A Battlefield Beneath the Trees
In the forests around Verdun, the scars of World War I remain buried beneath the leaves. A century after the guns fell silent, this land still hides millions of unexploded shells, the ruins of nine destroyed villages, and the remains of tens of thousands of soldiers who never returned home.
The Red Zone
During the 1916 battle of Verdun, some 60 million shells were fired. Estimates suggest between seven and eight million never exploded. The devastation was so complete that France declared vast stretches of land uninhabitable, creating the “zone rouge.” Much of it was later reforested with German pine, concealing trenches, bunkers, and shattered villages like Fleury, which changed hands 16 times in combat.
Clearing the Past
The danger persists. Demining teams in the region still recover up to 50 tons of munitions each year, often discovered in fields and rivers by locals. Many residents, accustomed to these discoveries, refer to it as a “shell culture.” Yet the dangers are real. Alongside the Meuse River, six tons of German shells were retrieved in a single week.
Toxic Legacy
One of the most hazardous reminders lies at a site locals call La place à Gaz. In the 1920s, poison gas shells were burned there. Nearly a century later, studies show soil arsenic levels up to 35,000 times higher than normal. Few plants grow on this poisoned ground. While trees have reclaimed the battlefields, the land still bears the weight of the war, a place where history lives beneath the soil.
Verdun’s forests still hide a battlefield.
A century after World War I, the ground holds millions of dud shells, the ruins of nine villages, and tens of thousands of missing dead.
Walkers pass trenches and bunkers while the war’s damage lies just beneath the leaves…🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/w09cNZFS0B
— Fascinating True Stories (@FascinatingTrue) August 19, 2025