Verdun 1916

[Le_Treport]

Interesting article in today's Indy about the 90th anniversary of the start of the Verdun battles:-

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article346732.ece

[Papineau]

There is only one French cemetery on the Verdun battlefield but it is the largest First World War cemetery in Europe. There are more than 15,000 marked graves.

Comment?

Notre Dame de Lorette is surely the largest French Cemetery with just over 40,000 burials. Many of the German cemeteries are bigger. Perhaps the author is confused by the figures of the ossuarie?

[paul guthrie]

Although there is only 1 cemetery on the battlefield there is another large one in the city which was shelled so much one can consider it part of the battlefield just as Wipers. This article is much better done than most on WW1, congratulations to the reporter.

[Papineau]

I am confused now: are not the cemeteries at Bras sur Meuse (6537 burials), Chattancourt (1726 burials), Esnes en Argonne (6,661 burials) and Avocourt (1,896) all on the "Verdun Battlefield" or are we defining Verdun as only the immediate area around the forts? The Poilus on Cote 304 and Mort Homme would have disagreed! There are also some smaller cemeteries in and around Verdun, including Le Faubourg Pave mentioned above.

I agree, it is an interesting article.

[healdav]

A very interesting article, but a little contentous inplaces for the purist!

Verdun was an important styrategic town and had been for centuries. Vauban would not have fortified it if it had not been.

The strategic postion was that verdun (and the ridge running down to St Mihiel and east to Nancy via Toul) was the last hill range before Paris. Once past there were only rolling fields and vineyards; not just to Paris, but right down to the Loire, in practice - and no more fortresses either.

Verdun had to be held, just as Fort Troyon had to be held in September 1914 to prevent a catastrophic breakthrough.

On the cemetery front, my guess is that the reporter was adding together the bodies that lie in the ossuary to the identified number that lie in the cemetery beside it. He hints at this, but doesn't say so explicitly.

There are many, many Muslim graves to be seen in most of the cemeteries. And they date from both WW1 and WW2. It is unfortunate that (so far, hopefully) the French war deaths website cannot be interrogated by regiment, place of death or reason. Thus, no analysis of probable numbers of Muslim (or at least colonial) dead can be made.

The disappeared villages part is rather truncated and gives a slightly inaccurate account.

In fact, ALL the disappeared villages in France (and goodness knows how many there were in total) still exist legally. They all have a mayor and council and they all have to keep the births, marriages and deaths registers, etc and submit them regularly. In each village the church has been rebuilt as a memorial chapel and each year on the saint's day (or nearest Sunday) of the church a Mass is held there. I have never come across an account or announcement of a village fete! I take people to two villages that are St Mihiel salient and not Verdun.

On 'ours was the bloodiest' - talk about a bizarre dispute - Verdun can certainly be said to be up there in the first few, if only becasue of the small battlefield and the numbers killed per square metre.

As the reporter says, this battle really enetered into the French soul because all the regiments in the army were rotated through there; so everyone saw it and heard about it.

And if you are really interested in ghosts on the battlefield, go to Verdun and walk around in the forests (for goodness' sake keep on the paths; the amount of unexploded is staggering) . The atmosphere is beyond eery. I took my parents there some years ago and even outside the Fleury museum my mother couldn't take it.

[towisuk]

John Litchfield who wrote the article on Verdun is a regular columnist for the newspaper and as such probably researched his information from various sources and we all know how some sources can be misleading. The Verdun battlefield can be considered one huge cemetery in which case he is correct but if we are talking about individually marked graves then Notre Dame de Lorette probably becomes the largest French cemetery.

Both locations also have ossuaries and in the case of Notre Dame de Lorette if memory serves me correctly I believe there is a mass burial plot.

Maybe someone on the forum with a bit more knowledge could confirm this for me.

Tom

[towisuk]

Notre Damme de Lorette looking west

[towisuk]

Tried again

[towisuk]

Notre Damme De Lorette Looking east

[Christina Holstein]

Do you have to subscribe to read this? I only get the first paragraph.

As a result, I can't comment but the first paragraph isn't quite correct. As David says, not for the purists. The first shell fell on Verdun, not on Douaumont village. I was in Verdun all last week. There were a number of ceremonies, both organised by local people and by the civic authorities. The local people are very keen on remembering their fallen men and in commemorating the destroyed villages. All the ceremonies were very well attended, despite extremely cold weather - even the evocation of the events in Caures Wood on 21st February 1916, which began at 6.30 am!

Christina

[gporta]

Do you have to subscribe to read this? I only get the first paragraph.

Christina,

I've also tried to read it, but we can't unless we are subscribers or pay 1£ for reading that particular article.

Gloria

[healdav]

You can find it in full on the HARPER's magazine website.

[Christina Holstein]

Right, I'll try it.

Christina