7 ms·

Discovering WW1 tunnel of death hidden in France for a century

90 points by longdefeat 6y ago

ggm 6y ago
The intersection of respect for the dead, battlefield amateurs and looting, war grave status, officialdom, archaeology, a citizen scientist, sad, terrifying and fascinating all at the same time.
- coldcode 6y ago
  Some people might call them the enemy, some say they should just leave them be, but they are someone's ancestors (or related), and those people should know what happened to them. My uncle died in WW2 and no one knows where (potentially in the ocean near Tunisia); reading his last letter to his parents, I would certainly want to know where he is buried. He still has a living sister as well. Just because someone was a soldier does not make them some anonymous drone.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    They were the enemy of some people’s ancestors a century ago. They are not ennemies of anyone now. They are only victims of a terrible war, exactly in the same ways as the people they were fighting then. One branch of my family was decimated back then: 4 cousins died in WWI, all the males of that generation. The only thing I wish to their enemies is to rest in peace and keep them in our memory to avoid such a senseless massacre in the future. If this finding brings some comfort to some people because they found a family member, then it’s great. The tunnel should be a museum, and a warning of the horrors brought by nationalism. Loss at sea is difficult, because locations are often uncertain and documentation is sparse. I know I learnt a lot looking for traces of these people in archives and on the ground (obviously harder for sunken ships). I hope you’ll find out what happened eventually.
    - ggm 6y ago
      >Loss at sea is difficult, because locations are often uncertain and documentation is sparse. When found, not safe. People are now predating these sites, to get valuable pre-nuclear-bomb scrap for use in detectors. Divers are reporting that official war-grave wrecks are being destroyed by scavengers.
redis_mlc 6y ago
You know, there were more than 100 tunnels dug in WW1. Most were used to insert explosives to blow up the trenches above them. The largest man-made explosion at the time was one of those. Losing track of one of those tunnels isn't really noteworthy, and the French have no love for the Germans. On their retreat back to Germany, they destroyed the Alsace region "just because." Most people today think of the Allies and Axis countries as equivalent, but even as early as WW1 the Axis had a reputation as mean and brutal.
- nicbou 6y ago
  Was it just because, or to prevent use by the enemy
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    The Germans had already lost, hence the retreat back to Germany.
- kitd 6y ago
  OTOH, this tunnel was a bit different. It went through a hill to supply front line trenches from the relative safety of the far side of the hill. It was much bigger than the mining and explosive tunnels dug into no-man's land. Eg the report says they found large amounts of equipment stored there, railway sleepers, machine guns, ammunition dumps, etc. It would have had a lot more traffic and have been larger than other tunnels. Losing 2 companies of men in there is a not-insignificant war grave.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Axis was WW2, not WW1. For WW1, the reason I consider Allied and Central powers to be equivalent has more to do with the flaws of the Allies in that era than with the actions of the Central powers. With WW2 and Axis/Allies, even though I’m not at all sure how to judge the relative behaviour of Stalin (Allied) vs Hitler (Axis) — there’s too much propaganda for me to filter though — the British and Americans were unambiguously more moral than the Axis powers.
  - 6y ago
chronolitus 6y ago
if the tunnel is unimportant, not worthy of being protected, then shouldn't it bother no-one that people go and loot it? But it does bother me that people would loot it. It seems misguided to simply hoping that someone doesn't eventually find a way to excavate it. Which means that I want it protected, I guess? Seems to me that Pierre Malinowski actions prevent the tunnel from being desecrated rather than the opposite, in the long run. Time will tell.
- PicassoCTs 6y ago
  The problem is the scale. If all war-sites should be protected, and ammunition properly defused and archaeological researched- then all of europe will do nothing else for a century. Large land-strips in several countries are essentially mined mass graves. Once you set precedence, that upkeep costs for that are multiply exponentially. The ordinance defuse operations and it constantly blocking business for days in major cities every year comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_bomb_disposal_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_bomb_disposal_in_... 2000 tons in germany alone every year. Excavator drivers life dangerous over here. So, yes, if this were to be dealt with properly, goodbye European economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge To avoid opening another barrel (poisoned waste by war production, hidden in the sealed of production caves etc.) - many municipalities employ the three monkey strategy. Don't hear it, don't see it, don't have to deal with it.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    > goodbye European economy Even mass defusing (which no one is suggesting) would not tank European economy. It would barely be a blip actually. We are talking about tunnels in the middle of nowhere. The "Zone rouge" is pretty barren. Any large remains of WW1 in cities have been dug up by urbanisation a long time ago. Defusing mostly concern unexploded ordinance from WW2 and there is at most one major event a year in Europe as a whole. It is certainly not "constantly blocking business for days in major cities".
