Les allées d’arbres – de la guerre à la paix – Liffol-le-Grand (France)

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  • Symposium

Les allées d’arbres – de la guerre à la paix – Liffol-le-Grand (France)

Tree avenues, from war to peace

Tree avenues were an important feature in theatres of the First World War. Troops moving up to the Western Front passed beneath them, they were landmarks, and they were targets. They amazed soldiers of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) in the Somme and in Flanders, made an indelible mark in the minds of observers who described and painted what they saw, and they gave a breath of hope by indicating that where chaos reigned there had once been order.
But the project never saw the light of day. However, while France had lost many of its avenues in combat zones, great numbers of commemorative avenues sprang up on the other side of the world, in Australia and New Zealand, and also in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy.
The international symposium will focus attention on this history. It will highlight the promotional actions being carried out today in those countries by citizens and the public authorities. Above all, it will explore the potential of avenues in our time, as a means of connecting places and people in the spirit and in the expectation of the European cultural routes of the Council of Europe.

www.allees-avenues.eu