You Can Still Die From World War I Dangers in France’s Red Zones
In some parts of France, World War I has never ended. These are the Zones rouges—an archipelago of former battlegrounds so pockmarked and polluted by war that, more than a century after the end of hostilities, they remain unfit to live or even farm on.
WWI was the first industrial war and a laboratory for all kinds of military innovations, including the first use of tanks and poison gas. Both the German and the Allied war machines belched out deadly explosives and lethal chemicals on a massive scale. It is estimated that around 60 million shells rained down near Verdun during the fierce battles over that city in 1916—of which 15 million didn’t explode upon impact.
Four years of war stripped a zone on either side of the largely immobile frontline of any sign of life. Roads and bridges, canals and railways were destroyed. Cities were pummeled into dust. Entire villages “died for France” and were wiped off the map for good.
Bombardments were so thorough that even grass and trees disappeared. When the war ended in November 1918, a large swathe of northern to eastern France was so cratered up and chewed out that it looked like a moonscape. In all, about 7 percent of French territory was destroyed during the war, in a zone stretching over 4,000 municipalities across 13 departments, from the Nord at the coast to the Bas-Rhin on the Swiss border.
