Ossuary at Verdun

[healdav]

From Ian Ousby's The Road to Verdun, page 268 :

In 1916 Verdun had been a charnel house, as the troops often put it ; after the war a charnel house, literally, was needed. In the 1920s the bones were gathered from the soil and placed in the crypt of the gigantic Ossuaire built on the site of the Ferme de Thiaumont, not far from where the Fort de Douaumont still stands. The number of these anonymous dead runs perhaps to 75,000 , perhaps to 150,000 , depending on which tourist brochure or guide book you read. Most of them remember to specify that all the bones are French.

Thank Goodness I've managed to find something to lend some support to my heretical contentions !

Phil (PJA)

And I don't believe a word of it (except for the utterly unknownable number of bodies that might be represented).

[phil andrade]

And I don't believe a word of it (except for the utterly unknownable number of bodies that might be represented).

That word " represented ", again.

Numbers unknowable, but, perhaps, guessable.

It might be revealing to use the ossuary at Notre Dame de Lorette as a yardstick : there are precise numbers given for that one, and its dimensions might yield a clue. The dead there are French, we're told.

Phil (PJA)

[Christina Holstein]

The German stone is now fully engraved and will be unveiled on Sunday. An article in yesterday's newspaper, the Est-Républicain, refers to the indignation expressed in certain quarters but only quotes one man. However, it also quotes the President of the Ossuary as saying that at Notre Dame de Lorette next November the names of the 600,000 men from all armies who went missing in the first battles of the war in the area will be engraved. I've not heard anything about that before. Does anyone else know anything about it? He surely can't mean 600,000.

This is the link to a discussion on the French 1418 forum dealing with the new stone in the Ossuary (all in French, I'm afraid):

http://pages14-18.mesdiscussions.net/pages1418/Pages-d-aujourd-hui-actualites-14-18-commemorations/verdun-ossuaire-sujet_2991_1.htm It hasn't attracted anything like the discussion it's led to here but two contributors make the point that the Ossuary was paid for by private donations from French families who wished to pay homage to their men and it is not for the present generation to change that.

According to one of the contributors, donations to the Ossuary also came from the Saar region of Germany. I'd not heard that before. I'll see what I can find out.

By the way, the French forum is amazed that our discussion can reach 7 pages - now 8 - without ending in a fight!

Christina

[ph0ebus]

This is the link to a discussion on the French 1418 forum dealing with the new stone in the Ossuary (all in French, I'm afraid):

http://pages14-18.mesdiscussions.net/pages1418/Pages-d-aujourd-hui-actualites-14-18-commemorations/verdun-ossuaire-sujet_2991_1.htm It hasn't attracted anything like the discussion it's led to here but two contributors make the point that the Ossuary was paid for by private donations from French families who wished to pay homage to their men and it is not for the present generation to change that.

Christina

I am pretty sure this belief is not in line with documents that suggest that the Ossuary and associated buildings were paid for by a variety of people, and not just French families. One of the sources I found was your own book!

I found the following story of an ossuary in Austria, which was intriguing...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/01/23/hallstatt_charnel_house_in_austria_has_hundreds_of_hand_painted_skulls.html

I wonder if there are any Great War-era 'residents'?

-Daniel

[Christina Holstein]

Yes, you're right, Daniel. It wasn't entirely paid for by French families, as a number of foreign cities also contributed. But clearly the two contributors, who are both French, regard the contributions made by French families as the most significant ones and therefore giving them the right to decide what happens inside.

Ossuaries were common in France until fairly recently, i.e. families got a grave plot for a certain length of time and then the bones were taken out and stored so as to free up the space for another family. I think the only one left in the Meuse dept. now is in Marville which isn't very far from Verdun. Here's a link to a photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/drakegoodman/10062893543/

It was partially vandalised some years ago. It's very small beer compared to this one in the Czech republic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary

Christina

[phil andrade]

By the way, the French forum is amazed that our discussion can reach 7 pages - now 8 - without ending in a fight!

Christina

The most discordant note on this thread has been struck by me ; even I have been diffident in my challenge.

I cannot help but think that the 130,000 ( or 150,000, if you will ) figure for Verdun is notional, or symbolic.

Bear in mind the terrific slaughter and intensity of the Artois battles of 1915. There had been a bloodbath there in 1914, too.

In May and June 1915, more than one hundred thousand French casualties ; another fifty thousand in September and October....the proportion of killed and missing was high, with few of the missing taken prisoner - in contrast with Verdun, where the majority of the French missing were captured by the Germans.

The number of graves in the French cemetery at NDdL exceeds that at Douaumont ....twenty thousand compared with fifteen thousand.

