This is the best series on WW1 that I have seen. I believe the massive casualties of this war led to it being called "the war to end all wars." The world wanted it to be, they prayed it would, they worked in that direction, but it was not to be. We still live in a fallen world. During the time I served in the Marines, I was always very respectful of a bayonet out of it's scabbard. The word always puts a chill in my back. Bullets and shrapnel are one thing, but cold, sharp steel is quite another. There is just something very final about the words: "Fix bayonets!" Thanks, JD.
General Patton stressed bayonet training as a way of building agressiveness and self-confidence in the troops but there was another reason, and you hit on it. He said: "There aren't a lot of people killed or wounded by the bayonet but EVERYONE is afraid of it!" Semper Fi Marine, and happy belated birthday! 11/10/1775.
There’s an interesting prequel to your observation about the quote. The author H.G. Wells first made the prediction in 1914 that the conflict would be the war to end all wars because, finally (he predicted), Europe would destroy the militarism of Germany and its allies the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Germany’s manufacturing was seen then as a kind of military engine. Destroy that engine, and other European countries need no longer militarize to keep up. The whole cycle of arming could stop, establishing a new order of peace. Wells said it as a kind of “selling point” for Great Britain to join the war: they would be fighting not just the enemy but against warfare itself. An optimistic prediction! By 1918, just as you observe, the phrase had acquired a different meaning: it became the war to end all wars because there was no one left to fight. Millions lay dead and Europe was in ruins. Europe could not fight another war. The change in meaning of that one phrase, seen in 1914 and again in 1918, encapsulated the whole awful history, from hopefulness (to end war) to tragic desperation. If only they’d been able, as you say, to work toward making the new order of peace a reality. Thank you for serving. We have a Marine in the family. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Semper Fi!
JD I truly enjoyed this series. My father was the superintendent of the St Mihiel American cemetery I also attended the American HS in Verdun. I visited all these sites many times, that was sixty years ago. Although, the trees are taller, the ground still shows some of the devastation that happened there. Outstanding job, congratulation.
I'm really enjoying this World War I series. I'm learning quite a lot and getting to see places that I will probably never get to. Please consider doing more World War I series such as this. Safe travels on this Rememberance Day/Veterans Day.
Thanks for bringing us to the Trench of Bayonets J.D.! I first read about it over 50 years ago and always wondered what it looked like. And like yourself, I REALLY wanted the legend to be true. One thing's for certain though, the French built that memorial to last for millenia. They want to make sure that legend or not their people NEVER forget. Praiseworthy indeed!
I visited there in 1974 when I was stationed in West Germany. I don’t remember the monument being that massive but I’m sure it was. At that time, the rusted rifle barrels were still sticking out of the ground. I took pictures of them. I’m glad you cleared that up.
Thanks so much! It’s been 40 years since I’ve been there. I remember that road clearly! I drove past and had to turn around. I remember that sign! They have completely fixed it up since I was there, the rocks and the white pavers were not there, it was a dirt path, the crosses were not there. there were rifle muzzles and bayonets, all rusty and damaged. I ventured near the tree line and was crawling around in the forest and all the bomb craters. I know I have pictures in a photo album somewhere. I think it’s at my sister’s house. I’m going to dig them up and try to share them with you guys. That memorial was very powerful and I remember it clearly out of all the memorials I saw near Verdun. You have the best channel. It’s so interesting. Thanks so much for going back. Thanks JD! Made my day!
Again thank you JD the videos are remarkably informative and well made!!!! Also happy veterans day and a huge thank you to all veterans who served this country proudly and bravely you are greatly appreciated no matter in what war you fought in or even if your time served was during peace time!!!!!!!! Again thank you!!!!!!!
Outstanding video but when are they not. J.D. its great that you are telling the battles of WWI especially of Verdun and visiting where the battle occurred gives your accounts of what happened a whole new prospective and gives rhe memories of those who perished there, both French and German honor.
What took me a while to notice was that wherever you have been in this series, there's been no one there apart from you. It is so deathly quiet 😢 feels like people want to forget and avoid these places. Not that it isn't understandable. Verdun, like most First World War sites, is an incredibly sad place. I love forests, but the forests around Verdun just feel like one massive haunted grave. 😢😢😢
I remember as a child (Dad was USAF Air Police in France 1962-65) visiting several WWI battlefield sites, included a secluded barn in the woods near an old WWI battlefield. I still remember the site of the bayonets sticking out the ground at Douaumont in Verdun under the overhang of the dark concrete cover. At that time several of the bayonets were still in place (before stupid souvenir hunters took them). It was a gloomy, depressing site.
