under 21
years
of age, many of them under 18. There never were finer soldiers in all history.
It was the
dash and daring of youth that swept all before it in that mighty struggle, and
it is the same
spirit which today animates our armies fighting their way across the
battle-scarred fields of
France, and which, with our Allies, will eventually drive the last invader from
the soil of
Lafayette's beloved country."
...
Messages were read from M. Raymond Poincare, President of France,
and Marshal Joffre, the former stating in part :
"It was for liberty, too, that Lafayette fought by the side of Washington. The
names
of those two brothers in arms are inseparable as are forever inseparable the
hearts of
America and of France.
"If America has not forgotten Lafayette; if she has not forgotten Rochambeau,
DeGrasse,
La Luzerne and so many Frenchmen who had the proud joy of fighting here at the
dawn of
her independence, how can France ever forget the wonderful assistance that so
many Amer-
ican soldiers bring to her now?
"Every day I am a witness of their magnificent ardor, of their courage and of
their en-
thusiasm for the common cause.
"In the name of France, I send to America a message of fidelity, affection, and
admiration."
Marshal Joffre's cable stated:
"At the hour when you are celebrating at the same time the anniversary of the
Battle of the
Marne and that of the birth of Lafayette, I join myself whole-heartedly with
you, happy to be
able to applaud on this great day the first successes of the American army upon
the soil of
France. "
The last speaker was the great-great-grandson of Marquis de Lafayette ...
[who] closed his address with an eloquent tribute to the American soldiers in
France, stating:
"At the time of the first Battle of the Marne — four years ago to-day — the
enemy penetrated
to the very hedge of Lafayette's property, 'La Grange.' At the second Battle of
the Marne,
they did not succeed in advancing so far; your own soldiers were there
protecting the
approach.
"Among those ... who combat on our fields, among those who soar in our skies,
may
be found many who have the soul of Lafayette ; I mean to say, who understand
and love
the land of France as he understood and loved America. That is the wish that I
express
today. Never have two countries been more intimately united than ours. If there
is no writ-
ten pact between us, there is a great act ; there is a great fact. Your men are
living at our
firesides, and defending them. Your dead repose in our meadows, under the
shadow of
those thousands — those hundreds of thousands — of little white crosses, which
will signify to
future generations the meaning of their native land, and the price of Liberty.
May the people
of France and the people of America forever live, according to the words of
Washington,
"as brothers should do, in harmonious friendship"! May we, like our victorious
soldiers,
forever remain united, through life and unto death, a la vie et a la mort!"
And the connexion with peonies? Well, further along in this (error-ridden)
transcription of the DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION MAGAZINE
(unfortunately, because of the interpolation of pages from various issues it is
difficult to determine an exact date for either issues), one finds the
following passage:
Colonial Daughters Chapter celebrated Anniversary Day, June 26, at the home of
one
of the members. The decorations consisted of flags, PEONIES [emphasis added],
lilacs, and
... a fine picture of General Washington. A picnic lunch was served at noon on
the spacious
piazza, followed by a business meeting. ... A collection was taken for the
French war
orphans.
So, David, it is entirely fitting that you "put the 'Victory of the Marne' in
our [American] clay." After all, Lafayette is buried (in Paris) under soil
from Bunker Hill.
Chris Bruce,
co-coordinator of the Gesellschaft der Staudenfreunde: Regionalgruppe
Schleswig-Holstein /Kiel,
bookkeeper and co-coordinator of volunteer garden work in the Verein zur
Erhaltung und Förderung des Alten Botanischen Gartens Kiel e.V.,
member of the Gartenbaukreis Kiel von 1855, the Freundeskreis des Botanischen
Gartens Kiel, and the Royal Horticultural Society.
P.S. The entertaining stories continue: Wikipedia reports (about the Second
Battle of the Marne):
"There is a legend, possibly true, that engineer Cpt. Hunter Grant, along with
the help of
engagement coordinator and engineer Lt. Page, devised a deceptive ruse. A
briefcase with
false plans for an American counterattack was handcuffed to a man who had died
of pneumonia
and placed in a vehicle which appeared to have run off the road at a
German-controlled bridge.
The Germans, on finding and being taken-in by these plans, then adjusted their
attack to thwart
the false allied plan. Consequently, the French and American forces led by
Foch, were able to
unleash a different attack on exposed parts of the enemy lines, leaving the
Germans with no choice
but to retreat."
Why hasn't there been a book - or movie? Was this incident possibly the
inspiration for WWII Operation Mincemeat we all learned about in THE MAN WHO
NEVER WAS?
-CB
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