![]() While digging a rail line through the Somme battlefields in 1991-92, to connect with the "Chunnel," the French démineurs ("de-miners") handled an average of five tons of unexploded ordnance per day that had been unearthed during the excavation (throughout France, the démineurs collect some 900 tons of ordnance per year, with 30 tons of that being gas shells). Much of this area is "off limits" to this day, as it is estimated that 12 million unexploded shells still lie in the soil around Verdun. Within a few weeks of their return, eighty per cent had been killed.'" (Kelly, 103, 105).Īfter the war, the French closed some 16 million acres northeast of Verdun due to unexploded ordnance and uninterred human remains. They played the dead knowing that in all probability they'd be dead themselves before long. Gance said: These men had come straight from the Front from Verdun. The army provided two thousand soldiers for the sequence, most being on eight days leave after four years of fighting. "The poignancy is strengthened by what is known of the making of the film. In what sounds like a contemporary review of Saving Private Ryan, a reviewer in Prague was sure that if the film "had been shown in every country and in every town in the world in 1913, then perhaps there would have been no war." a clip from J’Accuse! where the dead soldiers come back to life Griffith and Lillian Gish were left speechless for hours. J'accuse, and this scene especially, overpowered audiences: women fainted, D. In this scene, dead soldiers on the battlefield come to life, and grope their way back to "civilization" to ask the living if the war dead, if their lives, have been sacrificed for some worthy purpose. These photographs from The Illustrated London News of June 24, 1916, show the French counter-attacks on Fort Douaumont on May 22-23, 1916 (click each photo to read the accompanying text):Ī still frame from Abel Gance's film J'accuse (1919). It is said that retaking Fort Douaumont alone cost the lives of 100,000 Frenchmen. The old fortress city of Verdun was ringed by strongholds and forts, the largest and most important of these being Fort Douaumont called by one writer "the most shelled spot on earth." The Germans captured Fort Douaumont in February, 1916 the French finally retook it in October. The longest battle of the Great War, The Battle of Verdun raged for 10 months, from February to December, 1916, and cost nearly a million casualties on both sides (but no one will ever know for sure the exact total). Visit the BBC News website for more news of this event.General Falkenhayn decided that at Verdun he would wage a battle of attrition against the French Army that would bleed it dry and drive France from the war. Professor Jankowski was invited to attend the opening of the Memorial, where he briefly met President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel in the company of a French and a German historian, both of whom have also written extensively about the First World War and about Verdun. Amid their own entourage, invited guests and members of the media, Hollande and Merkel spent most of the day visiting the extended site of the battle, each making speeches before the great ossuary that holds the remains of some who died there. This event marked the official observance of the 100th anniversary of the battle of Verdun, during which 300,000 French and German soldiers died in 1916. ![]() On Sunday May 29, at Verdun in eastern France, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel officially opened a new museum called the Memorial de Verdun. ![]() Paul Jankowski Attends Battle of Verdun 100th Anniversary Commemorative Event Along with Heads of State Graduate Professional Studies (Online Programs) Rabb School: Graduate Professional Studies Heller School for Social Policy and Management
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