So,

the last few days I realized a dream of mine that i had for the last three years: A trip to the ruins of the battlefield of Verdun.

Verdun was one of the longest, bloodiest slaughters of the first world war. It took place in 1916, which is now about 90 years ago.

The idea to travel there was inspired by an old picture from the second world war, which was taken by our (now dead) neighbour of my parents.

This guy was a cook in the war and apparently he was stationed in France and while being there, he took a picture of the Ossuaire, the “Beinhaus”, which was a burial site of 150000 soldiers, who couldn’t be identified after the war. The picture was a grainy black nd white, showing a building that looked a lot like a huge bunker but with a grenade shaped tower in the middle.

I had no clue what it was, but I had a slight idea what to look for and after a few weeks I finally found out, what and where it was. Some more research and I read the story behind this building and then started to gather more information about Verdun and the Battle there. So my interes was piqued and I really wanred to go there. Problem was always lack of funds or time, since only in summer and fall all the buildings are accessible.

Now that I had two days of vacation to spare, I decided it was time to go there and see for myself.

The car ride to it was adventurous to begin with. At some point I had to leave the autobahn near the airbase Ramstein (yes, that’s where the band has the name from, in the 80ies there was a catastrophinc air show where planes crashed into bystanders, killing 42 of them and wounding many others in a giant fireball of burning kerosene) to go pee. When I did that, I heard in the background expolosinons and gunfire from the nearby proving grounds. Made me shiver, since this was the kind of battlenoice, a participant of the Verdun battle would have hear on his way there.

Anyways.

On the first day I checked out the Fort Douamont, which was mostly devastated.

(Frontview of Fort Douamont today. Notice the lighter colored rocks. This is where grenades went through the roof and exploded inside the fort.)

 I couldn’t believe that 90 years after the war the landscape was still *everywhere* a friggin crater landscape, it looked like the moon – just in green. Grenadehole besides grenadehole and some were of almost ridiculous size. Even the concrete, feet and feet thick was penetrated in the fort. To know that almost 700000 people died on this tiny spot made my gag the whole day.

(On top of the Fort. The fort was covered with a several meter thick layer of earth. The craters shown here are about 2-5 Meters deep, twice a mans size.)

(Sideview of the Fort. Notice the barbwire on top of it that has been there for 90 years now. Notice how crumbled the side looks. It had been hit by hundreds (!) of grenades eating away more than two meters of its concrete during the war.)

(Barbwire on top of the Fort. Notice the big iron stakes that were used to hold it in the ground. I almost stepped into one of them when i looked into the forests later on.)

(On top of the Fort still. Craters next to craters!)

(View down to the entrance of the Fort. I entered it and took some pictures inside.)

(Various exploded shells. On the floor there are two old landmines. Notice one of the shells that looks like anopened flower with petals. This was one of the millions of gas shells they shot at each other.)

(More shells in the same room inside the fort. Unfortunately most rooms inside were too dark for my shitty digicam to take good looking pictures. Forgetting my big flashlight while I was in this Fort didn't help for sure either. The biggest shell you can see is 40cm calibre. Huge and heavy - no chance for me to lift the empty shell when i tried.)

(Here you can see a walkway inside the Fort. This has been shot on a sunny day i nfall, after a week without rain. It is incredibly wet in there in all the rooms, so you can imagine how it must be in winter or after rainfall.)

(Leaving the Fort, view towards the forest in which I went to see a Bunker.)

After taking pictures of the outside of the ruined fort and some of the inside (just seeing the latrines, which were intended for 700 people but had to be used by 3500 made me cringe – 6 (six) toilets for them with no running water – magine the stink. It still smelled like death and decay in there!) I proceeded into the forest to check out a small bunker nearby. 

(South of the bunker. This side was facing the french artillery batteries. It is totally open towards that side, the bunker wall facing this way is not existant at all anymore.)

