Red zone (after-effects of war)

The red zone is the name given after the war 1914-1918 in France to approximately 120.000 Hectare S of battle field of the First World War, where because of major physical damage on the medium, and because of the presence of thousands of corpses and million not exploded ammunition, certain activities were temporarily or definitively prohibited by the law. Whereas this period is very low in files (they however exist, cf the thesis of J. - P. Amat), the only existence of this zoning makes it possible to apprehend the difficulty and the stakes of the rebuilding.

Never in the History, a zone had not been also destroyed, nor on such an extent by the only action of the Man. The energy cumulated by the explosions can be compared with that of an earthquake very strong magnitude, or with that several atomic bombs.

With time, the surface of the red zone was reduced, but it did not disappear. The officially recognized zones concerned with the damage of war covered 11 departments and several hundreds of thousands of hectares.

This war having inaugurated the massive use of Ammunition S industrially produced, it left in France, Belgium and Germany of low registers physical, chemical and ecotoxicological after-effects. In France where the engagements concentrated, the destruction was quasi-total on 7 % of the metropolitan territory. This damage induced deep reforms in particular Droit of the war.

Since 1914, the French State by an unanimously voted decision had begun with completely compensating those which would undergo damagees war (circular of October 27th, 1914). Five months after the armistice, after long discussions between senators and deputies, the Loi of April 17th, 1919 on the war damagees authorized the State to preempt and buy the grounds which seemed not to be able to be quickly or definitively rehabilitated. The government Clémenceau asked the prefects, via the circular N° 983 of June 10th, 1921 relating to the mode of repurchase and use of the red zone, exproprier and to compensate the owners or beneficiary. This was done under the control of the prefects, with the departments concerned, of which the " Direction of the agricultural services , the Conservation of the Forests , the Agricultural engineering , etc

According to the importance of the estimated impacts, the territories victims of damage were classified in 3 categories, said red zones , blue and yellow because of the colors the representative on the chart. After having drawn up zonal departmental cartographies, with the mayors, the survivors or prisoners coldly sunken in the villages, the services of the State decided “ modes of related use” of the red zone, to master lines with 1/10 000 ()

Part of the Militaria hidden, given up or lost on the red zone is source of a important Pollution chronic, which is added to that of the atmospheric repercussions which followed the shootings, explosions, use of poison gas and the many fires, the whole leading to a considerable concentration of Polluant S in this zone and to the neighborhoods. Contents of the chemical weapons, and the heavy metals vaporized by the conventional Ammunition S (with the shooting or the impact), whose lead of the Shrapnel S and mercury constituting at that time the start S of casings and of shells a priori most alarming for the long run is , because not dégradable.

After the Armistice, the désobusage resulted by the Pétardage in situ of quantities of not burst shells and others ammunition, like in wild hidings or the very artisanal dismantling of chemical shells to recover metals of them after one simply burned in incinerators of fortune or on the spot emptied their contents.
Plus serious, immense a differed source of pollution was consisted the discharge at sea of tens of thousands of tons of ammunition (35 000 tons, only in front of the beach of Zeebrugge, with a few meters of depth for shells recovered in Belgium and perhaps in the North of France). The rejection at sea, including chemical weapons will again massively be used after 1945.

Four twenty ten years after the war, of the ecological anomalies persist in the 11 department S of the red zone (on 4 area S). The restricted parking zones and yellow can also be locally concerned, for example on the spot of destruction of chemical plant, fuel, ammunition dumps or metallurgical, but, it is the red zone and in particular the Meuse, the Pas-de-Calais, the Northern and the Somme which by far are touched. The specialists still note there a less presence and a less diversity of mushrooms, lichens, many plants and animals. This regression is to some extent due to other factors (agriculture, éco-landscape fragmentation, pollution industrial and urban, etc), but the question of the ecological after-effects of war 14-18 remains posed.

Red zones, blue and yellow…

At the end of 1918,4000 communes are devastated or degraded on 3,337,000 ha in 10 departments (). . In 1919, within the framework of the rebuilding the “ ministry for the released areas ”, in bond with the ministry for the armies, produced a cartography in three levels of after-effects, represented by three colors.

