“Douaumont, Destroyed Village”
“Here, stood the church.”
The Battle of Verdun not only has the distinction of being the longest engagement of the Great War, but it also bears the shame of being the trial run for contemporary industrialized carnage. The name "The Mincer" for the battleground was not given in vain.
"Verdun is unparalleled. According to British historian Christina Holstein, this is where the world transformed. Between February 21 and December 18, 1916, more than 60 million shells were fired into this region, killing 305,440 troops out of 708,777 casualties.
In the Red Zone, a German trench and Delville Wood that were destroyed in 1916 can be found close to Longueval (Somme).
The French government isolated a series of disjointed regions in northeastern France after World War One, known as the zone rouge (English: red zone). The original area of the land, more than 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles), was deemed too physically and environmentally damaged for occupancy. The terrain was allowed to revert to nature rather than making an effort to clean up the ancient battlegrounds. Despite the fact that the control zones have significantly shrunk, restrictions still apply within the zone rouge.
The Department du Deminage, a special body established by the French government with sole responsibility for the ongoing munitions clearing
Battlefield relics – 100’s of rifles
In accordance with French law, it was prohibited to do residential construction, agricultural work, or forestry operations in the red zone. This was due to the contamination of the land caused by the massive numbers of human and animal carcasses and unexploded bombs. After the war, certain towns and villages were never allowed to be rebuilt.
The French government decided to force residents to relocate after World War I since it was impossible to remove all the unexploded weaponry, human, and animal remains. This led to the construction of the Zone Rouge. Whole settlements that vanished from the map were regarded as "casualties of war."
The hills and woodlands that rise above Verdun are believed to contain at least 12 million unexploded shells, according to the French Interior Ministry.
Between 1914 and 1918, the Western Front saw almost 720 million shells and mortar bombs launched by the British, French, American, and German soldiers. According to military experts, up to one out of every five rounds of ammunition shot by either side failed to explode. At the conclusion of 1918, 16 million acres of France, including the 2 million acres surrounding Verdun, were fenced off as a direct result of land pollution by unexploded ordinance. They are still considered forbidden territory and are known as the Zone Rouge. After the Second World War, the Département du Déminage was established to locate, collect, and destroy shells and bombs from both conflicts. To date, this work has cost the department 630 démineurs, all of whom died removing explosive ordnance.
According to a conservative estimate, the Département du Déminage will still be discovering these weapons in nine hundred years if the current clearance rate continues.
Agricultural usage and the reconstruction of housing were restricted by law after the war because of the presence on the land of thousands of human bodies and unexploded weapons. Following the finding that tap water in 544 communities in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region contained a dangerously high concentration of perchlorate, an explosives-making ingredient, local authorities in 2012 imposed a ban on its consumption.
Red zones have been surrounded by public access to discovery paths and memorial monuments in the ghost settlements north of Verdun that "killed for France" but were never rebuilt.
The tap water prohibition applied to regions that are close to the locations of the battles from 1914 to 1918. Some areas of the Red Zone were just partially or never cleaned up. They include areas of land that have been replanted with trees, such those around Verdun and Vimy. Over 300 unexploded bombs were discovered lying no deeper than 15 centimeters below ground in an area close to the Vimy Canadian National Monument during the winter of 2005–2006. This area has never been the target of explosive ordnance removal. A sign that reads, "Entry banned, unexploded bombs" can be seen in this picture of a Red Zone site, serving as a warning of the danger that lies underneath this idyllic sight.
The first industrial pig farm was developed as early as 1929 close to the site of the Battle of Verdun as a result of the post-World War I rush to convert regions for the growing of crops or animals. When the earth was chemically treated, the 25 hectare pig farm was covered in shell holes.
In fact, this location is where the word "Verdunisation," which refers to the chlorination process used to clean drinking water, was first coined in French in 1911.
Villages and towns nearby are making the best of a bad situation as they teeter on the border of the Zone Rouge in northeastern France. Locals make use of the area's military heritage to make up for all the quarantined territory they are unable to farm and are likely never going to be able to set foot on. There is a café and restaurant in Pozières named "Le Tommy," which is dedicated to the sacrifice of the allied soldiers and has recreated a World War I trench in its backyard for tourists. Pozières was one of the villages that was completely devastated in World War I and then rebuilt (pictured above).