I had read about it before but seeing how tiny this thing was made me scared. Hundreds tried during the battle to reach the safety of this bunker. When I say it, I realized how devastated they must have been, when they finally arrived there. While the walls and ceiling was still there, the front side was totally opened by gunfire, exposing the occupants to enemy fire. There was *no shelter to be found in it, literally a death trap.  

(Horribly overexposured, same Bunker. Not a single tree inthis forest is older than 80 years. It took the French dozens of years to clear the landscape from mines and shells so you can at least get to most of these places now. There are still lots of unexploded shells in the ground, so leaving the trail was always dangerous.)

On the way to the Ossuaire, I checked out a part of a long trench that still exists. This trench was providing the french with a way to connect the Froideterre area with the Fort Douamont and the city of Verdun itself without being totally exposed to the german artillery fire.

(The concrete pillars were used to hold concrete plates onthe sides of the trench to stabilize it. It was common for the trenches to cave in and bury soldiers in them. After 90 years this trench is only half as deep as it used to be.)

Then I went to check out the Ossuaire, the very reason to get here. Amazing, the construction was futuristic and brutal, I totally liked it. With its bunkerlike features nothing else would have been more suitable to function as a memorial.  

(Bullet shaped clocktower.)

(The Ossuaire in full view. Yes, that is my car in front of it.)

This is why I did this trip. I was awed. 80 years after it was built,  60 years after my dead neighbor saw it, I did now too.

In front there are the graves of 15000 people.  

The look on this huge amount of crosses and stars (Muslim symbols were also present) made me feel very mortal. I’m very glad that we’re not having a war of this scale since 50 years now.

I met a French couple then on my way to Thiaumont, which was left in the state it was after the war. Whatever I thought before of crates next to Douaomiont, Thiaumont topped it. 

It was just hole next to hole, in a hole next to even bigger holes. 

In the middle two small concrete slabs – which were the remains of bunkers again that soldiers headed for. If they arrived there, they must have again seen that they gve no shelter whatsoever anymore. Unbelievable enough, in this small (I was surprised how small and confined the battlefield was!) space every squaremeter had a dead soldier in it during the battle. Every single one.  

(This is the Bunker from Thiaumont that is in better shape, meaning its ceiloing did not cave in entirely. Here you can see the front of the Bunker, how it would have looked for the first one too, that was blown open all the way.)

(Inside the Bunker, parts of the ceiling caved in. The rusty metal is sharp edged, so entering the Bunkers is *dangerous*. Most bunkers are fenced off and feature warnings on not to enter them.)

(Blind shot into the dark. My flashlight was way too weak to brighten the Bunker inside enough and so i took a quick snap inside with the flash on. Everything is really wet inside and full of rusted metal, so walking in there proved difficult.)

I returned to my car and checked out another fort, Fort Vaux. Smaller than Douamont it was also a very bloody battle there. I took pictures of the inside and outside and was shocked how little of its outer armament survived. 

(Front view of the Fort Vaux.)

I climbed on top of the Fort. Again there were huge craters on top of it. Between them were the small metal domes that housed observers during the battle. If closely inspected you saw metal tracings on top of them that looked like a shity broad welding job. In fact this was traces of huighe grenades the bounced of the bunkers leaving the metal so hot, that it started to melt, resulting in the welding looking scars.

(Observer domes between craters. On the left you can see the uncovered concrete ceiling of the Fort.)

There was a huge metal armor outside, that used to be a 30ton hull for a gun turret.  

It was blown to pieces. One can only imagine the forces released on this to cause such distruction.  

(75mm french  cannon in its firing position at the Fort Vaux.)

I proceeded into the Fort to explore the inside. Once again  my shitty digicam had huge problems to work in the dark. This Fort is a bit better lit than Douaumont, but still too dark to take good pictures. Sorry.

(Walkway down into the Fort. Wet!)

I checked out the Fort, it was similar to Douaumont. This one had worse documentation though and not much signs inside to tell what was what. I had a book with me that explained most sites I visited so i consulted this.

