Red Zones, Northern France: The Lasting Scars of World War I

Uncover the haunting legacy of WWI’s Red Zones in North-Eastern France. Explore the toxic aftermath, the evolution of these forbidden lands, and the eerie concept of “luna-forming.”

The lingering effects of war never truly disappear those who engage in armed conflicts be it on the winning or the losing side more often the not will have to live with its consequences long after the fighting is over physical wounds disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder can remain as permanent stigma

Of Horrors that can never truly be forgotten the world was introduced to such lasting effects on a scale never experienced before following the end of the Great War the supposed war to end all wars that went well Science and Technology was applied to mass killing on an industrial scale and it left the

World in shock it even scattered the seeds for a deadlier conflict 20 years later a conflict of such magnitude was bound to leave its scars not only on individuals but on entire populations Nations and even on territories the land itself did not escape the constant torture meated out by raining artillery

Shells nor the creeping clouds of chemical weapons and when the fighting was over the very ground would be contaminated by the toxins seeping out from unspent instruments of death and even from the dead bodies of an entire generation trapped in a No Man’s Land by schemes they couldn’t comprehend there

Is an area in northeastern France along the border with Belgium where the land was martyred and later poisoned to such an extent the government realized that no human activity could ever be resumed even today more than a century after the last shot was fired those once fertile lands have not experienced a single

Harvest for all that could be harvested would be death encased in rusted metal shells welcome to the unhealed scars of the Great War welcome to the red zones the red zones sometimes simply the Red Zone comprise several patches of lands in northeastern France along the border with Belgium they follow a roughly

Crescent shape with the Western most tip being located near leil the Crescent then moves Southward snaking its way past lens Aras CRA and comp before heading Eastward towards Verdon and finally Nazi military history enthusiasts may have recognized this area as the one with the heaviest fighting of world war I’s Western Front

Where the trenches dug by the Imperial German army face those manned by France and her allies from 1914 to 1918 this region was the backdrop to some of the most violent battles experienced by humankind to that day the battle of the son VII Ridge and especially the Battle

Of vdong in 1919 after the end of World War I the red zones covered an area of 18800 Square km roughly 2 and a half times the surface of New York City we’ll explore later how these red zones were defined and designated by 1927 the areas with a red zone designation had

Considerably shrunk to a surface area of 490 Square km which is just 3 fths of New York City as of today the red zones have been further reduced to an archipelago of patches of land dispersed along the Cresent that we described earlier this constellation of off limits

Areas adds up to roughly 120 square km or a third of New York City or if you want to keep with a French theme we’re talking an area slightly larger than the surface of Paris so throughout the past Century the size of the red zones has changed considerably but not their

Essence these are patches of land so destroyed so contaminated by the incessant shelling and chemical warfare of World War I that all human activity has ceased to exist entire Villages were either severely damaged or entirely wiped off the map thousands of residents were relocated agriculture was completely abandoned and even today

Access to the remaining red zones is severely limited and controlled so the theoretical process of transforming the barren landscape of a planet into a new hospitable Earth is called terraforming what happens here that was the opposite the very practical process of turning a once productive Countryside into a hostile alien moonlike landscape devoid

Of vegetation and littered with craters maybe we could call this Luna forming to better understand how this Luna forming process works let’s take a look at vidon as an example before the start of World War I vidon was home to a peacetime Garrison of 66,000 troops in addition to

The civilian population these thousands of young men with reust appetites needed to be fed by the best that the French country side had to offer thus the surrounding region was intensively farmed the soil was fertile and local produce sustained the economy of the area at the same time those 66,000

Troops needed to have a tactical advantage against potential Invaders among several other factors such Advantage could be derived from the presence of forests that’s right pre-World War I French military Doctrine placed great importance in thickly wooded areas after the defeat against Prussia in the war of 1870 the ministry

Of war in cooperation with the water and Forestry Administration created a dedicated Forest Corp comprising more than 6,000 troops in 1875 this new core set about planting trees in the plains around vdor creating a new Forest intended to protect the road leading from the border to Paris the idea made

