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All France Fleury-devant-Douaumont Zone Rouge
AO Edited

Zone Rouge

A swath of France so devastated by war it is still forbidden to go there.

Fleury-devant-Douaumont, France

Added By
Tony Dunnell
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Sign at Fort Douaumont reads: Danger, Access Forbidden.   Lvcvlvs/cc by-sa 3.0
Sign at Fort Douaumont reads: Danger, Access Forbidden.   Lvcvlvs/cc by-sa 3.0
Former battlefield at Douaumont. The sign reads: Danger, Access Forbidden.   Schreibkraft/cc by-sa 3.0
Part of the Verdun battlefield.   Oeuvre personnelle/public domain
Red Zone areas after WWI   Tinodela/cc by-sa 2.5
Illustration of forts near Verdun battlefield, 1915.   Garitan/public domain
Destroyed village of Cumières.   Havang/public domain
Fleury-devant-Douaumont destroyed village.   public domain
Destroyed village of Bezonvaux.   TCY/cc by-sa 3.0
Debris in the destroyed village of Bezonvaux.   F5ZV/cc by-sa 3.0
Ornes destroyed village near Verdun.   F. Lamiot/cc by-sa 2.5
Fleury-devant-Douaumont, a topography turned upside down by shells.   Engbtmp/cc by-sa 4.0
Atop Fort Douaumont, 2016. The entrance is below the flags.   myhre3 / Atlas Obscura User
  petrolwife / Atlas Obscura User
  petrolwife / Atlas Obscura User
The village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont ravaged by the fighting in 1916.   Inconnu/public domain
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About

The Zone Rouge, or Red Zone, is a no man's land in northeastern France that was so damaged by the fighting of World War I it was deemed unfit for human habitation. And while the controlled areas have shrunk since 1918, certain areas remain entirely off-limits, the soil so full of arsenic that 99 percent of all plants die, along with the ever-present threat of unexploded shells. 

The unimaginable intensity of the shelling along the Western Front left swaths of agricultural land completely obliterated, churned up into a nightmarish landscape of craters and bodies. In the Battle of Verdun alone, which lasted for 303 days and remains one of the longest and most costly battles in human history, hundreds of thousands of men were killed.

Shortly after the war, the French government declared a 460-square-mile area unfit for human habitation or development. It stretches roughly from Nancy through Verdun and onto Lille, with various non-contiguous zones so riddled with unexploded shells (many of them gas shells), grenades, ammunition, and human and animal remains that it was simply too dangerous to enter. It was called the Zone Rouge.

Within the no-go zone are many ghost villages that were left abandoned after the war, deemed beyond repair. Signs around the zone warn "village detruit," or destroyed village. It is said these towns "died for France."

At the time, the French government defined these areas in stark fashion: "Completely devastated. Damage to properties: 100%. Damage to Agriculture: 100%. Impossible to clean. Human life impossible."

In an attempt to salvage this land, a special munitions-clearing agency was created. Called the Department du Deminage, it has, over the decades, helped to reduce the extent of the Zone Rouge, destroying hundreds of thousands of munitions and chemical shells, and returning some land to civilian and agricultural use. Their overwhelming task is aided by French farmers, who each year collect a huge amount of unexploded ordnance, barbed wire, shrapnel, and bullets during the annual “Iron Harvest.”

Despite these efforts, the Zone Rouge is unlikely to be restored completely any time soon. Speaking with National Geographic in 2014, British historian and author Christina Holstein summed up the extent of the undertaking: “They reckon that they have 300 years work ahead of them before they have cleared the whole battlefield,” she said. “And they never will.”

The Atlas Obscura Podcast is a short, daily celebration of all the world's strange and wondrous places. Check out this episode about Zone Rouge.

Related Tags

Wwi War History Weapons Bombs Disaster Areas Ghost Towns Environment Military

Know Before You Go

Some areas formerly located within the original Zone Rouge are now being farmed and are readily accessible, but farmers still find huge amounts of rusting munitions, some unexploded and potentially containing gas.

The map coordinates point to the Verdun Memorial, just south of the destroyed towns of Douaumont and Fleury-devant-Douaumont. Parts of the ghost villages are zoned as areas of significant damage and have memorials that are open to the public and tours of the Verdun battlefields. The parts in the Red Zone are strictly no-go.

Community Contributors

Added By

Tony Dunnell

Edited By

Martin, gasp65, Meg, myhre3...

  • Martin
  • gasp65
  • Meg
  • myhre3
  • petrolwife
  • Yorkshire

Published

July 18, 2018

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Sources
  • http://cmhs.ca/sabretache/Sabretache_2016_11.pdf
  • https://owlcation.com/humanities/zonerouge
  • http://historyasm.blogspot.com/2015/08/zone-rouge-first-world-war-legacy-still.html
  • http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/26/the-real-no-go-zone-of-france-a-forbidden-no-mans-land-poisoned-by-war/
  • http://www.intonomansland.org/the-expedition/the-zone-rouge/
  • https://www.nationalgeographic.org/news/red-zone/
  • https://todayinhistory.blog/tag/red-zone/
  • http://www.old-stamps.com/stamps/france/30e-anniversaire-de-la-creation-du-service-du_1208.html
  • I wanted to indicate that "Departement du Deminage" is a sloppy translation: the english word "Department" translates as "Service", especially given that Département, in France, denotes the country's 90 administrative regions.
Zone Rouge
1 Avenue Corps Européen
Fleury-devant-Douaumont
France
49.194902, 5.433737
Get Directions

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Photo of Fleury-devant-Douaumont

Fleury-devant-Douaumont

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Fleury-devant-Douaumont

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