Moreover, all soldiers wore metal ‘dog tags’ in a form particular to their army – the French even had two, at neck and wrist. Even if all the flesh was gone there would often be some uniform left. A few years after the fighting the bodies would not be nude skeletons. Many of the people who visit the ossuary and many who consult the internet sites come away with the following impression: After the War, many thousands of skeletons were found all over the battlefield since you can’t tell a German skull from a French one, no identification was possible, and so all the bones were put together in one great ossuary.īut that can’t be a true account, can it? If it was true, why didn’t the same apply on other battlefields, such as the Ypres or the Somme? At Ypres there are separate British and French and German cemeteries, which means that for pretty well every single body that was found there it was possible at the very least to tell which army the man had belonged to. I was puzzled by what my friends told me, and even more by what I found when I looked up some internet sites. They told me about the ossuary there: a building containing the bones of 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers. Some friends were just back from visiting Verdun. My first posting seems to have raised not much interest, so I’ll try again. If it is not so, what is wrong with the above reasoning? If that is so, why don't I find that stated explicitly anywhere on any website, and why isn't it made clear to visitors to the monument? Therefore, I presume, the bones of 130,000 bodies were DELIBERATELY mixed together when the monument was made in the 1920s - even though it would have been possible to keep the French and German bodies mostly separate, had that been desired. If that were conceivable, you'd expect to find quite a few thousand such cases at Ypres yet, as far as I know, there aren't any graves there at all where the country of the dead man is undetermined. Surely it can't be true that all these 130,000 men were killed at Verdun in such a way that every vestige of their uniform disappeared. And yes, especially recommended for those of us who somehow think hating other (groups of) people, violence or war is a good idea in any instance.Įdit: threw some atmosphere impression pics in this album.After talking to some friends just back from Verdun I'm puzzled about the Douaumont Ossuary.įrom my friends and from various websites I learn that the bones of 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers are there - all mixed up together.Ī soldier may be 'unidentified', but that doesn't mean you can't tell which side he was fighting for. How easy we, humans, traded other human lives once. ![]() I'd seriously recommend anyone and everyone to travel there. Still waiting for a Hollywood movie on that one, to be honest. I might have some names remembered wrong.) (Source: my father, who has spent A LOT of time researching the WWI battlefront, and taking me on trips occasionally, once to Douaoumont so far but we might return there. It was however facing towards the French side, but still, the French wasted 300.000 men trying to get the fort back. ![]() Not a shot was fired - according to stories, one knee was scraped - and basically 10 men took over the fort from the French. And how Lieutenant Radtke entered with his men too. How Pioneer-Sargeant Kunze entered the fort alone (at first, his men showed up behind him). There are stories of the German machine gunners on nearby Mort Homme, asking their superiors if they could stop, since the British kept on marching towards them British superiors told their men to march proudly, if they didn't show any fear they'd survive.īut the most crazy WWI story, and my absolute favorite story (even though it is horrible) is about the fort Douaoumont. There was a small supply route kept open through the otherwise German occupied area, to wheel in more men as cannon fodder. In the area in front of the fort (some 4 acres), more men found death than could be fitted there standing upright. So many men - and boys, as we would see most of them now - died there. ![]()
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