    - CaptArmchair 6y ago
Avalaxy 6y ago
Am I weird for being sad that they don't want to take any photos of the inside? I'd love to see what it looked like in the original setting. I guess I have a morbid curiosity.
- kergonath 6y ago
  The tunnel itself would be an incredibly valuable document of life in the trenches. I can understand why they would not want to do that with the corpses still there, though.
markvdb 6y ago
"Into the story stepped his son Pierre Malinowski, at 34 years old a maverick ex-soldier who once worked for Jean-Marie Le Pen and now runs a foundation in Moscow dedicated to tracing war-dead from the Napoleonic and other eras. " This was the most interesting part of the article to me: a super condensed portrait of the person who actually ran the illegal excavation. Ex-foreign legion, former parliamentary assistant to the most famous racist French nationalist. Now living in Moscow, close to Putin. Easy to miss for those not too familiar with the French context. Wikipedia [0] has more. The man is a professional firebrand. Different in many ways from Steve Bannon, but they'd probably get along well. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Malinowski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Malinowski
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  Could you elaborate on why you think this point is important to the story in the article? I'm not sure how doing this digging would help further the cause of the Rassemblement National (for context: it's the current-day incarnation of Jean-Marie Le Pen's party, the "most famous racist French nationalist" as parent put it) or of Putin's affairs.
  - markvdb 6y ago
    The story is about history. The main source to this story worked as the personal European Parliament assistant to Jean-Marie Le Pen [0]. Some Le Pen quotes from that year below [1][2]. Showing this strong support for the most famous holocaust denier in the country is not what you do if you want to be taken seriously as an amateur historian [3]. It shows disrespect for history. It's the historical equivalent of showing your support for the Pi Bill [4] as an amateur mathematician. I can see the potential for some worthwile signal in the noise cloud this man has generated though. With some luck, proper archaelogists and historians may be able to do their jobs using the lead he has generated. If he hasn't damaged the site too much, that is. P.S. With my initial comment, I did not have the intention to suggest that Malinowski was doing this in order to further the cause of the Rassemblement National, Putin or Jean-Marie Le Pen. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/jean-marie-le-pen-bruel-racism https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/jean-marie-le-... . "On fera une fournée la prochaine fois", when asked about jewish French singer Patrick Bruel. [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/jean-marie-le-pen-ebola-population-explosion-europe-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/jean-marie-le-... . "Monseigneur Ebola could sort that out in three months." [3] ...or a human being, but I digress [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
markbnj 6y ago
As a history buff and occasional amateur explorer of ruins in the U.S. I think that if a thing that has any value is left lying about humans will loot it. The majority of people don't care much about history at all in my experience. They have their own pressing daily concerns, and one person's sacred history is another's material resource. A fortification becomes a source of building stones, an old barn yields timbers for a new floor, and relics are a source of cash. In New Jersey there is a place where archaeologists uncovered a colonial-era iron furnace and then had to re-bury it to prevent people from carting it off piece by piece. Given all this I suspect the French will now have no choice but to excavate and inter the remains in the Winterburg tunnel. It would certainly have been better if the location had remained undisclosed, but I think that is really too much to hope for.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- duxup 6y ago
  >humans will loot it. Well it looks like an attempt was already made on the tunnel in question.
aww_dang 6y ago
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/462315.Other_Paths_to_Glory https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/462315.Other_Paths_to_Gl... >Paul Mitchell spends his days researching WWI; his quiet life in the library can hardly be in greater contrast to the carnage he studies. Until, that is, the present catches up with him in the shape of Dr Audley of the MOD. Why does Audley want to know what really happened during the battle for Hameau Ridge on the Somme in 1916? The answer is complex and dangerous. This cold-war era spy novel brought some of the WWI archaeology/research to life for me. I was totally unfamiliar and surprised how much remains unknown about these battlefields.