Restricted parking zone : characterized by average damage, they are the zones of passage or parking of the armies, with possible remainders of ammunition dumps, materials, casemate or waste various.
yellow Zones : they are the zones briefly or punctually touched by the engagements, generally behind the frontlines or moved away, where the road infrastructures are about functional after the armistice, in spite of sliced, shell holes, or of the grounds locally sifted of not burst projectiles “often ”,
Red zones : they are the zones corresponding to the frontlines of the armies, where is concentrated the major damage. The grounds are upset there, and the road infrastructures, railway, industrial, like bridges, ports and channels are there generally completely détruits
(the denomination of red zone thus does not originate in principal poured blood, nor the red of the poppies which pushed on the plowed ground and hundred times turned over by the shells, but it inevitably evokes them nevertheless in the spirit of the time).

It was initially necessary in the red zone to clean the grounds of the thousands of corpses and human remainders, which - when their state allowed it - will be transported in the Cimetière S or Ossuaire S.
Il also acted to treat the corpses of animals which contaminated water of tablecloths and surface; it is at that time that was wide the Chloration of water by chlorine gas, then known as “Verdunisation”, technique which had been tested in Paris in 1911. One invents also the first techniques of depollution and restoration of grounds with large scales and locally of Inertage, without still thus naming them. A third priority was the Désobusage.

Continuous process

The yellow and blue zones were cleaned, cleared most of the Militaria and ruins of war, and returned to the civil life and the cultures. It was taken account of the dangers of explosion and chemical escapes of ammunition, but practically never of the dangers related to the Contamination S multiples. As example, one largely and very early recovered the Cuivre of the ammunition, but left the million balls Plomb scattered by the Shrapnel. The composition of the ground east will thus be modified taking into consideration contaminant chemical subjected to standards, for 10.000 years, at least (lead, mercury, zinc. are not biodegradable), This does not mean that food productions respecting the Norme S in force cannot be made, May that would ask that the producers with the accompaniment necessary organize themselves to prove it by facts (analyzes, Certification S.), so as to provide to reassure the public and the purchasers; what to date does not seem to be made, one of the explanation which can be systematic practice of the Déni, also used by the Politique, probably from the birth of the Humanité and to our days in spite of European engagements as regards access to information as regards environment. Certain parts of the red zone never could be cleaned, or were it only very superficially. They were wooded with sometimes a setting in interdict for reasons of danger, or like site of memory (close to Verdun or Vimy). Elsewhere, certain pieces were quickly returned to the culture, even with the breeding (by ex: the first industrial pigsty of France, still experimental is built into 1928/1929 on the field of Molleville, with Consenvoye, close to Verdun, on 25 ha on a ground sifted before of shell holes, after soil stabilization by chemical amendments (industrial waste actually). This place which produced part of the elite of the porcine Génétique of the time, therefore of the rebuilding, is an good example of not taken into account at the time of the problems of contamination. It is a cereal Ferme today.

Pieces were returned with the culture until in 1976, at least superficially déminées and cleaned.
Chaque year, of the hundreds of thousands of shell and other ammunition are still updated, by chance, during the ploughings or of work, and will be it a long time still (during approximately 700 years with the current rhythm of mine clearance, according to the Civil security). Sites of the military inheritance formerly located in red zone must still be more or less superficially cleansed before being returned or sold with communities or opened with the public such part of the site of the Mémorial of Vimy.

Persistent environmental after-effects

The first perceptible index of pollution to the informed eye is the abundance of lead balls (sometimes in the course of délitement) projected by the shells shrapnels in the grounds or on their surface. The relictuelle presence of million balls, of chemical or traditional shells, and others militaria (remainders of war) toxic is more discrete but alarming.
Les ammunition was recovered better on the surface, in particular to meet the needs for the rebuilding. For lack of metal detectors in 1919, the majority of the conventional or chemical ammunition hidden or immersed in the lakes or ponds remained it, subjected to slow and inescapable corrosion.
Très locally of major pollution remains, as on the site “Place says to Gas” in the Meuse (in the course of study and treatment since 2004) where more than 99% of the animal species of the ground and the plants have continued to die for 80 years because of extremely high rates of heavy metals of which arsenic (17% of the weight of the ground!) coming from arsines extracted from ammunition chemical and burned on the spot.
Elsewhere, forest cover was easily reconstituted, the roots easily penetrating the grounds dislocated and turned over by the shells. In the open agricultural zones (meadows, scrap-metal) diversity in plants, insects, animals and mushrooms seems abnormally low. Some indices let fear that the mushrooms are often contaminated there by heavy metals, just as in forest. Abnormally high lead rates were measured in the livers of the Sanglier S with approximately of Verdun, higher than elsewhere in the area, itself more touched than of others. Wood drawn from the trees itself could have absorbed and have stored certain poisons.