Thank you for the tour. Some how I got dropped off your subscription list, but I resubscribed, always liked your channel, looking forward to the up and coming videos.
It always strikes me how quickly nature heals itself. Just over a hundred years ago, that whole Verdun landscape would've been a muddy, treeless, crater ridden hellscape covered with barbed wire, wrecked tanks, human corpses, dead horses, all the horrors of war. Today it's a beautiful, lush, peaceful, and verdant countryside. That's one of the aspects of JD's videos I love, how even the most horrible places in history can be rendered beautiful again by Mother Nature.
Golden, as always, JD. I always felt like WW1 and Korea were overlooked in our history. Now that I'm older and I've seen so many war movies I honestly think those 2 conflicts are overshadowed by WW2 and Vietnam. There's something sort of sexy about WW2 and the swagger of the soldiers. Vietnam is portrayed in a far more attractive package, too. If I recall being a kid in the 70s and 80s and I wanted to get my army guys and planes and trucks out to play "war" while watching the Saturday matinee war movie, it's because Midway or The Longest Day was on, not All Quiet on the Western Front (a movie I now love, also). Model kits taught me a lot about history. The machines in WW2 and Vietnam were just different.
Absolutely love the series about Verdun, such a great content to watch and learn about! You should visit Wolf's Lair in Poland (german HQ) and area around it, it is huge, you will love it! If you plan to visit Poland, let me know i can help with everything including accomodation and translation.
As a British viewer I find this series absolutely terrific - thank you. My wife and I visited Verdun in September. It may be fanciful but we found it very haunting. Fleury was deeply moving as was the Ossuary. We stayed in the city which also commemorates the First World War in a very dignified way.
I don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to visit Verdun, so I really appreciate the look at WWI from a perspective I would probably take myself 👍 On the other hand, if I do get there someday, it wouldn't be the first time you've inspired me to visit someplace. On another note, have you been watching the American Battlefield Trust's West Point videos? Top notch stuff.
Thank you for all of these histoty videos of the highest quality. As for the 'Bayonet Trench', sadly and tragically some thieves stole the bayonets sometime in the mid- to late-1990s. They were still protruding from the ground when I visited in 1991, but were gone when I visited in 1995.
I visited the trench in 1974. About 50 meters from it, I found the tattered remnants of a uniform lying on the forest floor. It was basically a rag, but this piece of fabric was also a pocket. In the pocket was a small, silver, chain mail purse with a folded up piece of paper in it. The piece of paper was folded over and over, forming a small packet, which held a gold 20 Franc coin in it from 1855, with a bust of Napoleon III on the face. The paper itself was easily legible, and an official document, a reimbursement by the military, for travel expenses. It was an exciting find, but nothing near to what we found later in the visit.
Our US Army company commander took us to France and did a tour of WW1&WW2. I remember going to the Trench Of Bayonet’s. He told the story about this trench of bayonets & I believed it. I didn’t really appreciate this tour until I got older.
Thanks for this excellent video. As a world war history enthusiast I tried to find the location of verdun and river Somme, during my Europe trip in 2019. But unfortunately my guide had absolutely zero knowledge about these locations. Probably the guide wasn't an original European, she was an immigrant .
Another wonderful documentary. As a kid, when I first heard this story I was horrified, thinking that at the other end of that rusty bayonet was a skeleton! But what puzzles me is how many commenters below say they visited the site over the years and "saw the rusty bayonets still sticking out of the ground." If the Germans who later filled the trenches found the soldiers weren't standing in a neat row, and their guns were only nearby (as you might expect after a direct shell hit) then how can anybody explain the bayonets, still visible as late as the 1980s? Were they placed in the ground later, just to help people understand the "legend?"
Really enjoyed this entire series JD! I do have a question though concerning most of the WW1 memorials in France. Seeing as the Germans felt really humiliated at the end of the war and beyond, I.E. Hitler destroying the Rail Car the armistice was signed in. How many of these areas were damaged/destroyed during the German Occupation and did they require restoration after the Second World War. Just curious.