After a long day i decided that the setting sun was a sign to find some rest, so i drove through Verdun to find a Hotel. I found a cheapo Formula One hotel that provided my laptop and digicam with power, me with a reasonably comfortable bed - and the only thing it lacked was a cold beer from a vending machine or so. Plus all the stores closed very early, so i only had my two Hansa bottles with me that i chilled in the sink with cold water. Oh well. I watched a documetary on my laptop (TV was i nfrench only) and then after calling Tia i fell asleep.

The next morning i woke up with sore feet from all the walking, did my bathroom routine and then had a quick breakfast there. Oustide of the hotel there were two guys who asked, where i was heading. When i mentioned the village of Vauqois.

Apparently they also travedled here to explore the bunkers before, since they mentioned, that i wouldn't be able to see the tunnels there. Hm. Alright, but i was this time more curious to see the hilltop anyways.

But before Vauqois i wanted to see Froideterre, where also a Fort was still to be found. And this proved to be a very exciting visit for me.

 
Größere Kartenansicht

Froideterre

When I drove to Froideterre, i passed by Souville. There were not many remains to be seen, however I figured i'd go for it anyways. After a few minutes of walking a muddy forest trail, I was at the former fort. This one was much smaller than the other ones, and most of it was gone.

(The entrance of the Fort. It only leads to two fenced of rooms and an artillery turret, which is on top of the bunker.)

I tried entering it, but it was fenced off, so there was not much to do about that. There was a fortified position just on its left, but the top of the Bunker was caving in and it looked horribly unstable, so i refrained from entering it without a hard hat and others around. 

So I went to Froideterre.

Arriving there in the early morning meant that there were no visitors present. It was very silent and i noticed how scary the forests around the bunker system are. The early sunlight casted long shadows over the bunkers and I started to take pictures of the outside of the Fort.

(Pockmarked outside of Froideterre. You can see the fenced doors leading into the Fort. It is easy to spot, that lots of machinegun bullets were fired at the small windows of the Bunkercomplex.)

As always i climbed on top of the Fort first and saw a machine gun turret in almost perfect condition. These turrets could get erected to fire at the approaching troops and then get lowered again to be safe from grenade attacks etc. I soon found out how this works.

(Machinegun turret on top of the Fort.)

I proceeded to walk around the Fort when i noticed that the area below the turret looked accessible. And there it was: An open door leading into the Bunker under the gun turret. A sign reads "Danger. Defense d'entrer" Well. I don't speak much french anymore so i decided to ignore the sign, since the door was invitingly open.

(Open door to the turret bunker.)

After entering it, i saw an interesting metal construction in front of me. This is the lifting mechanism to raise and lower the turret!

(The rusty hydraulic mechanism to operate the turret. Sorry for the bad quality.)

There was a ladder to climb on to the top where the gunner was sitting, but the bent stairs and the partially broken steps convinced me that it would not be safe to get up there.

(Broken ladder leading up to the turret.)

So I went to a different part of this bunker and found a sideway, that lead to a way more stable looking ladder. This one i would climb :) 

(This ladder leads to a machinegun turret too. Much better condition!)

On my way up i felt a breeze going through the bunker. The wind started to howl when it passed through the creaks of the bunker, breaking on the turrets and the labyrinthlike walkways inside.

(The machinegun holder in the turret.You can see the handcrank on the left side of the picture that was used to elevate and lower the machingun itself.)

There was very little room left to climb up into, especially since there was a wooden floor in the turret that looked horribly unstable already. So i could only take a quick picture up there while i held myself up on the top stair of the ladder.

(The top of the turret. I really wanted a fisheye objective now for my digicam. Crap.)

On the way out and into the main complex i took a quick picture of the gun mounts they had in there.

(Blurry, I know. The hooks on the ceiling held a track that was used to carry grenades between the ammo dump and the gun itself. You can see the tracks of the gun on the ground still.

