DOUAUMONT (France), Nov 11: Europe on Tuesday marked the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, with the handful of surviving veterans at the vanguard of commemorations for the fallen of “The War to End All Wars”.

Leaders from the powers that fought the war, now allies, gathered at the site of the 1916 Battle of Verdun, where 300,000 men were slaughtered.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid homage to the sacrifice and suffering of the war’s “eight and a half million dead, 21 million wounded, four million widows and eight million orphans”.

Speaking at the ossuary in the village of Douaumont which overlooks the battlefield and contains the remains of 130,000 soldiers killed at Verdun, he spoke of the need to “honour all the dead, without exception”.

He also said that many of the hundreds of French soldiers executed for desertion or mutiny during the war “had not dishonoured themselves, were not cowards, but had simply been pushed to the extreme limit”.—AFP