Armistice Celebrations Still Uncertain

For the past two years, Britain, France and Germany, all leading members of the now 32 members strong European Union, have been trying to decide how to jointly celebrate the centenary anniversary of WWI, which ended on November 11 1918 when the Armistice was declared, but various political factions in all three countries have now made the upcoming anniversary very contentious indeed.

The original plan was to have the heads of state of those three main European players in the conflict get together in Versailles, where the treaty was officially signed in 1919, as a token of European unity, but recent events, as reported earlier in this paper, now seem to have ruled this out.

The British Prime Minister Arthur Chamberlain said yesterday "I'm sure we can work this out and resolve our differences in the interest of European unity, taking into account the concerns of our German partners, as none of us want to see us come to blows over this." His sentiments were echoed by the French President Francois Vichy yesterday evening.

Europe has seen its fair share of turbulence recently, with the disintegration of the Italian central government (see the special report on Italy in this paper) being the prime example of the worrying rise in regional strife. Negotiators are still trying to resolve the latest issues concerning the upcoming anniversary, and unofficial sources are optimistic about the outcome. Commentators aren't so sure, and the outcome remains uncertain.