Very good question! The Germans did indeed damage a lot of French WWI monuments during WWII. It seems to me though that it was mainly on the initiative of local troops rather than on higher orders (but I may be wrong) and I don't know how much these monuments around Verdun were affected. I imagine: not too much, because I reckon the Germans, although the winners of the day, would not have wanted to irritate the French populace even more by systematically obliterating entire famous memorials from WWI... Almost every French village had (and still has) one of these WWI war memorials, though (of various sizes), and one popular motif on them was the German eagle being trampled over by a French WWI soldier. Needless to say, the Germans weren't overly impressed with that and at best broke the offending parts off or even in various instances dynamited the whole thing. Sometimes, if they snapped pieces off the monument (like in one example the head of a French soldier) these parts were hidden by locals (buried in their gardens, etc.) and given back to the town after the war... A lot of these memorials were restored or replaced in the 1950s or '60s, but some of them are still being rebuilt even today, in the 21st century.
JD, your story telling and narration is top notch BUT those old B&W photos "at 6:58 for example" really show the horror and misery of what was endured by the solders and the citizens alike. Again, I wish someone like you was my high school history teacher.....
Great videos sir. You say "thee".....alot😂. I've been watching your videos for 3 years. You tell a story of history like you were there! Thank you for the attention to details. I take my hat off to you sir for capturing history! Take care. God bless
I have a friend, Henri Jean Renaud, of St Mere Eglise France. He was 10 years old on WWII DDay. His father was the mayor then. His father fought at Verdun in WWI. He and his famous wife, The Mother of Normandy, are buried in Église Saint-Germain France. Lay some flowers like I did if you go there.
WTF!? This is a shameful pile of lies. This monument should never have been built in the first place, and now that it is, the legend should be debunked at any opportunity.
The Colonel of the 137th had a small wooden monument erected there in January 1919. A generous American patron, Mr. Rand, funded the present-day trench covering with a paved path ending at the nearest road. This monument was opened by Alexandre Millerand, President of the Republic, in the presence of the ambassador of the United States.
These videos are fantastic, and so important. The battle of Verdun was the forge of the 20th Century. It is impossible to understand the tragedy that befall France in 1940 - and Europe overall - without reference to the battle of Verdun in 1916. Even 100+ years later the unyielding carnage is still turning up from beneath the poisoned soil, adding more bones to the vaults below the Ossuary.
hello, I'm French and I live 30 km from Verdun (in Doulcon). Thank you so much for showing how terrible the 14/18 war was for us. (And please, say that the French are not cowards, damn I'm tired of hearing that all the time)
Thanks JD. I bet it all looks like any civil war battlefield times 1000. There were many myths or fallacies about soldiers and what they did. People asked me if we marched on weekends when I became a reservist. Thanks for brining the 40000 foot view down to ground level.
Great video, I always wondered about that story. To me, the legend made little sense. Seing the bayonets sticking out neatly does not make sense if a big shell buried them.
The legend is fascinating. However, the true story is darn cool too. Thanks for showing this awesome and horrible place. Have you had much stand time yet? Still bow here in Michigan. Hope you fill freezer.
Ww1 has so many myths, take the angels of Mons, the 10,000 deaths at Mesen by a mine explosion, the fused bullets of Gallipoli or the football game during Christmas 1914. Yes this one of them to. WW2 has them to I guess
The Germans destroyed or dismantled some like the Glade of the Armistice or the Australian St Quentin memorial but as a rule memorials that were not seen as insulting or denigrating Germany or Germans were left alone. (The St Quentin memorial featured an Australian infantryman trampling and bayonetting the German eagle.) Hitler actually toured some of the allied memorials that he liked, like the Canadian one on Vimy Ridge.
Fascinating origin of wartime mythology. Of course it’s a courageous act to hold your position through a terrible artillery barrage. Whether the French soldiers were killed by jagged chunks of steel hurtling through the air or buried alive by the earth thrown up from the explosion doesn’t matter much in the end. Still it would be so eerie seeing a row of rifle barrels sticking up through the earth lined up along the old trench line.
It does matter, as the soldiers who were said to have died in this spot in fact surrendered to the Germans (because they had no more ammunition, food or water). Sure, other soldiers did genuinely die in his trench, but not the ones to whom the rifles belonged. The French government shamelessly turned the tragic and desperate situation these men were in into a completely bogus tale of heroism. Obviously, the soldiers who fought there weren't very happy about this nonsense. (If you want a clue of how much the government actually cared about the real men rather than the imaginary heroes they had turned them into, the men from the 137th Infantry Regiment who fought in this trench during the war were not even invited to the opening of the monument in 1920!)