90 points by longdefeat 6y ago

ggm 6y ago

The intersection of respect for the dead, battlefield amateurs and looting, war grave status, officialdom, archaeology, a citizen scientist, sad, terrifying and fascinating all at the same time.

coldcode 6y ago
Some people might call them the enemy, some say they should just leave them be, but they are someone's ancestors (or related), and those people should know what happened to them. My uncle died in WW2 and no one knows where (potentially in the ocean near Tunisia); reading his last letter to his parents, I would certainly want to know where he is buried. He still has a living sister as well. Just because someone was a soldier does not make them some anonymous drone.
- kergonath 6y ago
  They were the enemy of some people’s ancestors a century ago. They are not ennemies of anyone now. They are only victims of a terrible war, exactly in the same ways as the people they were fighting then. One branch of my family was decimated back then: 4 cousins died in WWI, all the males of that generation. The only thing I wish to their enemies is to rest in peace and keep them in our memory to avoid such a senseless massacre in the future. If this finding brings some comfort to some people because they found a family member, then it’s great. The tunnel should be a museum, and a warning of the horrors brought by nationalism. Loss at sea is difficult, because locations are often uncertain and documentation is sparse. I know I learnt a lot looking for traces of these people in archives and on the ground (obviously harder for sunken ships). I hope you’ll find out what happened eventually.
  - ggm 6y ago
    >Loss at sea is difficult, because locations are often uncertain and documentation is sparse. When found, not safe. People are now predating these sites, to get valuable pre-nuclear-bomb scrap for use in detectors. Divers are reporting that official war-grave wrecks are being destroyed by scavengers.

redis_mlc 6y ago

You know, there were more than 100 tunnels dug in WW1. Most were used to insert explosives to blow up the trenches above them. The largest man-made explosion at the time was one of those. Losing track of one of those tunnels isn't really noteworthy, and the French have no love for the Germans. On their retreat back to Germany, they destroyed the Alsace region "just because." Most people today think of the Allies and Axis countries as equivalent, but even as early as WW1 the Axis had a reputation as mean and brutal.

nicbou 6y ago
Was it just because, or to prevent use by the enemy
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  The Germans had already lost, hence the retreat back to Germany.
kitd 6y ago
OTOH, this tunnel was a bit different. It went through a hill to supply front line trenches from the relative safety of the far side of the hill. It was much bigger than the mining and explosive tunnels dug into no-man's land. Eg the report says they found large amounts of equipment stored there, railway sleepers, machine guns, ammunition dumps, etc. It would have had a lot more traffic and have been larger than other tunnels. Losing 2 companies of men in there is a not-insignificant war grave.
ben_w 6y ago
Axis was WW2, not WW1. For WW1, the reason I consider Allied and Central powers to be equivalent has more to do with the flaws of the Allies in that era than with the actions of the Central powers. With WW2 and Axis/Allies, even though I’m not at all sure how to judge the relative behaviour of Stalin (Allied) vs Hitler (Axis) — there’s too much propaganda for me to filter though — the British and Americans were unambiguously more moral than the Axis powers.
- 6y ago

chronolitus 6y ago

if the tunnel is unimportant, not worthy of being protected, then shouldn't it bother no-one that people go and loot it? But it does bother me that people would loot it. It seems misguided to simply hoping that someone doesn't eventually find a way to excavate it. Which means that I want it protected, I guess? Seems to me that Pierre Malinowski actions prevent the tunnel from being desecrated rather than the opposite, in the long run. Time will tell.

PicassoCTs 6y ago
The problem is the scale. If all war-sites should be protected, and ammunition properly defused and archaeological researched- then all of europe will do nothing else for a century. Large land-strips in several countries are essentially mined mass graves. Once you set precedence, that upkeep costs for that are multiply exponentially. The ordinance defuse operations and it constantly blocking business for days in major cities every year comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_bomb_disposal_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_bomb_disposal_in_... 2000 tons in germany alone every year. Excavator drivers life dangerous over here. So, yes, if this were to be dealt with properly, goodbye European economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge To avoid opening another barrel (poisoned waste by war production, hidden in the sealed of production caves etc.) - many municipalities employ the three monkey strategy. Don't hear it, don't see it, don't have to deal with it.
- brmgb 6y ago
  > goodbye European economy Even mass defusing (which no one is suggesting) would not tank European economy. It would barely be a blip actually. We are talking about tunnels in the middle of nowhere. The "Zone rouge" is pretty barren. Any large remains of WW1 in cities have been dug up by urbanisation a long time ago. Defusing mostly concern unexploded ordinance from WW2 and there is at most one major event a year in Europe as a whole. It is certainly not "constantly blocking business for days in major cities".
  - CaptArmchair 6y ago