When the Canadians captured Vimy in April 1915 they found thousands of French corpses rotting there, left from fighting that had raged nearly a couple of years before. If ever there was a need for an ossuary, it was here.

And yet there are " only" twenty thousand interred there, even if they are all from the French armies.

If we allow for the notion that German dead in the Verdun ossuary are as numerous as those of the French - an argument that I, for one, am rather reluctant to endorse - the one hundred and thirty thousand figure still looks suspect.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

it also quotes the President of the Ossuary as saying that at Notre Dame de Lorette next November the names of the 600,000 men from all armies who went missing in the first battles of the war in the area will be engraved. I've not heard anything about that before. Does anyone else know anything about it? He surely can't mean 600,000.

Christina

Good grief, Christina !

Where do they get these figures from ?

I know I'm a bit of a number crunching nerd....but where's the sense of reality, the analysis and perspective ?

Editing : Given that close to three hundred thousand Frenchmen died in 1914, you could, at a stretch, suggest that six hundred thousand died along the entire Western Front in 1914....if you allow for a quarter of a million German dead there, which is rather a tall figure.....but in Artois alone ??!!

Phil (PJA)

[SiegeGunner]

I have to confess that ossuaries do not form part of the culture I belong to, and I do not entirely understand the principles of them, which is why I asked earlier whether the Ossuary contains all the bones recovered from the Verdun battlefield. I should perhaps have continued with 'or only representative elements such as skulls and long bones'. I am unclear whether the Ossuary is a repository for all the skeletal remains retrieved from the battlefield or a shrine containing selected elements that represent the dead of the battle of Verdun.

I have been to NDdL many times, but not to Douaumont, but I gather that the remains are contained in large caskets placed within alcoves corresponding to different areas of the battlefield, so we are not talking about the kind of mass assemblage of skulls and major bones, in open view, that can be seen at some older sites around Europe. Nevertheless, if the caskets do not contain 'everything', the residue not selected must have been disposed of somehow and somewhere, and some individuals represented only by fragmented bones may have been excluded altogether.

[phil andrade]

There are photos of the bones in the Ossuary, Mick, and they show bones of all kinds in heaps : certainly not neatly stacked skulls and femurs.

They testify to chaos and massacre by artillery, with all the attributes of fragmentation.

To my mind it's horrific, but eminently sensible.

Phil (PJA)

[spconnolly007]

I've not heard anything about that before. Does anyone else know anything about it? He surely can't mean 600,000.

Christina

Hi Chrisitina, the memorial that you refer to has been mentioned on the forum in the past. Hope the link works? http://www.nordpasdecalais.fr/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/dossier_de_presse_lorette_souchez_def_de_def.pdf

Regards,

Sean.

[Sly]

I've not heard anything about that before. Does anyone else know anything about it? He surely can't mean 600,000.

the figure of 600.000 seems to represent all the dead from all nationalities in the different Artois offensives. It won't be a memorial exclusively to the missing, bear in mind the French don't have any memorial to the missing (unlike the Commonwealth forces) , the french memorials are to all the dead, missing or not.

Sly

[phil andrade]

Six hundred thousand dead in Artois 1914-1918 ?

Yes......that seems plausible.

There was fighting there throughout the war.

That figure equates - roughly - to one sixth of all the dead from the Western Front.

The principal Artois British memorial to the Missing - or, more accurately, those with no known grave - carries some thirty five thousand names.

One of my family lies close to it : he died of wounds in March 1915 - a casualty of Neuve Chapelle.

Cabaret Rouge cemetery is where he is buried.

At least he was given identified burial ; unlike those commemorated on that memorial.

And let me bore you with reiteration....if six hundred thousand died in Artois, and the ossuary contains twenty thousand, does that not render the supposed 130,000 at Verdun rather implausible ?

Phil (PJA)

[Sly]

Phil,

I think this number seems plausible in a "large" area around Arras (I mean not only at Lorette), considering the numerous offensives there in 1914, May and September 1915, April 1917 and 1918...

Whereas I think the ossuary at Notre Dame de Lorette is for those who died on this hill or in the very close vicinity of Lorette. I think it's difficult to compare with Verdun...

Sly

[phil andrade]

Yes, point taken, Sly.

Artois is a big region, and the array of nationalities who fought and died there was more diverse than in the essentially Franco - German contest at Verdun.

It has been called " The Forgotten Front" by some British commentators. People think of Flanders and Picardy, Ypres and the Somme.

But Arras, Loos, Aubers.....dreadful fighting, all in Artois.

I hope the six hundred thousand names will include a couple of thousand Portuguese.

Let's hope, too, that by the end of the centennial commemorations there will be more people in Britain who, when they hear the name, will associate Artois with the ordeal of their forefathers, rather than with a brand of lager.

