Mr. Louis de Cazenave, a 110 year old veteran of the French Army in World War One, has passed away, leaving less than a score of surviving brothers in arms.
Mr. Louis de Cazenave, aged 110, died in his sleep at home in his beloved France. Born in 1898 he was only 16 when World War One started. Mr. de Cazenave served as an infantryman with the 5th Colonial Rifles made up of men largely drawn from the then-French controlled country of Senegal. He saw the elephant in the Somme and at the Second Battle of the Aisne.
Mr. de Cazenave leaves one last French veteran, also 110 as the last Frenchman to have lived through the Great War. . Britain and her commonwealth still have eight living veterans who served her including the last female and British pilot Henry Allingham, aged 111 who served in the Royal Flying Corps. Two still living former American servicemen and two Italians round out the allied powers. The last German veteran Dr. Erich Kästner, died earlier this year leaving former Austro-Hungarian artilleryman Franz Kunstler, 107 who now lives in Bavaria and 109 year old Turkish veteran Yakup Satar as the last of the Central Powers veterans. The third oldest man in Europe, Finn Aarne Arvonen, who served in the Russian Army as well as in the Finnish Red Guard, is also a survivor of this great and terrible conflict.