@@subscriptions1586 apparently, a hole got created in the 1st line on their right (something like a regiment going away but not being replaced), germans seized the opportunity to infiltrate and go behind their line. nodoby noticed that at 1st, until they realised they were getting shot from that direction. some trenchs may have been captured by surprise but i think most held until no more ammo. and the french just left the guns standing against the trench wall when leaving, prisonners.
There are thousands of aerial photos of this battlefield taken though out its course. That still exist mostly in British archives. The place assumed the landscape of the moon. Train loads of artillery rounds were expended every week.
From a soldier’s standpoint, I always wonder which WW1 battle was the worst to endure. There are so many. And I can’t even name the ones that happened in Palestine, Italy, and Serbia
Is 300 days of fighting a battle short? Not being sarcastic. Nothing can portray or help us understand what a soldier has gone through being shelled with heavy artillery for extended periods of time.
The fact that this particular story is untrue does not change the fact that untold numbers of soldiers on both sides died because they were in a trench that collapsed under artillery fire. I believe that artillery was the leading cause of death during WW1.
Thank you for your interesting info about this battle. Do you think you could explore the beginning of WW1? Why did all this destruction take place? I realize that I’m asking selfishly cause I have no clue why the entire world would be willing to participate in this destruction.
Thank you for another excellent video. I’ve been to the Trench of Bayonets and knew the myth, knew the soldiers bodies had been reinterred after the war, but somehow I didn’t understand the reality. I have to say I didn’t like all the brutalist concrete architecture that the French had employed at this location. I like to see the topography of a battlefield for myself and I felt that it was too overpowering and hid the horror of the human story that occurred. Perhaps that explains why I didn’t understand the reality of the story.
while i don't know (or remember) who designed that concrete monument, it was offered by an american citizen when the story made around the world. That's why you can read 'leur freres d'Amerique' (their american's brothers) on the entrance gate.
He probably sided with Vichy France having seen what the German war machine could bring to a fight Having seen it first hand you probably couldn’t blame him for not wanting to experience that again Petain had a lot of influence
à la mémoire des soldats français qui dorment debout le fusil em main dams cette tranchee leurs frères d'amèrique = in memory of the French soldiers who sleep standing with their rifle in hand in this trench their brothers in America
I don't know why, but i'm absolutely fascinated by these black & white pictures, taken in the 1. World war. Whether it's Ypers or Verdun or somewhere else on the western front, all these photographs reminds me of the surface of the moon. Or a meteor attack from outer space. Just tree trunks, dirt, craters, lakes of blood, carcasses, wire...livin the gruesome live in the trenches on both sides isn't imaginable for me. And the smell of rotten corpses, booze,feces, farts, tobacco, freshly brewed coffee, vomit, the frozen fingers and toes, always wet, the fleas under your helmet and in your pubic hair. Officers, shoutin' out some orders to attack... And now, imagine the whole scene in color...
This is the best series on WW1 that I have seen. I believe the massive casualties of this war led to it being called "the war to end all wars." The world wanted it to be, they prayed it would, they worked in that direction, but it was not to be. We still live in a fallen world. During the time I served in the Marines, I was always very respectful of a bayonet out of it's scabbard. The word always puts a chill in my back. Bullets and shrapnel are one thing, but cold, sharp steel is quite another. There is just something very final about the words: "Fix bayonets!" Thanks, JD.
General Patton stressed bayonet training as a way of building agressiveness and self-confidence in the troops but there was another reason, and you hit on it. He said:
"There aren't a lot of people killed or wounded by the bayonet but EVERYONE is afraid of it!"
Semper Fi Marine, and happy belated birthday! 11/10/1775.