I entered the main complex where the pockmarked windows were. Strange enough, the door here was also open. It was totally unlit in there ans all I had was a small flashlight. I felt woefully ill equipped to explore the Bunker. Anyways, I travelled inside. But without much light this was very difficult. At one point i ran into this here, dangling from the ceiling:

(friggin big metal sheet that I hit head front. Ouch. What looks like windows is actually a door and a window on top of it, that they used to have more air going through the bunkers. The small rooms i nhere were partially rebuilt into sleeping rooms for the soldiers, so some walls went only up to two thirds of the height to the ceiling.)

After this i wanted to see if i could get to a guntower underground from here. It was race against time, since the small flashlight i had started to fade rapidly. With no other light i tried to make it, stumbling thorugh the wet and moist bunker. Not having a plan of it i felt like in "Scare tactics" or this other show on MTV where they send Teenagers to do missions in old abandoned buildings with no lights. Well MTV: Send them here, *i* was scared shitless with the wind howling through the bunker, weird dripping sounds everywhere around me and a serious lack of light.

When i entered the next big room to see how the ceiling was giving in, i gave up for this time to get to the turret.

(Notice how the concrete is broken and only held up by the totally bent steel. Especially in the background you can notice how twisted the metal there is. This room had been hit on top with a 40cm calibre shell, that almost broke through.)

I stumbeld back to the entrance, now almost in total darkness since the flash was out. I went faster and faster, being scared a lot and realizing that if i get stuck in here it could take hours until somebody shows up since this is not one of the more frequently visited bunkers. Plus i don't think someone would expect a visitor being inside of them really, since they are usually closed by the doors.

But I managed to get out, breathing heavily. I got back to my car and calmed down a bit. I decided to get to Vauquios next and see the Mort homme hill on the way of possible.

A short ride withthe car later i found a french bakery and got me some hot coffee. That cured the last remains of fear i still had from Froideterre and i was prepared for a little walk through the forest on top of the Mort Homme.

This is where the germans got stuck in the first worldwar - they never reached a closer point towards Verdun than this very trench you can see in the picture.

(Hard to notice, but the left side of the trail is the front trench of the germans. On the right side you can see the zigzag construction of the trench, that was used to make it more difficult to conquer the trench once enemy troops got in it. The germans used flamethrowers in such cases since the fire would follow the zigzags without problems, and being confined into the trench would be able to get much further than outside of it.)

I followed a path through the woods for more than half an hour and was shocked, how close the trneches were to each other. They were barely out o f throwing distance of hand grenades, so every attempt to break into the others side trench was suicidal at best. Downhill towards the german held side of this hill you can still make out the trench that was used to get the wounded out and reinforcements and ammunition and food in.

(Another bad picture, but the zigzag of the trench is easy to spot.)

Next I went to the village of Vauquois, or what is left of it. This village was literally blown up by both sides. When it was captured by the germans they could only get half of it in their hands with the french being on the other side. Neither side could win, and after the artiellery blew up all the houses both sides dug themselves in and was even more impossible to overcome.

So they started to dig tunnels into the hill under the enemys position and blew up huge amounts of explosives, creating gigantic craters on the surface and burying the miners of the other side, that were also buildig tunnels in the hill. Both sides blew more than 100 charges over the years, effectively taking the top 20 meters of the hill and leaving craters that are very deep.

(Craters in Vauquois, you can see on the left and right where the hill still curves up. This is about 20-30 meters of hill missing in the middle!)

(Looking down into the valley of Verdun. You can barely see the ledge of the walkwas in the middle. Notice how huge these craters are!)

(Barbwire construction on top of the hill. No chance to get through here.)

The entrance to the french tunnel system. It is impossible to get down there without proper equipment and lacking flashlight, hard hat and proper clothing plus being on my own i decided to take a peek into it, but not enter the system. Next timei want to take the guided tour there though! 

After this i went back to Verdun, checked out the museum and the ruins of Fleury behind the museum (my cameras memory was full) and then head back home. I think i will return here at some point to see the things i could not this time. but better equipped and with a sidekick :)

Updated 11/27/2005