
France’s Zone Rouge – Land Poisoned by War - pavel_lishin
http://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/26/the-real-no-go-zone-of-france-a-forbidden-no-mans-land-poisoned-by-war/
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caramel
In my family there's a story about some relatives who lived in a village near
Ypres. Their living room had a big iron stove. When the Germans invaded they
they hid some jewelry in a hole under that stove, and fled like everybody
else. After the war they returned to the village, wanting to retrieve the
jewels. Not only were they unable to locate the stove, or the house. They were
unable to locate where the street had been.

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jstalin
Wow, I was just in France last month and visited the Douaumont ossuary near
Verdun. The whole area is eerie. The landscape is just as shown in those
photos. It looks like a moonscape. Just driving along, you see craters and
hills on both sides of the road. Metal still sticking out randomly. Decaying
bunkers all around.

The ossuary itself was an incredible place (120,000 buried there). For those
of us not from Europe, it was a lesson in the horrors of WWI that was present
for the residents of the continent that has no equal in the US.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douaumont_Ossuary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douaumont_Ossuary)

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ZanyProgrammer
I think you might underestimate how bloody the American Civil War was,
especially since it was 50 years before the improved killing technologies of
WW1.

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byroot
American Civil War: Total estimated between 625,000 and 850,000 dead

World War 1: 8,528,831 killed.

I know we could account for relative population, but in absolute there is just
no possible comparison.

Relevant source:
[https://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html](https://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html)

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
That's total killed for all combatants during WW1 though. American casualties
during the Civil War were comparable to European countries individually during
WW1.

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ZanyProgrammer
Its especially impressive when you consider WW1 had a 50 year advantage in
perfecting the art of killing people.

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mikeash
I find it fascinating how prevalent chemical warfare was in WWI, and then it
mostly stopped afterwards because everybody realized it really sucked and
nobody wanted to trigger another round.

I think it underscores how fortunate the timing of the development of nuclear
weapons was not too much later. They were developed _just_ in time to be used
in the waning days of WWII, and as such were only used twice in combat, which
seems to have been enough to convince everyone to try not to use them again.
Imagine if they had been developed before the war, with all the major powers
exchanging atom bombs once the fighting started. Or imagine if they had been
developed after the war ended by conventional means, and WWIII developed
between the US and the USSR because nobody really realized how terrible atomic
warfare would be.

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tajen
Are the red parts inhabited? It seems strange to me, I've never heard that
there were still no-go zones, although I'm French (from the south).

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Varkiil
The red zones can be inhabited but most of the ground is either polluted
either completely destroyed. And as the boards said some zones still have
armed explosives in them. I went there once. It's pretty beautiful when you
forget it has been caused by a useless and slaughtering war.

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touristtam
I thought it was pretty common knowledge in France that live ammunition for
the Great War are still found in this part of the territory and should one
find such a device they should immediately contact the Gendarmerie.

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rogerbinns
I highly recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts. He recently just
finished a 6 part series on WWI titled Blueprint for Armageddon. He tries to
convey what it was like for the people involved.
[http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-
series/](http://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/)

Reddit's AskHistorians also have two podcasts of discussion #35 & #36:
[http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/](http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/)

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toothbrush
Wow, go Team Humans :'(

Very moving images.

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nraynaud
Have a Google to gouffre de Jardel too.

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davidp
The story and pictures were intriguing, but then at the end: "There’s a true
story for you, FOX News." Wat? That's jarringly out of place w.r.t. the rest
of the article, and leaves an unpleasant political aftertaste for something
that would have been fine without it.

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dhconnelly
Following the Charlie Hebdo attack, FOX was reporting that certain areas of
Paris are "no-go" zones for non-Muslim French people.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/12/paris-
lawsuit-f...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/12/paris-lawsuit-fox-
news-reporting-no-go-zones-non-muslims)

So the title "The real no-go zone of France" was already a reference to the
controversy they mention.