Quite a lot of sense dense formations of trees a very good cover for infantry troops they could hinder the efforts of artillery spotters and break down the momentum of Cavalry Charges more simplistically a few troops with sharp axes could quickly gather enough material to erect fortifications and

Trenches in the words of writer Jean Paul amart author of The Forest of the Great War the forest had become in 1914 an element of the defense system permanent and immediately mobilizable in its structures now the concept of trees against Invaders may have been sound in the time of good old-fashioned Warfare

You know the kind where battles were mostly conducted by means of inaccurate artillery and Bayonet charges but well then came June 1914 an adolescent shed an arch duuk in Saro in Europe reacted by committing suicide in early 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and then France the initial Advance was halted and

Battle line stabilized along the western front inaugurating that theater of Horrors known as trench warfare a spectacle enlivened by those special effects known as artillery barges and later chemical and gas Warfare more than 34,300 km of land were completely devastated in France and Belgium to put this into context that’s an area larger

Than the state of Hawaii or about twice the size of Wales across France and Belgium 5,168 towns and Villages for a total of almost 1 million houses and Farms had to be rebuilt or were abandoned after the war this destruction was most evident of the battle of Theon

From February to December 1916 both sides fired a total of 6 60 million artillery shells of which 15 million were left on the ground unexploded those that did go off completely destroy the top layer in the affecting area carving large shell craters which exposed the Limestone Bedrock by the end of 1916

Some 100 square kmers once covered by farmed Fields Gardens prairies and woods had been completely erased from existence as described by historian Christina Holstein the ground was just completely churned up any trees were smashed and Men took shelter where they could in Shell holes and in holes in the

Ground also Jean Paul lad described how the Imp fact of the constant fighting shelling machine gun strafing compromised or exhausted wood reserves disrupted the grounds to the point that the thermal or kinetic energies released was such that they caused the total mineralization of the environment in other words where the fury of the

Bombardments was fiercest all that remained of the soil was the mineral layer such a storm of metal could not but turn the battle into a meat grinder the French and German Army suffered a total of 300,000 dead and 400,000 wounded and those are the conservative estimates the despite all the best

Efforts of the respective armies up to onethird of the killed in action are believed to still lie on the battlefield waiting to be found and identified hostilities concluded with the November 1918 Armistice and in early 1919 the newly constituted French Ministry of the liberated territory set about to rebuild

The regions affected by vdar and other battles on the Western Front the ministry divided the areas into three zones green zones which had suffered minimal damage yellow zones where damage was heavy but still limited and the red zones closest to the front line where destru was almost complete an official

Postwar report described them as completely devastated damage to properties 100% damage to agriculture 100% impossible to clean human life impossible so while the green and yellow zones returned to civilian use relatively quickly the red zones were closed off to the general population on April the 17th 1919 a law transferred

Ownership to the state of such areas which would be prohibited from having any human activities the first order of business for the government was to clean the ground from unexploded ordinance debris and sadly human and animal remains this task was conducted by local laborers German PS workers imported from

As far as China or even Quaker volunteers the search for ammunition was conducted superficially due to the lack of metal detection technology at the time laborers were able to retrieve only the debris and shells found in the topmost layers of soil most of which were dumped into the ocean today we know

That most unexploded artillery remains unretrieved resting as deep as 15 M under the surface of the Earth the workforce also had the Grim task of collecting unidentified human remains mostly bones which continued through the 1920s after 1926 the exhumed remains were taken to the National necropolis the construction of that necropolis

Began in 1923 not far from one of the villages destroyed and later abandoned following the Battle of Adan from August 1925 soldiers buried in smaller cemeteries in the region were exhumed and transferred to the city of the Fallen by the time it was inaugurated on June the 23rd 1929 The Lawns were lined

By 16,144 white Graves belonging to Christian Muslim and Jewish soldiers as mentioned authorities transported to the necropolis the thousands of dead Unearthed within the red zones up to 500 per month eventually the remains of 130,000 French and German soldiers were buried at the Monumental arery within the Acropolis about half of them were

Identified and their families had their names engraved on the stones of the lower Vault underneath it another underground pit contains the bones of those who remain nameless and many many more will remain without formal identification as tens of thousands of bodies are still waiting to be found in

