Verdun - Cemetery and Memorial

Cemetery and Memorial

There are many French and German cemeteries throughout the battlefield. The largest is the French National Cemetery and Douaumont ossuary, near Fort Douaumont. Thirteen thousand crosses adorn the field in front of the ossuary, which holds roughly 130,000 unidentified remains brought in from the battlefield. Every year yields more remains, which are often placed inside the ossuary's vaults.

Among many revered memorials on the battlefield is the "Bayonet Trench", which marks the location where some dozen bayonets lined up in a row were discovered projecting out of the ground after the war; below each rifle was the body of a French soldier. It has been assumed that these belonged to a group of soldiers who had rested their rifles against the parapet of the trench they were occupying when they were killed during a bombardment, and the men were buried where they lay in the trench and the rifles left untouched. However, this is probably not historically accurate: experts agree that the bayonets were probably affixed to the rifles after the attack, and installed by survivors to memorialize the spot.

Nearby, the World War I Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial is located at Romagne-sous-Montfaucon to the northwest of Verdun. It is the final resting place for 14,246 American military dead, most of whom died in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The chapel contains a memorial to the 954 American missing whose remains were never recovered or identified.

Visiting The Town of Verdun is probably a good starting point if you are viewing and/or walking the battlefields. There are readily available parking places within a short walking distance. You can purchase tickets for the various sights on the battlefield. The ossuary, Fort Douaumont, Fort Vaux, The National Museum and the Citadelle, in Verdun itself, with its underground railway. If you are walking parts of the World War I battlefield then the following reading is recommended: Illustrated Michelin Guide to the battlefields "Verdun and the Battles for its Possessions" ISBN 9781843420668. "The Price of Glory" Verdun 1916 ISBN 9780140170412. "Walking Verdun" ISBN 1844158675. "Battlefield Guide VERDUN 1916" ISBN 9780752441481. The books in English are limited but the tourist opportunities to visit the Verdun area are improving all the time.