![]() With time the barren crater will fill with new sediments, especially litter, from the slowly returning vegetation. The explosion fractures the shallow bedrock and redeposit material (soil and rock fragments) on the outer rim of the crater, forming also lenses of gravel-ejecta. When an average WWI grenade exploded, it excavated a crater with a diameter several meters across and 1-2 meters deep, however large mines excavated also craters 15 m in diameter with depths exceeding 10m. Fort Doaumont, part of the fortifications of Verdun, before 1916 and at the end of April/May 1916 (image in public domain), dotted with explosion craters. The artillery fire changed how and which type of soil can form - so much that the authors suggest that the modern use of bombs and explosives is such a significant erosion factor that it deserves a own term: Bombturbation.įig.1. Schaetzl visited the battlefield of Verdun to investigate how the great war modified the landscape and influenced its further development. From February to August 1916 in an area of 200 km 2 estimated 60 million rounds were fired.Īll those explosions destroyed the local vegetation, reshaped and lowered the landscape, but also remixed the natural formed soil-layers and fractured the underlying bedrock - the effects of those few months are still visible today, almost 100 years after the war ended. After the German attack, soon French counterattacked. One of the most iconic sites of this attrition warfare was the area surrounding the French town of Verdun.įebruthe first shell - with a caliber of 38 centimeters and weight of 750 kilograms - was fired by a modified long-range naval gun nicknamed " Long Max". Large armies equipped with the most advanced military technology- especially the high energy explosives evolved rapidly - devastated entire landscapes along the Western Front, stretching from the English Channel to the Swiss mountains. The real worry was artillery.It was during the first World War that the impact of human warfare on the landscape exponentially increased. They had reliable Lebel 8mm rifles tipped with 20-inch bayonets, and they knew how to use them. ![]() They would fight every German who showed his pointed helmet to the 137th Infantry. These were French soldiers, sworn to defend their sacred homeland to the death against the vile Boche. ![]() Yet there was no talk of retreat or surrender. Two battalions of the 137th had been ordered to hold their lines against the German Fifth Army.īut there was little doubt that the soldiers, clad in the characteristic horizon blue jackets and trousers, helmets, and leather belts with ammo pouches, had no illusions about their ability to hold off a determined German infantry assault, especially those that carried flamethrowers and grenades. Their trench, wreathed in barbed wire and surrounded by shell craters was in a salient a short distance from what had once been the most heavily fortified bastion in France, Fort Douaumont. The stink of expended cordite, scorched wood, and rotten corpses permeated the air around them. Instead, the soldiers of 3 Company of the French 137th Infantry Regiment smelled only death on the wind. The weather was warm with breezes coming down from the north, but they did not carry the scent of wildflowers or grapevines. The morning of June 23, 1916, dawned over the broad crenellated valley of the Meuse River in northeastern France. ![]()
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