Activities authorized in red zone:

The Master line departmental indicate the zones likely to be retimbered (dyed green), those being able to be given in a state of culture by the ordinary means and average mechanics powerful (dyed bistre) and finally the zone to be preserved like vestiges of war (dyed yellow). Reports/ratios of the Conservation of the Forests and Management of the Agricultural services detail and justify these projects.

Only some activities are authorized in red zone:

the Sylviculture (national forest) in area of Verdun, around the memorial of Vimy.
of the military activities (military camp established on the ruins of 5 villages; Tahure, Ripont, Hurlus, Perthes, Mesnil) of which a field of fire in storage area.
the Tourism of memory and cultural

Agriculture was there and there remains prohibited (theoretically, because in the years 2000, one still finds zones of mowings, Agrainage and cultures huntings in full red zone). It is prohibited because of the Risque S related on the not exploded ammunition or the toxic residues of exploded ammunition, scrap, barbed wires, saps, risks related on the chemical residues and after war to the human corpses, etc

Concerning these corpses, as of August 1925, the bodies coming from the many small cemeteries around Verdun were transported in the Necropolis main road of Verdun (starting from the unused cemetery of Fleury at the end of 1925, and that of the Fountain of Tavannes at the end of 1926 then of that of Telling wood), while collecting the human skins discovered during the cleaning of the “red zone” (up to 500 per month, a from which little more half could be identified in the 10 years which followed the armistice).

The animal corpses were hidden or burned at the time of the first period, and then broke up in the ground, with the Polluant S which had been able to contaminate them if necessary.

The Militaria were removed, often by the inhabitants themselves or prisoners, foreign workers (Chinese or European), volunteers (Quakers) and the bomb disposal experts English and sometimes French, assisted companies having obtained an official concession for the recovery of metals. Most of recovered metals was the subject of a trade supplied with the urgent needs of the rebuilding.

Localization

Twelve departments were classified (for whole or part) in red zone in 1919:

Northern,
Pas-de-Calais,
Somme, Oise,
Seine-et-Marne,
Aisne,
the Ardennes,
the Marne,
Meuse,
the Vosges,
the Moselle,
Haut-Rhin,
the Low-Rhine.

The industrial area of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais was devastated, classified in 1919 in red zone or yellow for approximately two thirds of its surface; More in the East: The sector of Verdun which on a relatively restricted surface would have received more than 60 million shell of which at least 15 million does not have not exploded, was classified in " zone rouge" (from where the presence of important main forests), whereas Laon, less touched was in yellow zone. At a rate of 2 G of fulminate of mercury per starter (1 G of pure mercury) and of two starters per shell + casing, one can estimate that 90 tons of mercury polluted the masses of air and the ground and water on the only sector of the battle of Verdun. The cut-off waters and the rivers crossing these zones are or were most probably modified in their composition, even seriously polluted. It is plausible and probable that via of the Arm-death S polluted at the time of the conflict or filled with militaria (whose not exploded shells), the grounds as well as the sediments of channels or rivers (Somme, the Scheldt, Scarpe, Yser) are still locally dangerous continuations of this war.

It should be noted that the Champagne and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais were the theater of occupations and/or violent one engagements in 1814,1815,1871-1872, 1914-1918, but also 1940-1944 when however the chemical weapons fortunately or were not very used little in spite of very important stocks accumulated by belligerents (Yperite, Tabun, Sarin, etc) It seem that the Germans could “have recovered” part of the toxic ammunition produced in France during 20 years, between 1919 and 1939, or that ammunition were quickly hidden not to fall to the hands from the enemy (which they became?). Many shells found after 1945 by the bomb disposal experts were destroyed by bay pétardage of Somme in the estuary. In Vimy, shells with gases recovered after 1918 were stored in the open air, and one could note that they had been strongly degraded, requiring their displacement with the camp of Suippes in armor-plated and cooled trucks.