Avalaxy 6y ago

Am I weird for being sad that they don't want to take any photos of the inside? I'd love to see what it looked like in the original setting. I guess I have a morbid curiosity.

kergonath 6y ago
The tunnel itself would be an incredibly valuable document of life in the trenches. I can understand why they would not want to do that with the corpses still there, though.

markvdb 6y ago

"Into the story stepped his son Pierre Malinowski, at 34 years old a maverick ex-soldier who once worked for Jean-Marie Le Pen and now runs a foundation in Moscow dedicated to tracing war-dead from the Napoleonic and other eras. " This was the most interesting part of the article to me: a super condensed portrait of the person who actually ran the illegal excavation. Ex-foreign legion, former parliamentary assistant to the most famous racist French nationalist. Now living in Moscow, close to Putin. Easy to miss for those not too familiar with the French context. Wikipedia [0] has more. The man is a professional firebrand. Different in many ways from Steve Bannon, but they'd probably get along well. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Malinowski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Malinowski

vladvasiliu 6y ago
Could you elaborate on why you think this point is important to the story in the article? I'm not sure how doing this digging would help further the cause of the Rassemblement National (for context: it's the current-day incarnation of Jean-Marie Le Pen's party, the "most famous racist French nationalist" as parent put it) or of Putin's affairs.
- markvdb 6y ago
  The story is about history. The main source to this story worked as the personal European Parliament assistant to Jean-Marie Le Pen [0]. Some Le Pen quotes from that year below [1][2]. Showing this strong support for the most famous holocaust denier in the country is not what you do if you want to be taken seriously as an amateur historian [3]. It shows disrespect for history. It's the historical equivalent of showing your support for the Pi Bill [4] as an amateur mathematician. I can see the potential for some worthwile signal in the noise cloud this man has generated though. With some luck, proper archaelogists and historians may be able to do their jobs using the lead he has generated. If he hasn't damaged the site too much, that is. P.S. With my initial comment, I did not have the intention to suggest that Malinowski was doing this in order to further the cause of the Rassemblement National, Putin or Jean-Marie Le Pen. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/jean-marie-le-pen-bruel-racism https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/jean-marie-le-... . "On fera une fournée la prochaine fois", when asked about jewish French singer Patrick Bruel. [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/jean-marie-le-pen-ebola-population-explosion-europe-immigration https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/jean-marie-le-... . "Monseigneur Ebola could sort that out in three months." [3] ...or a human being, but I digress [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

markbnj 6y ago

As a history buff and occasional amateur explorer of ruins in the U.S. I think that if a thing that has any value is left lying about humans will loot it. The majority of people don't care much about history at all in my experience. They have their own pressing daily concerns, and one person's sacred history is another's material resource. A fortification becomes a source of building stones, an old barn yields timbers for a new floor, and relics are a source of cash. In New Jersey there is a place where archaeologists uncovered a colonial-era iron furnace and then had to re-bury it to prevent people from carting it off piece by piece. Given all this I suspect the French will now have no choice but to excavate and inter the remains in the Winterburg tunnel. It would certainly have been better if the location had remained undisclosed, but I think that is really too much to hope for.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
duxup 6y ago
>humans will loot it. Well it looks like an attempt was already made on the tunnel in question.

aww_dang 6y ago

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/462315.Other_Paths_to_Glory https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/462315.Other_Paths_to_Gl... >Paul Mitchell spends his days researching WWI; his quiet life in the library can hardly be in greater contrast to the carnage he studies. Until, that is, the present catches up with him in the shape of Dr Audley of the MOD. Why does Audley want to know what really happened during the battle for Hameau Ridge on the Somme in 1916? The answer is complex and dangerous. This cold-war era spy novel brought some of the WWI archaeology/research to life for me. I was totally unfamiliar and surprised how much remains unknown about these battlefields.