WWI Zone Rouge In France
 

I was reading about the Battle of Verdun in WWI. Verdun was an ancient city northeast of Paris, and was considered the strong point of protection from the Germans advancing on Paris itself. In a 10-month fierce battle in 1916, there were 700,000 casualties, including at least 150,000 dead on both sides, along with tens of thousands of civilian deaths and the death of thousands of animals. Both sides called the battlefield "The Hell of Verdun." In 1918, France declared an area around the size of NYC the "Zone Rouge" or "Red Zone." These were areas of battlefields too dangerous to try to recover. No farming, logging, home building, nothing. Too many unexploded bombs and environmental dangers from poison gas cannisters to just disease and filth from all the death.

So the French Government has been working on these "Red Zones" for over 100 years, trying to clean them up. The off limit areas now are down to around 70 square miles. Over 900 French citizens have died since the end of the war from previously unexploded ordnance. Last incident was in the 1990s.

The French Government thinks it may take another 100 years or more to make all the "Red Zone" safe to re-occupy. Crazy. You can read about the Red Zone here:

https://brilliantmaps.com/zone-rouge/

Yeah, it's just not something that we have ever had to deal with. Here's one from earlier this year in Exeter:

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Verdun was designed by the German command to be a war of attrition. The idea was to draw as many French into the battle to weaken them on other battle fields like the Somme to the north. The idea wasn't to move on Paris, it was simply to kill as many French Soldiers as possible until the French Army was bled dry. Pretty stark summation of "battle tactics" in 1916. Soldiers were seen as war material and expendable.

The front along the Meuse River was around 35 miles long. The battle ground was about 70 square miles. On those 70 square miles, it is estimated that more than 1,000 shells fell per square mile during the battle. The land was totally pulvarized, at least a half dozen french villages no longer exist to this day, because they were in the Zone Rouge and the French Government forbade rebuilding them.

Yeah, WWI is an underrated hellhole. WWII gets all the glory, but It's hard for me to think any point in history was worse than The Somme or Verdun. ****ing horror show.

If you haven't listened to Dan Carlin's Blueprint for Armageddon, it's a good listen. I don't think it's free anymore, but my GOD it's a fantastic listen.

Oh, I'll have to read that when I get a minute. I find this sort of stuff interesting.

I read at one point that the World War II death count is still going up because every year some Bedouin in North Africa will walk on a land mine near Tobruk or El Alamein.

I just watched a movie about the Somme last night ironically.

One of the main reasons the French didn't fight much against Germany during WWII is they never really recovered from WWI. Just didn't have the stomach for it.

WW1's death toll, like the extreme death in the Civil War, was due to commanders using antiquated battle methods in wars where the weaponry was far superior to the tactics.

The British lost 20,000 KIA in ONE DAY in the first battle of the Somme, because generals kept sending infantry in wave after wave into interlocking machine gun fire. WWI saw the first widespread use of chemical weapons, barbed wire, hand grenades, and high explosive artillery. The sad thing is, they never really altered their tactics until the very end of the war, and even then they were sending guys over the top in trench warfare. Just insane. Furthermore, both sides built the trenches to be "temporary shelter," which of course led to flooding, rats, trench foot, horrible disease, etc. Lots of soldiers died from sickness in the trenches instead of bullets or artillery.

Well, when people call the French "pussies" they need to study WWI. They lost an entire generation of young men in four years.

To future generations, World War II was by and large a grand adventure story spanning the globe. World War I was a bunch of people dying in mud.

If memory serves, the French lost "just" 100,000 or so more than the Brits.

I think the Germans lost the most of anybody.

I heard the percentages on the number of 18-30 year old men that died in the war is ****ing appalling.

[QUOTE=gblowfish;On those 70 square miles, it is estimated that more than 1,000 shells fell per square mile during the battle. The land was totally pulvarized, at least a half dozen french villages no longer exist to this day, because they were in the Zone Rouge and the French Government forbade rebuilding them.[/QUOTE]

I read (I can't remember if it was in "A Storm in Flanders" or "Now it can be Told") Passchendaele got the same treatment tilling up the soil to a depth of around 4-5ft. then it rained for days and days and days creating a muck something like quicksand. Men were literally drowning in the shit. One of the soldiers talked about seeing men drowning in mud and not having the heart to mercy shoot them, so they had to watch many of them slowly sink away.

It literally wiped out entire industries, because the knowledge that was passed from generation to generation was snuffed out and ceased to exist.

Beat me to it.

My old ass phone had a bunch of Carlin stuff downloaded to it and I can't remember my login for my Carlin account. The battery was dead and the reason I replaced it was because my charging port was failing. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't get it to take a charge.

So I bought one of those little adapter stickers that you work onto your battery for older phones so you can use it on a charging pad. I finally got some life into the batter and immediately got all that stuff transferred into my dropbox account so I could get it back on my new phone.