The Rebuilding

In the red zone, the rebuilding must face the upheavals of the ground, with the presence of cavities (tunnels, saps…), of not burst projectiles (of which chemical shells), with the lack of money, means and labor valid or available. The first work consists in releasing the roads and filling the pots and shell holes. The corpses are present until several meters of depth in the grounds. The désobusage and a repairing would have required there much more money than the land value of the grounds, of which some will be a long time inapt for agriculture. It is what justified their purchase by the State.

Tourism of war was spontaneously constituted as of the end 1918, the families wanting to see the place of the engagements and often of died as of theirs. The hairy ones organized in associations of War veterans and many families in addition wished that the physical testimony of certain places become be preserved “crowned”, whose ground contained a great number of nonrecoverable bodies because of their depth or because shredded by the explosions.

The State, the communities and the National Forestry Commission thus carried out the installations differentiated from the red zone, under the authority of the industrialist roubaisien Louis Loucheur (polytechnician, ex- Engineer of the construction of the Railroads of North, specialist in the Ciment armed and implied in the sector of the armament). Former under-secretary of State to Artillery and the Ammunition (named by Briand, in December 1916, at 56 years, the sides of Albert Thomas, Minister for the Armament and Manufacture of war), it is named in September 1917 Minister for the Armament (to replace Albert Thomas) in the government of Painlevé (September 12th - November 16th, 1917), then in that of Clémenceau (November 16th, 1917 - November 26th, 1918).

Fifteen days after the armistice, on November 26th 1918, it becomes Ministre of the industrial Reconstitution, until January 20th 1920. It is at that time, at the beginning of 1919, which the filed reports/ratios of the sub-prefects and prefects of North and the Pas-de-Calais to the ministry for the Interior brutally cease evoking the problem of the enormous quantities of not exploded ammunition left by the war, whose treatment will be entrusted to the English forces still present in the North of France. In the reports/ratios of the previous months, this problem was presented like the first problem with the lack of coal, of bituminized paper and paperboard.

Loucheur advises Clémenceau with the conference of the Peace of January 1919, for the negotiation of the Traité of Versailles and negotiates directly with Lloyd George, before being named Ministre with the Areas released in the sixth government Briand (January 16th, 1921 at January 15th, 1922) where it will have still to follow the problem of the after-effects of war, in particular the summer and the autumn 1921, during the negotiation with Wiesbaden with Rathenau of the question of German repairs. Elected official Appointed of the district of Avesnes-on-Helpe (Northern) in November 1919, re-elected in 1924 and 1928 it supports the rebuilding of the railroads, telecommunications and the buildings with moderate rent which are its old branches of industry, which will be worth to him to be qualified of “war profiteer” by his detractors.

He will be briefly Minister Commercial, Industry, Stations and Télégraphes in spring 1924, where he will take part in the redefinition of the reports/ratios of the State and the French Compagnie of oils : the period of the rebuilding, like that of the war, showed that the fossil fuels became completely strategic for the states, and oil will replace little by little coal like raw material of coal-chemical industry and the organic chemistry in general.

Another personality was Albert Lebrun, another polytechnician, originating in Meurthe-et-Moselle and future president of the Republic. Briefly Minister for the War in January 1913, then artillery commander with Verdun in August 1914, Minister for the Blockade and the areas released in 1918 and 1919 Clémenceau pennies, and Senator, representing France with the Company of the Nations of 1920 to 1932, chairman of the board of the National office of mutilated and reformed war, it will contribute to the rebuilding, solved partisan of the refunding of his debt by the Germany.

Installation of the red zone

Five years after the armistice, the law of April 24th, 1923 made it possible to classify the sites remained “red zone” in two categories:

of the grounds to preserve like vestiges of war (extremely of Douaumont, ossuary, etc)
of the grounds entrusted to the forest Administration to be retimbered.

In 1927, nearly 10 years after the armistice, the sorting of the grounds, the formalities of repurchase and retrocession to the forest Administration being finished, the afforestation could be started on approximately 130 000 ha in the east of the Meuse, including the plate of Douaumont. But it is only in 1929, after two years additional of cleaning, drainage and earthwork which a methodical afforestation was undertaken with large scales with leafy trees: acacia, alder, ash, sycamore, birch, poplar, but also of the coniferous trees: black pine, spruce, larch of Japan, woodland pine (1927: plantation of coniferous tree in red zone). It is today that certain of these trees start to become ripe.

