Taps on the Western Front

Image von via Der Wik

The Western Front was a meat grinder.  The lash of artillery simply blew many men apart.  Others fell into the mud and craters, getting buried by other explosions.  Millions never came home, and many of those disappeared without a trace.

But the post World War II European economy has led to a construction boom across the whole of the Western Front.  Construction means excavation and excavation means, well,  some of the boys come home after all:

It's been a year and a half since my stint helping excavate the World War One battlefield at Hill 80. The site has now been developed and if there were any additional surprises found when the bulldozers rolled through I have not heard of them.

A major motivation for the excavation was to spare the many lost soldiers buried there an unworthy fate. Human remains are found all the time on former World War sites. Generally the bones are at best put off to one side for the police to come and collect. Since many of the remains are scattered and fragmentary, it is likely that a large number are not noticed at all, just ground into dust under the treads of heavy equipment. And even the occasional intact burials get separated from artifacts that might have shown their nationality or - the best outcome - their identity.

In the end a minimum of 110 fallen soldiers were found. The passage of time combined with four continuous years of artillery fire make an exact count impossible. In fact I consider it miraculous that so many of the early war casualties were quite nearly intact, buried in two mass graves.

On Thursday of last week 13 soldiers British Army were buried. Three French and one South African are to be interred at a later date.

...

And on Friday the German casualties were put to rest in their own cemetery. In this much larger group there was one possible and one definite ID. 17 year old Albert Oehrle a gardener from Bavaria who volunteered at the outbreak of war. He would never see his 18th birthday.

Click through to read the whole thing.  He has pictures of the ceremonies, which I found very moving.  Five years ago on the centennial anniversary of the start of The War To End All Wars I posted a song cycle that captured - at least a little - of the experience of those men.

Thank you, Tim, for the part you played in helping bring some of those men home at last.