Yeah, it's not free anymore, nor is Ghosts of the Ostfront or King of Kings. Those are all spectacular. They're worth a few bucks to get them.

But honestly, the present Supernova in the East series will tell you want you want to know. Download and listen to that, if you enjoy it, get yourself an account and download a bunch of others.

I went to the WWI museum in KC last weekend.

Grim savagery. I think I got depressed just looking at the medical gear.

They Shall Not Grow Old was chilling in that regard. Just an incredible and brutal watch.

I assume many of you know that Carlin's 'War Remains' virtual reality experience was donated to the WWI Museum? I haven't been there yet but by all accounts it is incredible.

This is why I can't be too hard on the French for their 'performance' in WWII.

Ask yourself how eager the United States would be to fight today if from 1995-2000 the we lost roughly 1/4 of our men of child bearing age.

To put that in perspective, that's gonna be roughly 15 million men aged 18-40 years old based on our present population.

The French got wiped the **** out. It was really just unbelievable.

Such a ****ing waste.


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Didn't seem to bother the Germans or the Brits, did it.

The British lost far fewer people than the French and the German's were taken over by a Totalitarian State. Additionally, Germany had nearly twice the population of France heading into WWII and was about 60% more than France in WWI.

Russia was nearly twice Germany at both time periods.

On a proportional basis, nobody got hit as hard as France did. It really messed that country up for a very long time.

Not to mention all the trouble France caused 100 years prior from the Napoleonic Wars. I'm surprised they were even allowed to have a military after those wars by the other European powers.

Well, sure, it was mostly fought on their soil. France lost something like 4% of their population during WWI. The Brits lost about 2.5%, I think.

But, France still started WWII with 5 million troops. The Germans had 2.5 million.

My recollection was that Germany had more soldiers than France at the outset of WWII but I'd have to look that up somewhere to confirm.

But what I don't need to look up was that Germany was the aggressor that had begun in/around 1935 in re-armament with the intent of eventually kick-starting another European war. So while France may have had troops, they weren't out there building massive armored divisions, a Navy that could compete with Great Britain and probably the most formidable air force in the world at the time.

Again, Germany was taken over by a totalitarian state and had essentially created a wartime economy 4-5 years before the war actually started.

France began re-arming around 1936 as well, and in 1940, her army was well-equipped and considered to be one of the best in the world, including armored forces. The issue is that the French made a number of strategic blunders before the Battle of France. They still had a hard-on for infantry. They didn't believe that the Germans would be able to push through the Ardennes and go around the Maginot Line. Basically, they weren't ready for a new kind of warfare (Blitzkreig). Some of them actually fought really well and did help slow the Germans going after the Brits.

Yes, people give the French shit over it, and deservedly so. But, I think what really makes people sick is that they not only surrendered very quickly, but that many of them also actively collaborated with the Germans thereafter and did some pretty nasty things of their own volition.

In fairness, I don't think anyone other than Germany thought the Germans could get THAT kind of manpower through the Ardennes.

But yes, the real beef I think people have (or at least, historians - I don't think laypeople bother with the distinction) comes from the actions of the Vichy French government.

Yeah, if Carlin produces it, I'll listen. There is a bunch of stuff I disagree with him on, but you can bet there won't be a point he makes that isn't well thought out and coming from a position of research.

Did you read his book? Honestly, he's better without editors. Some of the meandoring he goes on referencing other history and perspectives that I likely haven't heard is totally worth the price of admission.

I got an audible account and have listened to a bunch of history books, just to try to fill the Carlin void with SOMETHING.

I bought it for my brother in law but he told me there's a ton of overlap if you've listened to most/all of the podcasts.

I typically don't listen to his shorter stuff; the Common Sense series, etc... I neither need nor want to know his politics.

And I'm going to guess the ones you pay for are MP3 files you download and then upload to your phone or something?

Yup. But you can download the free ones from the website as well, IIRC.

I've been to Verdun twice and its a rough town, like it never really could blossom after the war. The walls of the fort are up and there is a new museum dedicated to the Battle.

Outside of town you can tour Fort Douaumont ("Fort Dua-mo") and there's an incredible memorial nearby. From the outside of the memorial, you can peer into the windows and see the foundation of the memorial. It is stacked of skulls and bones of the dead. Chilling.

I doubt you could drive 25 miles in Northeast France without coming across a WWI battlefield, cemetary, or shrine.

This is how my wife will eventually get me to agree to a trip to France. I've seen photos of that giant ossuary and yeah - I can't even imagine how unnerving that would be in person.

But I want to do a WWI tour of France and just see all these historic battlefields and museums/monuments.

The depravity of mankind never ceases to amaze me.

The things we have done to other living souls is deplorable.

The Rape of Nanjing is another horror show.

If you're ever in London, I recommend a visit to the Imperial War Museum. It's close to Waterloo station and easy to get to. It's well worth the time if you're interested in this kind of stuff.