Three types of grounds can be distinguished:

surfaces coming from nonwooded grounds before the war,
surfaces occupied by old wood,
marshy surfaces.

Afforestations, forests of war

In Picardy, in the Somme, of many sites were returned with agriculture or were timbered. Many timberings remained private there, still concerned with the risks related to the not-exploded ammunition.

With Vimy, on the zones most degraded by the war, a forest was planted by the French. And on the part of the site offered to the Canada by France (around the current Canadian memorial of Vimy) thousands of pines were planted (a Canadian tree by death entered). In 2005, part of the site is still not déminée and remains prohibited with the public.

Before the violent ones engagements of 1916, the solid masses primarily consisted of leafy trees, on less vast surfaces. They encircled in the Meuse nine communes destroyed on a surface equal to approximately a third of their current surface.

The department of the Meuse had the frontlines most developed (approximately 1/5 of the French face), on 120 km, of which more than 60 km were dug under cover of the trees, before those are not destroyed by the rains of shells which fell down on these zones. The work of restoration of the forests was there particularly important, difficult and long.

See the chapter devoted to the Rebuilding of the forests of Meuse after the First World War, in the article History of the Meuse , and the article Forest of war.

Initial surface and evolution

The surfaces in red zone vary according to the departments, on the basis of prefectoral estimate of the damage.
As example, in the only department of the Marne, the total surface area of the red zone (1/7 of the total surface area in red zone in France) is of: 24 556 hectares, of which 2 185 could in 1921, according to the prefect of the Marne, being given in a state of culture (at an estimated cost of 2 185 X 1 076 = 2 350 960 francs (value 1921). In this department, the prefect thus proposed the timbering of 84% of the red zone, estimating that the “given in a state of culture” could be considered only for the communes of: Cormicy, Loivre, Courcy, Berméricourt, Minaucourt, Massiges, Fountain-in-Dormois, Gratreuil, Rouvroy, Cernay-in-Dormois, Servon, Ville-sur-Tourbe, and Vienna-the-Castle. Elsewhere, he proposes to timber 20 833 hectares of zones to strong after-effects, at a cost of 20 833 X 150 = 3 124 950 francs, by leaving 1 538 hectares “ in the actual position ” (like vestiges of war and “site of villages” ).

In France, the red zone - at April 6th, 1919 - covered 178 511 ha (of the littoral of the departments of North and the Pas-de-Calais in the Vosges). In eight years, more than 70% of this surface (either 129 611 ha) “were désobusée”, cleaned and displaced little by little to be returned to agriculture and town planning. The red zone was finally reduced to 48 820 ha on January 1st, 1927. Last nine destroyed villages (or very partially) were not rebuilt. Artificial forests succeeded it the fields, meadows and grazing grounds.

After-effects related to the ammunition, quantitative aspects

For only the Battle of Verdun, one knows that more 120 000 tons of ammunition were conveyed only by the “sacred way” the first weeks for the French side (for a 2000 tons/day routing on average during this battle).

Ammunition are still very present on the surface: for the preparation of a memorial to the Moslem soldiers died in the battle field, a simple mine clearance of surface close to the ossuary of Douaumont updated, during the winter 2005-2006, 219 projectiles, bombs, shell or grenades, on only a few tens of square meters, as well as the bones of a soldier. In Vimy, close to the Canadian memorial (on a zone not déminée after 1918) these are 300 shells which were found in the first 15 centimetres of the ground at the time of an experimental mine clearance. The number and the distribution of the not exploded shells (of which chemical) hidden with more than one meter of depth were never estimated (according to the sources available). One however knows, to have found of it, that some were inserted up to 15 meters of depth. The shells which were collected per hundreds of thousands on many sites of the red zone all were not dismounted and were emptied of their contents to recover metals of them. Number of them ( chemical and conventional ), still in their cases sometimes, were transported by train or truck towards the littoral ports of France for - as one did in Belgium and in good of other countries - being immersed at sea. Some already started to flee, corrosion being faster at sea than on ground or out of fresh water.