There’s an interesting prequel to your observation about the quote. The author H.G. Wells first made the prediction in 1914 that the conflict would be the war to end all wars because, finally (he predicted), Europe would destroy the militarism of Germany and its allies the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Germany’s manufacturing was seen then as a kind of military engine. Destroy that engine, and other European countries need no longer militarize to keep up. The whole cycle of arming could stop, establishing a new order of peace. Wells said it as a kind of “selling point” for Great Britain to join the war: they would be fighting not just the enemy but against warfare itself. An optimistic prediction! By 1918, just as you observe, the phrase had acquired a different meaning: it became the war to end all wars because there was no one left to fight. Millions lay dead and Europe was in ruins. Europe could not fight another war. The change in meaning of that one phrase, seen in 1914 and again in 1918, encapsulated the whole awful history, from hopefulness (to end war) to tragic desperation.
If only they’d been able, as you say, to work toward making the new order of peace a reality.
Thank you for serving. We have a Marine in the family. Once a Marine, always a Marine.
Semper Fi!
Thanks for the thoughts. Good things to think of. Too bad it didn't turn out to be the last.@@m.h.6499
JD I truly enjoyed this series. My father was the superintendent of the St Mihiel American cemetery I also attended the American HS in Verdun. I visited all these sites many times, that was sixty years ago. Although, the trees are taller, the ground still shows some of the devastation that happened there. Outstanding job, congratulation.
I'm really enjoying this World War I series. I'm learning quite a lot and getting to see places that I will probably never get to. Please consider doing more World War I series such as this. Safe travels on this Rememberance Day/Veterans Day.
Thanks for bringing us to the Trench of Bayonets J.D.! I first read about it over 50 years ago and always wondered what it looked like. And like yourself, I REALLY wanted the legend to be true.
One thing's for certain though, the French built that memorial to last for millenia. They want to make sure that legend or not their people NEVER forget. Praiseworthy indeed!
I visited there in 1974 when I was stationed in West Germany. I don’t remember the monument being that massive but I’m sure it was. At that time, the rusted rifle barrels were still sticking out of the ground. I took pictures of them. I’m glad you cleared that up.
👍🏻
@@jantschierschky3461 Built/inaugurated in1920. Funded by American banker George F Rand.
@@jantschierschky3461even JD mentioned & showed photographic evidence from when it was built in 1920 lmao. Did you even watch the video?
@@paulketchupwitheverything767 thought about a different monument
@shambo247 thought about different monument
Just a sad testament to the loss of French Soldiers. At this trench. Thanks JD for this segment on WW1 battle at Verdun.
Tragic place.
You are a mastermind of video. You found your calling… The Somme next! Perfect day to present this November 11th!
Thanks so much! It’s been 40 years since I’ve been there. I remember that road clearly! I drove past and had to turn around. I remember that sign! They have completely fixed it up since I was there, the rocks and the white pavers were not there, it was a dirt path, the crosses were not there. there were rifle muzzles and bayonets, all rusty and damaged. I ventured near the tree line and was crawling around in the forest and all the bomb craters. I know I have pictures in a photo album somewhere. I think it’s at my sister’s house. I’m going to dig them up and try to share them with you guys. That memorial was very powerful and I remember it clearly out of all the memorials I saw near Verdun. You have the best channel. It’s so interesting. Thanks so much for going back. Thanks JD! Made my day!
Love the drone / IDM ambient sound scapes
Another great vid JD! Thanks for taking us along to places most will never get to experience. Travel safe and God bless!
Again thank you JD the videos are remarkably informative and well made!!!! Also happy veterans day and a huge thank you to all veterans who served this country proudly and bravely you are greatly appreciated no matter in what war you fought in or even if your time served was during peace time!!!!!!!! Again thank you!!!!!!!
Another awesome video.
You have me hooked. I am now a member and Patreon supporter.
Keep putting out great content
Thank you sir.
Happy Veterans Day to all my fellow veterans ❤
👍🏻
Another great video, and thanks for the kind link.
Dude…amazing series, best of the best. GBM and you are the best.
Thanks a ton!
Howdy J.D. and this series is fantastic. Planning my trip in retirement around your travels. I can’t wait. You ROCK!
Well put together Sir, always appreciated your Content.
Regards sent from Western Scotland.
Outstanding video but when are they not. J.D. its great that you are telling the battles of WWI especially of Verdun and visiting where the battle occurred gives your accounts of what happened a whole new prospective and gives rhe memories of those who perished there, both French and German honor.
What took me a while to notice was that wherever you have been in this series, there's been no one there apart from you. It is so deathly quiet 😢 feels like people want to forget and avoid these places. Not that it isn't understandable.
Verdun, like most First World War sites, is an incredibly sad place.