Phil (PJA)

[Fattyowls]

From Ian Ousby's The Road to Verdun, page 268 :

In 1916 Verdun had been a charnel house, as the troops often put it ; after the war a charnel house, literally, was needed. In the 1920s the bones were gathered from the soil and placed in the crypt of the gigantic Ossuaire built on the site of the Ferme de Thiaumont, not far from where the Fort de Douaumont still stands. The number of these anonymous dead runs perhaps to 75,000 , perhaps to 150,000 , depending on which tourist brochure or guide book you read. Most of them remember to specify that all the bones are French.

Phil (PJA)

Phil

I wouldn't want to you to burn at the stake for the sake of statistics taken from tourist brochures; the forum needs your attention to detail. I remember walking past a coach at Thiepval and hearing the coach driver solemnly reading from a tourist brochure to his passengers; one million British soldiers died in the battle of the Somme. I think the idea that the bones are all French in the ossuary at Douaumont may be an oft repeated "fact" which derives from concern for the feelings of the mothers of the dead who may not have been happy to think of the remains of their sons being mixed up with the enemy. I read somewhere that the change in attitude to the dead of the Great War in the UK during the 60's may have coincided with the passing of the mothers of the fallen.

Ousby is excellent for understanding the minds of the French who fought Verdun but I've always found him quite sketchy on details of the Battle itself; but then that's not ultimately what the book is about. It does contain a chapter titled "A Certain Idea of France" after all. He is also very careful not to take ownership of the numbers and facts that he quotes.

I agreee with Sly that the comparison between Notre Dame de Lorette and Verdun is not easy to make, and with the numbers being quoted with lots of zeros I wonder if there is a confusion between killed and casualties.

Pete.

[ph0ebus]

It would appear there is a tradition for ossuaries in Germany after all. For example:

http://empiredelamort.com/charnels-and-ossuaries/oppenheim_germany_a/

I was surprised (perhaps I shouldn't be!) that many of the bones have graffiti on them!

A list of German ossuaries, from the relevant wiki (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beinhaus#Deutschland)

• Baden-Württemberg: St. Georg in Gutach-Bleibach, St. Michael in Schwäbisch Hall (unter dem Chor), St. Michael neben der Pfarrkirche St. Gallus in Ladenburg
• Bayern (Beinhäuser und Karner): Allersburg, Altomünster, Arresting, Baldersheim (Aub), Breitenbrunn, Beratzhausen, Chammünster, Dingolfing, Marzoll, Perschen, Rottendorf, Roding: Josephikapelle mit Annakapelle, Sinzing, Großschönbrunn · Greding, Geltendorf-Walleshausen, Hemau, Landsberg am Lech, Pfaffenhofen bei Kastl, Rain, Staubing bei Weltenburg, Schorndorf, Reicholzried, Waischenfeld, Iphofen
• Hamburg: Unter dem Altar der St.-Josephs-Kirche
• Hessen: Beinhaus neben der Lutherischen Pfarrkirche St. Marien in Marburg, Michaeliskapelle in Wetzlar, St. Michael neben der Pfarrkirche (Kapellenkarner) in Kiedrich, Michaelskirche in Fulda (Krypta ursprünglich als Beinhaus verwendet), St. Michael (Limburg an der Lahn), Untergeschoss der Michaelskapelle an der Stiftskirche in Limburg-Dietkirchen, Untergeschoss der Michaelskapelle in Butzbach, Beinhaus (Alsfeld)
• Rheinland-Pfalz: Michaelskapelle in Alken an der Mosel (noch gefüllt), Michaelskapelle neben der Liebfrauenkirche in Koblenz (umgebaut), Michaelskapelle neben der Katharinenkirche in Oppenheim, Karden an der Mosel, bei der kath. Kirche St. Ulrich am Marktplatz von Deidesheim, unter der kath. Kirche St. Peter und Paul in Westhofen Als Variante sind am Mittelrhein kleinere romanische Kirchen zu beobachten, deren Altarraum erhöht wurde, um darunter einen Raum zu schaffen, der wahrscheinlich als Beinhaus Verwendung fand. Nachzuweisen ist diese Form in der alten Kirche St. Servatius in Koblenz-Güls, in St. Laurentius in Koblenz-Moselweiß (Raum im Barock entfernt) und in St. Johannis in Niederlahnstein (Raum rekonstruiert).
• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Beinhaus (Bad Doberan), Kloster Doberan (frühgotisches Beinhaus)
• Niedersachsen: Knochenturm in Einbeck
• Nordrhein-Westfalen: St. Ursula (Goldene Kammer)

-Daniel

[Christina Holstein]

Sean,

Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen it before. It will be an extraordinary memorial.

Christina

[phil andrade]

Yes....this planned memorial intrigues me.

