Still Restricted 100 Years Later- The "Zone Rouge" (Red Zone) in France from WWI
Prior to seeing the beautiful photo expose on MessyNezzyChic, I had no idea this place existed in the world (especially surprising, considering the 30+ times I’ve been to France on business). The “Zone Rouge” is “forsaken territory” from the first World War following the old front lines from trench warfare. The zone is filled with unknown amounts of human remains and a near impossible level of un-exploded munitions, both conventional and chemical.
Farmers in less dangerous re-populated “yellow” and “blue zones”, still hit shells every year, exploding their tractors and narrowly escaping death by the remains of a hundred year old war. In Verdun, there are road signs to indicate a dumping grounds for farmers to leave the shells they’ve plowed up on their land to be collected by authorities.
The photography of Oliver Saint Hilaire is a poignant look into the remnants of a catastrophic war. Hit the link (or click any of the photos) to be taken to the original article.
One of TFB's resident Jarheads, Nathan now works within the firearms industry. A consecutive Marine rifle and pistol expert, he enjoys local 3-gun, NFA, gunsmithing, MSR's, & high-speed gear. Nathan has traveled to over 30 countries working with US DoD & foreign MoDs.The above post is my opinion and does not reflect the views of any company or organization.
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Why can't they assign army units to minesweep the area? Sure it would be slow going but eventually they could reclaim the land for use.
As much as I would love to wander through there and see the somewhat un-touched history, the other part of me doesn`t want to be "that new American corpse" on the French news cycle...
Sounds absurdly dangerous, mostly from the chemical weapons.