#fleury-devant-douaumont

Fleury-devant-Douaumont France, December 2018.

Full photo gallery online here.

Fleury-devant-Douaumont

One of the eight “villages that died for France”, Fleury-devant-Douaumont lies within the French Zone Rouge. The area is saturated with live explosive and gas shells, grenades and ammunition. The ground is so polluted by lead, mercury, chlorine, arsenic, animal and human remains that it remains uninhabitable over 100 years after the end of the war.

In 2013 German tourists discovered the remains of 26 French soldiers that had died during the Battle of Verdun. A tree stump in the crater where the soldiers where found has been carved into a sculpture as a memorial to the men. The location of individual residences and town structures are marked with pillars along where the village street used to lay. A chapel was built in the early 1930’s as a place where those that survived the war could meet when visiting the site where their village once thrived.

Fleury-devant-Douaumont had a population of 422 before the Great War. The village is represented by Mayor Jean-Pierre Laparra, but the population of the town today is officially zero.

I visited a number of the Village Détruit while I was in the Verdun area. Each one was a quiet, peaceful but very sad place.

André Maginot Monument, Fleury-devant-Douaumont France, December 2018.

Full photo gallery online here.

André Maginot Monument

Born in Paris in 1877, André Maginot spent part of his childhood in the Alsace-Lorraine region. Alsace-Lorraine had been annexed by the German Empire after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War just six years before Maginot’s birth. French bitterness and resentment over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine would be one of the contributing factors to the start of the Great War.

At 20 years old Maginot began a career in government and was the Under-Secretary for War in August 1914. At the start of the war Maginot enlisted in the army and was posted at the Lorraine front. The Lorraine included the city of Verdun and Maginot was wounded in the leg during the 1916 Battle of Verdun.

Following the war Maginot returned to government. His experience in the war, where he witnessed the strength of the Verdun forts, along with his growing distrust of Germany resulted in his advocacy for increased defense of France. In 1926 he was able to convince to government to allocate funding to begin building a massive line of fortifications along the border between France and Germany.

In 1932 Maginot died in the city of his birth and was mourned throughout France. Construction on the border defenses continued following his death and this line came to bear his name. The Maginot Line was set to be a formidable deterrent to German aggression along the border.

Regrettably, Maginot and those that continued his work, had not only failed to learn the lessons of the First World War, they had also failed to realize the technological changes that had taken place in armaments.

As United States General George S. Patton once said “fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man.” In May 1940 the Nazis simply bypassed the Maginot Line by invading France from the north by land through Belgium, as they had successfully done 26 years earlier, while the Luftwaffe flew over defenses that were utterly incapable of stopping them. The French were able to hold the German Empire on the Western Front for over 4 years during the Great War. The 1940 Battle of France lasted less than 6 weeks before France surrendered to the Nazis. 

Monument Chapelle Ste Fine, Fleury-devant-Douaumont France, December 2018.

Full photo gallery online here.

Monument Chapelle Ste Fine

A touching and sad monument to the French 130th Division that fought in this area during the Battle of Verdun. This monument represents the farthest German advance during the battle.

All what remains of Fleury.

That would be Fleury-devant-Douaumont, "the village that died for France."  

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of at least 20 soldiers killed during the First World War after a chance discovery by a group of tourists.

The bones were pulled from the earth at the scene of the destroyed village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, in Meuse, north-east France, after hikers spotted a bone sticking out of the ground.

Many personal belongings belonging to the deceased have also been uncovered, including ammunition, rings, watches, scissors, military books and wallets.

It is believed the location where the remains were found was a first aid station located in the basement of a house, which was completely blown apart by the impact of an artillery shell in June 1916.