I don't feel comfortable with the notion of insisting that German names be imposed on French or British memorials, or vice versa. That implies a kind of censure on the feelings of our grandparents.

This differs, and allows us to commemorate humanity rather than nations, without distorting the message left by those who built the original memorials.

If every single victim of the Artois fighting can be identified by name, it will demonstrate the ability to find a definitive resolution of some of the disputes about the casualty statistics of the Great War.

Phil (PJA)

[keithmroberts]

OK

I have removed some posts.

Firstly, and while appreciating the limitations that this imposes, this Forum is an English language forum. Brief quotations and extracts in other languages are of course welcome, as are links to documents and sources in other languages, but posts must be primarily in English.

Secondly, and just as important, we are here to discuss the Great War, and not to resume hostilities. Debate is welcome, in measured terms.

Keith Roberts

[phil andrade]

You're the " guvnor", Keith, when it comes to this sort of selection.

You'll forgive me, I hope, if I remonstrate that Jadot's post was pertinent and illuminating, and extremely important testimony.

A little bit of exercise in the French language is no bad thing, especially while discussing Verdun.

Phil (PJA)

[keithmroberts]

Can we stay on-topic please. Anyone unhappy with my decision is welcome to discuss it by PM.

Keith Roberts

[phil andrade]

Breach of protocol on my part, Keith.

Apologies.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Take a look at that link that Sean sent us, and look at the upper part of page ten.

There is a breakdown of numbers which catches my eye.

CWGC gives 294,000 names for burials and commemorations in this region. That's a colossal number. So much for the " Forgotten Front". I wonder if Artois and Pas de Calais are one and the same. Still, it was the region of relentless fighting from start to pretty well the end, with the April- May 1917 Battle of Arras being especially prodigal in British lives.

The French figure is placed at 105,000, reflecting the relinquishing of the sector to British armies in the earlier part of the war.

The German list is said to comprise 174,000 names, furnished by the VDK.

This is qualified with the statement that the list is incomplete on account of the destruction of records in the Second World War.

My French might be letting me down here, but I suspect there is a kind of mistake or misunderstanding in this reckoning.

Could it be that the 174,000 relates to the number of German dead interred in their military cemeteries in Artois, rather than the actual number who died there ? And many of that number are buried in mass graves, and would be unidentified. More to the point, a great many additional German dead have not been recovered for burial - or, if buried, were subsequently lost and remain missing. This is indicated by the VDK statement that, although 130,000 German soldiers from the Great War are buried in cemeteries in Belgium, a further 80,000 to 90,000 remain unrecovered. If that is true for Belgium, one might assume the same applies for France, to a greater or lesser degree.

An additional one hundred thousand German dead from the Great War might well remain unrecovered in Artois...giving a total of about 275,000 : given the Anglo - French total of c.400,000 , that seems plausible.

If my suspicions are correct, there has been a conflation of names with burials. How many of the nearly fifty thousand German dead in the cemetery near Arras are buried in a mass grave ? And how many of them are named ?

Phil (PJA)

[CROONAERT]

How many of the nearly fifty thousand German dead in the cemetery near Arras are buried in a mass grave ? And how many of them are named ?

If you are meaning the Maison Blanche cemetery at Neuville St.Vaast, there are 8040 buried in the Kameradengrab. 7248 of these are unknowns as are 615 of the individually marked graves in the cemetery.

Bear in mind that some victims of the Artois fighting are buried in German cemeteries on the Somme too (Vermandovillers contains quite a few, as does Rancourt) amongst other areas.

Dave

[phil andrade]

Thanks again, Dave.

It's reassuring to know you're keeping an eye on this, because I realise that I'm making speculative comments.

Bearing in mind the terrific efforts the Germans made in Artois, on the defensive in 1915 and 1917, and attacking in the autumn of 1914 and the spring of 1918 ( their casualties on 28 March being especially dreadful ) it does seem hard to believe that their overall death toll in that region was fewer than half that sustained by the Allies. Two thirds, I would have thought, would be nearer the mark.

In my mind's eye I see a very worthy and enterprising French commemorative effort here, asking the VDK for information about the numbers, and assuming that the 174,000 are all named.....when, in fact, the German organisation is just relaying its statistics about the number of German nationals from 1914-18 who are known to be buried in the region. That said, I'm surprised to infer that, according to the info. you've just posted, five sixths - approx. - of all those Germans in that huge cemetery are identified....if my assumption that there are forty five plus thousand interments there is correct. A much better ratio than that of so many British counterparts. And, perhaps, an indication of immense numbers of unrecovered German dead.

I would also assume that significant numbers from the CWGC's 294,000 died from wounds received in Flanders and Picardy.

Phil (PJA)