History’s Hard Lessons and America’s New Resolve

There is never a dull moment in the second, more cheerful reign of Donald Trump. I am writing from London, but was in France last week, picking my way through various battlefields and cemeteries in and around Verdun, Bastogne (think “Easy Company” and “Battle of the Bulge”), and Reims.

Well-informed readers will know, as I did not, that “Reims” is not pronounced as its letters might suggest but rather as a nasalized “Reince.” I have always associated the place with champagne, and I am pleased to say that the city capitalizes on the association.

But one point of interest had nothing to do with that magical elixir. Reims was also the location of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s headquarters at the end of World War II. It was there, in fact, that the Nazis officially surrendered on May 7, 1945.

The headquarters, an old school building, is a sort of time capsule. All the maps and military paraphernalia have been preserved just as they were on that fateful day. The entrance is marked by four flagpoles on which flags of the four Allies—the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union, and France—flutter.