The villages which 'died for France'

TODAY, on Armistice Day, we look at the six French villages which were reduced to rubble during the First World War and never rebuilt, and are today called "les villages morts pour la France".

These villages, Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Bezonvaux, Cumières-le-Mort-Homme, Fleury-devant-Douaumont; Haumont-près-Samogneux and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre, are all in Meuse department and were destroyed during the Battle of Verdun, which raged from February 21 to December 18 1916, costing the lives of around 70,000 soldiers per month.

Local inhabitants were evacuated at the beginning of the battle, but when they returned, nothing was left standing.

There were no trees, hedges, gardens, fields, nothing. The churches, barns and houses had completely disappeared.

The land was so churned into mounds and foxholes, it was impossible to know where the buildings and streets had been.

There was nothing but heavily polluted mud in all directions, and under it lay so much unexploded ordnance that rebuilding was impossible.

In 1919, the government bought the land and decided the six villages should become monuments to the sacrifices made during the Grand Guerre.

Each commune would have a mayor and two counsellors. Each would maintain its postcode and a legal and administrative identity, even though none of them would ever again be inhabited or rebuilt.

Each would have a war memorial, and a small chapel built on or near the ruins of its church, each village would be designated as "mort pour la France".

Today, the site of each village is covered with grass and trees, and each has a budget of around €22,000, in order to maintain signposts and memorials, cut the lawns, etc.

The land is still settling, still moving, and each year more relics from the battle rise to the surface of the soil, including the corpses of soldiers from both sides. (They are all re-buried as unknown soldiers.)

These were not the only villages destroyed in the First World War and countless others disappeared in the same way.

Some were rebuilt in different locations, but many were simply abandoned and the land annexed by neighbouring communes. Those forgotten, disappeared villages and communes have even officially lost their names.