The red zones since the early 1920s French authorities realized that these masses of decaying bodies were responsible for the contamination of aquafire and other bodies of water for human consumption thus the authorities had to heavily chlorinate these Waters a process which became known in France as vidon isation by the early 1920s

Associations of farmers gradually retook ownership of some of the reclaimed areas although as we shall later see these were not nor would ever be entirely cleared as per the most damaged lands the government realized that their efforts of recovery for agricultural use were futile the cost would have far

Outweighed the economic value of the land but leaving the land to its own devices carried the risk of soil erosion and flash floods in the case of every Reigns a solution came from the French agricultural engineering Corp and the waters and Forest Service these authorities proposed to convert The

Lunior Zone into heavily forested areas which could have performed three functions first prevent locals from farming the Red Zone an activity which carried the everpresent risk of death by explosion or poisoning second to Stave off erosion and third preserve the memory of the fallen through the very presence of these new Woodlands thus

Almost 36 million trees were planted in the 1920s and 30s while the soil may have been contaminated apparently his top layer broken by shelling made it easy for new trees to penetrate into the Fertile Earth and the experts in charge made the right choice of trees to plant

Resilient conifers such as Spruce and black pine by the 1970s conifers had been gradually and naturally replaced by deciduous trees such as Beach it appeared that over time the Flora reintroduced by man had taken over its own destiny and evolved by itself so it’s now time to tell you about what is

Still found in the designated red zones if you take a stroll in one of these zones which you Absolut absolutely should not you may be able to spot visual momentos of the Raging battles of the Western Front shrapnel from artillery unexploded ordinance or even shells used for chemical weapons

According to a 2014 lemon’s newspaper article the areas around vidon were littered with 200,000 shells belonging to the French and German chemical arsenals unexploded conventional chemical shells are a constant danger to those who Venture into the current Red zones or who farm the land in the former

Red zones this is why twice a year during the planting and sewing season local farmers pay extra attention to any bit of metal which may protrude from their fields according to Joseph hoopy a geographer at the University of Wisconsin ol Clair I heard several stories of where people were plowing and

A shell went off they weren’t killed but they had cow bells ringing in their heads from the shell going off not everybody’s been so lucky since the end of World War I at least 900 people have died due to old shells suddenly blowing up again according to hoop the people

Who die in the Munitions removal they don’t really die from the explosive ones they die from gas shells any piece of unexploded ordinance is reported to a specialized mine clearing Brigade in Mets for them to collect it safely this recurring cycle is eventually given birth to an annual event known as the

Iron Harvest definitely an appropriate title depending on sources the annual yield of such Harvest varies from 30 to 900 tons of ammunition 2% of these are chemical warfare shells still containing mustard gas fine and dine according to Christian clar head of the mine clearing brigades to achieve a complete cleanup

Quote it will still take at least tens of years historian Christina hollstein is even more pessimistic according to her it may take an estimated 300 years before the battlefield of AD Dawn is completely cleared and that is only one of the remaining red zones beside the visible presence of ammunition what

Makes the red zones particularly dangerous is the presence of a constant unseen threat and that’s contamination caused by cartridges bullets bombs as well as the bacteria resulting from the decomposition of animal and human bodies in 2007 toar boinger and yannes pro researchers at Gutenberg University in Mains Germany followed a paper trail

Dating back to 1928 looking for a site where French authorities had incinerated unexploded chemical shells left over from the Battle of Adon their research took them inside in Oak Forest Northeast of Adon where they discovered a vast Circle 70 M wide where more than 200,000 chemical shells may have been burned by

Authorities dubs the gas Square by the Main’s researchers this circle was still covered in Ash and charcoal and was surrounded by a sickly vegetation of moss and lyen needless to say the ground underneath and around gas Square was heavily contaminated in the same year Binger Pro and the national French

Forestry office published a more comprehensive analysis of the soil in the red zone close to the dawn they found that the ground was replete with Metals such as mercury copper zinc and Lead but most of all with Arsenic and ammonium percate a compound used in the detonation device of artillery shells