Stakes for health: metals composing the shells and other ammunition have few impacts visible on the flora (except with very high amounts), but they are sometimes toxic (with a few micrograms) for the animals, and they can be bioaccumulés by the food chain. Ammunition conventional (and chemical), and waste of war (explosive…) can for a long time (centuries and millenia) pollute the sites, grounds and sediments of these areas or the places where they were transported. Are the livestock and vegetable products or the ground resulting from the forests of war potentially (with certainty at least locally?) polluted by lead, arsenic, mercury, or other metals like by chemical compounds.

The mushroom consumption, wild boars and other game, even of animals of breeding, or food cooked with the wood fire (with wood having absorbed lead or other poisons), and in certain cases via unrolled wood (weak risk because of wood grapeshots intended for other uses), firewood for bakeries, pizzerias, and other grills with fire (+ charcoal for barbecue, if it A of it there) could cause Intoxication. One of the origins of the lead high rate of the wines (first source of lead in the food of French according to the conference of consensus on lead poisoning) remains badly explained. The desorbed lead of the wood of the barrels of oak, to some extent coming from the repercussions of the wars could be one of the causes.

Defect of information

On the Internet, the biogéographe Jean-Paul Amat is quoted for his analyzes on the Polémosylvofacies relics of the War 1914-1918, Its work, very innovating, relates to however only the physics soil upheaval, and not the ecotoxicological after-effects terrestrial of this conflict. Only some analyzes very punctually made by the ONF and/or of the scientists specialists in the grounds or the after-effects of war seem to exist, and only since the years 1990. Some experts and personalities or journalists have several times alerted on the ecotoxicological risk for the sector of Verdun and the red zone, without echoes nor very significant results seems it.

It seems that the new owners and users of the sites of the red zone or yellow were never informed of all the risks related to the after-effects of war, including one possible pollution differed by the mercury (bioconcentration of the repercussions of residues of Fulminate of mercury of the million drawn shells on this sector, or escapes starting from starters hidden in the ground) and by the lead (which was very much used into 14-18, in particular with the sometimes intense use of the shrapnells).

The lack of relative data to the Désobusage would have various explanations of which emergency context, of informal economy and relative disorder related to the rebuilding. Although initiated under the authority of the English forces remained in the north of France, the civilians, the scrap merchants and the bomb disposal experts English, North-American and French seldom clearly coordinated only their work, not quantifying and filing only imperfectly their operations of destruction or transport of ammunition. Moreover, as from February 1919, these operations in North seem to be suddenly subjected to a censure if it is not with the military secrecy. Then it is possible that in 1939-1945, France protected its files particularly well, by fear which the German army does not seize of stocks of French chemical ammunition or of the territory. Always it is that the files of the mine clearance are particularly poor for the period preceding 1950.

The red zone today

Since nearly one century, she remembers to the memory owners and first transformation of wood by “wood grapeshots” who lost much of their value. The technicians of the ONF, the private owners and the bomb disposal experts know certain dangers of them. Some commemorative exposures evoked it, but without never referring to the ecotoxicological after-effects step more than in the Forest Regional Orientations (ORF), or at the time of the work groups of the regional Commission of the forest and the products forest or devoted to the forest ecocertification. The ORF and the regional directives of installation (DRA) of the ONF only invite to cut wood grapeshots and to replace them by other trees. The inventories of fixtures drawn up in the years 2000 pursuant to DCE (Parent directive European on water) seem to have also omitted to study these after-effects.

The red zone is in addition forgotten of most of the population, which remembers it especially by the visited village-Memory and historic sites. Its landscapes were however transformed into a few decades: The photographs of the beginning of 1914 show around Verdun, of Vimy or in the Sum of vast landscapes of Openfield, which one knows deforested since the Early middle ages sometimes. The few hedges and scattered glazing bar quasi-exclusivement consisted of leafy trees. 20 years later, except on the sites protected from the memorial of Verdun with Fleury, on the Ossuary of Douaumont, and the Fort of Douaumont as on the military field of fire which extend on a North-South axis, vast national forests, artificially planted frames the valley of Meuse. The Champagne-Ardenne, in spite of the great clearings of coniferous tree of the years 1960-1970 out of Champagne cankered passed from 566 000 ha of forest in 1878 to 660 000 in a little more than one century, is a profit of almost 100 000 ha, concentrated in Argonne today wooded with 52% and primary education Ardenne wooded with 68% (12% of coniferous tree in the forests of production). Two Regional natural parks (PNR) were created including the wooded solid masses of the Montagne de Reims and the Forest of the East.