I love forests, but the forests around Verdun just feel like one massive haunted grave. 😢😢😢
I remember as a child (Dad was USAF Air Police in France 1962-65) visiting several WWI battlefield sites, included a secluded barn in the woods near an old WWI battlefield. I still remember the site of the bayonets sticking out the ground at Douaumont in Verdun under the overhang of the dark concrete cover. At that time several of the bayonets were still in place (before stupid souvenir hunters took them). It was a gloomy, depressing site.
Thank you for the tour. Some how I got dropped off your subscription list, but I resubscribed, always liked your channel, looking forward to the up and coming videos.
Brilliant stuff. Excellent presentation.
It always strikes me how quickly nature heals itself. Just over a hundred years ago, that whole Verdun landscape would've been a muddy, treeless, crater ridden hellscape covered with barbed wire, wrecked tanks, human corpses, dead horses, all the horrors of war. Today it's a beautiful, lush, peaceful, and verdant countryside. That's one of the aspects of JD's videos I love, how even the most horrible places in history can be rendered beautiful again by Mother Nature.
I was just thinking the same.
What a great presentation.
The emotion of their bravery and sacrifice I think will live on in any story. Beautiful!
Golden, as always, JD. I always felt like WW1 and Korea were overlooked in our history. Now that I'm older and I've seen so many war movies I honestly think those 2 conflicts are overshadowed by WW2 and Vietnam. There's something sort of sexy about WW2 and the swagger of the soldiers. Vietnam is portrayed in a far more attractive package, too. If I recall being a kid in the 70s and 80s and I wanted to get my army guys and planes and trucks out to play "war" while watching the Saturday matinee war movie, it's because Midway or The Longest Day was on, not All Quiet on the Western Front (a movie I now love, also). Model kits taught me a lot about history. The machines in WW2 and Vietnam were just different.
Interesting story and thank you for telling us what happened here.
Great Video JD! Love the History and yes, I'm always learning from you !!! Plus your videos encourage me to continue researching! Thank you!
Fantastic job! Keep up the great work 👍.
Absolutely love the series about Verdun, such a great content to watch and learn about! You should visit Wolf's Lair in Poland (german HQ) and area around it, it is huge, you will love it! If you plan to visit Poland, let me know i can help with everything including accomodation and translation.
"The truth that matters most." Such an important statement.
Amazing story,thank you JD❤️👍🇺🇸
As a British viewer I find this series absolutely terrific - thank you. My wife and I visited Verdun in September. It may be fanciful but we found it very haunting. Fleury was deeply moving as was the Ossuary. We stayed in the city which also commemorates the First World War in a very dignified way.
Thank you!
Great work JD as always. Thank you for providing such great insight into WWI.
My pleasure!
I don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to visit Verdun, so I really appreciate the look at WWI from a perspective I would probably take myself 👍 On the other hand, if I do get there someday, it wouldn't be the first time you've inspired me to visit someplace.
On another note, have you been watching the American Battlefield Trust's West Point videos? Top notch stuff.
Glad to share it. And yes, the American Battlefield Trust material has been top notch.
Thank you for all of these histoty videos of the highest quality. As for the 'Bayonet Trench', sadly and tragically some thieves stole the bayonets sometime in the mid- to late-1990s. They were still protruding from the ground when I visited in 1991, but were gone when I visited in 1995.
Another excellent video JD. Thanks!
That was a excellent video
Glad you enjoyed it
With the amount of shelling in the area, trust me that sections of trenches did have men buried alive standing up.
I don’t trust you but I believe you
Thanks for bringing the truth to us. I almost want to wait until the end of the series so I can binge watch them all at once.
Hope that you are enjoying the series. Thanks!
One thing that will never change is "crafting a narrative" to gain the hearts and minds of the people.
I visited the trench in 1974. About 50 meters from it, I found the tattered remnants of a uniform lying on the forest floor. It was basically a rag, but this piece of fabric was also a pocket. In the pocket was a small, silver, chain mail purse with a folded up piece of paper in it. The piece of paper was folded over and over, forming a small packet, which held a gold 20 Franc coin in it from 1855, with a bust of Napoleon III on the face. The paper itself was easily legible, and an official document, a reimbursement by the military, for travel expenses. It was an exciting find, but nothing near to what we found later in the visit.