Mushrooms game meat and other food foraged or hunted in current and former red zones might be heavily Laden with toxins the livers of wild bores for example have been found to contain abnormally high levels of lead wine makers are particularly encouraged to verify the provence of the wood used to

Make their barrels and if they are made from Oak harvested in former red zones they might contaminate the wine with lead arsenic concentration is particularly worrying it’s a th000 to 10,000 times higher than average in some locations arsenic constitutes up to 17.6% of the soil the presence of this

Element can prevent the normal growth of healthy vegetation if any vegetation at all and it can easily permeate the local aquires thus endangering the health of even those who live far removed from the Red Zone the same can be said of ammonium percate in Autumn of 2012 the

Drinking water of some 500 towns and villages in northeastern France was declared as not fit for consumption due to abnormally High rates of this compound local authorities didn’t specify by the origin of the pollution but in 2014 the newspaper Lamont speculated that contamination from old ordinance was responsible one century

After the start of the war civilians still incurred the risk of being poisoned by the lingering ghosts of weapons Silent but still deadly I realized at the picture that we painted so far is rather apocalyptic but there is evidence supporting the idea that once Luna formed areas have bounced back

To life thanks to reforestation efforts in the 1920s and 30s and to the absence of a certain species with enormous potential for good as well as the tendency to behave like the most toxic parasite I.E Homo sapiens in November 2018 exactly 100 years after the Armistice the BBC visited nine ghost

Villages within the Red Zone referred to by the local press as Mort P France or dead for the sake of France well to be fair three out of the nine settlements were at least partially rebuilt which means that six remain technically dead and they were kept this way on purpose

As an involuntary Monument of the sacrifices endured by civilians during the war what BBC reported Melissa banigan could not help but notice was that these villagers were not exactly dead the houses built by man and later destroyed by man have been taken over by the unrelenting March of nature namely

Oaks horse chestnut and Austrian Pines interestingly the latter were donated by Germany’s Ally Austria as part of their War reparations Olivier dard director of the duer commented nature and life always find a way indeed nature is found a way it appears that over the course of the decade the millions of planted trees

Had absorbed enough contaminants from the toxic soil to allow unique species of Flora and FAA to thrive back in 2013 the French national forests office commissioned an aerial survey of the forest growing in the vidon Red Zone a small plane through over the area equipped with a laser emitting constant

Near infrared pulses this methodology known as light detection and ranging or liar allowed the forest’s office to map with utmost Precision the forest’s vegetation as well as the remnants of the battlefield such as old trenches bunkers and shell holes this initial survey allowed the forest’s office to conduct further research thus

Determining that new flora and even forer had gradually taken over what was once a no man’s land in particular researchers found that shell crate is have become very popular with Wildlife as they were frequently flooded by rainfall and made for a protected ecological niche new settlers in these craters included yellow belly toad

Several species of nutes and even rare orchids a rare site among the forests of northern France underground shelters dug up by both German and French troops have been conquered by nearly 15 different species of bats the entrances to these dugouts guarded by plants found nowhere else in French such as horsetails Ferns

And blue-eyed grass the latter is actually a blue flowering plant normally found in the Americas it’s possible that the blue-eyed grass was likely unwittingly brought to France by the Doughboys the soldiers of the American expeditionary Force who reached the Western Front in 1918 it is comforting to know that their unmarked Graves away

From home or the graves of any other Soldier fall in the red zones would never be left without flowers the metaphorical scars left by conflicts across the world are unpredictable sometimes nations are able to move on surprisingly quickly and past enemies learn how to cooperate for the future

Good of the Next Generation far too often the shock waves planted decades ago still reverberate around past battlefields ebbing and flowing in intensity yet never allowing for Old Wounds to fully heal the same unpredictability can be applied to the physical scars left upon the innocent and unwitting Earth always the defeated

Party regardless of who is the Victor will the scars of France’s red zones ever heal will those areas ever recover and return to their past pre-war State the simple answer appears to be no the complicated answer would be well maybe depending on three further centuries of concerted cleanup effort but one might

Answer with another question does it really matter as we have learned from the previous section nature appears to have moved on to have reclaimed a land from the hands of an undeserving kind Nature has moved on following an agenda of our own