To Vimy and in some places in Picardy, the forest also extended, but with much less timbered surfaces and more éclatées.
All the forests of war are however not public; the upset zones of Saint-Mihiel or Ailly-on-Meuse to some extent are covered today of private forests. The large solid masses like many small and large wood private of north and Is France still carry traces of this conflict, without the simple plans of management or the actions of forest Certification not taking account of the ecotoxicological aspects and the possible contamination of wood, mushrooms or game by poisons resulting from the war.

All the forests of the old red zone are not perennial; out of Champagne “cankered” (chalky), 170.000 ha of pine forests of poor quality were cut in the years 1950-1960 “to return” the ground to agriculture in order to produce there corn, beets and potatoes or alfalfa (with a productivity among highest in the world, but with great reinforcement of manure and pesticides). Surfaces of vineyard also doubled in this area in the years 1970 and 1980 whereas the breeding persisted in Haute-Marne and in the the Ardennes.

Conclusion

It is only at the end of the 20th century that UNO started to evoke and study the environmental after-effects of recent conflicts (wars of the Gulf, Kosovo, etc). However, all the important conflicts of the 20th century, and particularly the first industrial and total war, that of 1914-1918, have deeply and as a a long time marked the Environment. This question remains surprisingly little studied by the History.

Concerning the impacts differed, since the years 2000, the problem of the ammunition immersed at sea is mentioned, but the aspects Health-Environment remain almost not approached in the thousands of sources relating to DER of DER concerning the old red zone.

Except very briefly following some accidents or spectacular unexpected discoveries, or during transport of degraded ammunition (like those of Vimy), alarms of the ecologists and ecotoxicologists seem little followed effects. The scientific studies concerning the environmental after-effects of the ammunition still present on the red zone which concentrated them inaccessible, rare, are isolated or very incomplete. They are the fact of initiative of some trainees, students, teachers or motivated individuals or, it if they exist, it is about document classified inaccessible for the public.

The environmental aspect of the after-effects of war remains curiously eluded by the historians of the period, causing even sometimes reactions of déni.
Ceci applies to the after-effects differed in space and time, where million shells was transported to be dismantled or immersed.

Whereas prepares the centenary of this conflict, France in spite of the injunctions of the Commission OSPAR and the European commission déclassifié its first official data on the immersion underwater only with five years of delay, semi-2005, although being the country more touched by the after-effects of war over the period 1914-1918. It mentioned this problem only after Germany, Belgium or England, and much more discreetly.

On the territories of the old red zone, but also where, or the not exploded ammunition recovered on this zone treated immersed were exported, persists a durable Risque, not quantified nor qualified, and not managed individual or collective exposure to toxic metals even with low dose. This risk was not made available of the public and the town councilors.

Is necessary it to see an explanation in a will collective and unconscious of lapse of memory, so much the horrors of this war were difficult at the same time to say and “to forget”… in particular in connection with the chemical gases which traumatisé the opinion so much so that any the belligerents of Europe or of North America did not dare to use at the time of the Second world war the considerable stocks accumulated since 1918, preferring even the to them arms atomic.

Always it is that with time the ammunition corrode and risks it serious contaminations increases. And to the forgotten ammunition those are added which were manufactured and stored second half of the 20th century, that the majority of the countries were committed destroying before 2007, objective who does not seem to be able to be reached being given the weakness of the means which are allocated to him.

Lastly, the red zone is not the only one to have undergone the environmental after-effects. Other departments, other countries (whose colonized Belgium, Germany and territories ) still undergoes the impact of the million ammunition was given up, immersed or treated without precautions for the Environment. In the south of France, chemical shells were demilitarized without one knowing with which impacts, of the ammunition were immersed (Lake of Sown in April, Gouffre of Jardel), and of relictuelles pollution can exist in unexpected places. The red zone has after-effects differed for the future, with the ammunition immersed while coming, which made say to some that DER of DER is not finished.

Sources

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