Our US Army company commander took us to France and did a tour of WW1&WW2. I remember going to the Trench Of Bayonet’s. He told the story about this trench of bayonets & I believed it. I didn’t really appreciate this tour until I got older.
I’ve mentioned that I know little about WW1-well, I’d never heard of this😮 thank you for this episode-awesome
Thank you for doing this wonderful episode on Armistice Day
Thanks for this excellent video. As a world war history enthusiast I tried to find the location of verdun and river Somme, during my Europe trip in 2019. But unfortunately my guide had absolutely zero knowledge about these locations.
Probably the guide wasn't an original European, she was an immigrant .
Yet another fascinating story brought to us by your staff! Just continues to show the inevitable futility of war!
Very interesting. Want to learn more about ww1 . Thank you for your work
A quote from a movie sums it up, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Another wonderful documentary. As a kid, when I first heard this story I was horrified, thinking that at the other end of that rusty bayonet was a skeleton! But what puzzles me is how many commenters below say they visited the site over the years and "saw the rusty bayonets still sticking out of the ground." If the Germans who later filled the trenches found the soldiers weren't standing in a neat row, and their guns were only nearby (as you might expect after a direct shell hit) then how can anybody explain the bayonets, still visible as late as the 1980s? Were they placed in the ground later, just to help people understand the "legend?"
Really enjoyed this entire series JD! I do have a question though concerning most of the WW1 memorials in France. Seeing as the Germans felt really humiliated at the end of the war and beyond, I.E. Hitler destroying the Rail Car the armistice was signed in. How many of these areas were damaged/destroyed during the German Occupation and did they require restoration after the Second World War. Just curious.
Very good question!
The Germans did indeed damage a lot of French WWI monuments during WWII.
It seems to me though that it was mainly on the initiative of local troops rather than on higher orders (but I may be wrong) and I don't know how much these monuments around Verdun were affected. I imagine: not too much, because I reckon the Germans, although the winners of the day, would not have wanted to irritate the French populace even more by systematically obliterating entire famous memorials from WWI...
Almost every French village had (and still has) one of these WWI war memorials, though (of various sizes), and one popular motif on them was the German eagle being trampled over by a French WWI soldier.
Needless to say, the Germans weren't overly impressed with that and at best broke the offending parts off or even in various instances dynamited the whole thing.
Sometimes, if they snapped pieces off the monument (like in one example the head of a French soldier) these parts were hidden by locals (buried in their gardens, etc.) and given back to the town after the war...
A lot of these memorials were restored or replaced in the 1950s or '60s, but some of them are still being rebuilt even today, in the 21st century.
Really enjoyed the video lest we forget
At school i remember seeing a picture of a row of bayonets in a rough line, sticking out of the ground.
JD, your story telling and narration is top notch BUT those old B&W photos "at 6:58 for example" really show the horror and misery of what was endured by the solders and the citizens alike. Again, I wish someone like you was my high school history teacher.....
Great videos sir. You say "thee".....alot😂.
I've been watching your videos for 3 years. You tell a story of history like you were there! Thank you for the attention to details. I take my hat off to you sir for capturing history! Take care. God bless
Thanks 👍
I have a friend, Henri Jean Renaud, of St Mere Eglise France. He was 10 years old on WWII DDay. His father was the mayor then. His father fought at Verdun in WWI. He and his famous wife, The Mother of Normandy, are buried in Église Saint-Germain France. Lay some flowers like I did if you go there.
Thanks!
Wow. Thank you!
I want the legend to live on! Just like A.P.Hill being interred standing up.
WTF!?
This is a shameful pile of lies.
This monument should never have been built in the first place, and now that it is, the legend should be debunked at any opportunity.
Great Video
I visited the monument in1982. The bayonets were still protruding from the ground then. I understand vandals have broken them off since then.
Glad you went through that area and showed us. I'd heard that story decades ago and now we know the truth. Thanks for exposing a myth.
Happy Veterans Day to all my fellow service members.
Thank you.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good myth.
Excellent telling, of horror and more horror.
J D, you have again presented an outstanding history lesson. I am so glad you didn't bump your noggin on anything this trip.
I agree!
The Colonel of the 137th had a small wooden monument erected there in January 1919. A generous American patron, Mr. Rand, funded the present-day trench covering with a paved path ending at the nearest road. This monument was opened by Alexandre Millerand, President of the Republic, in the presence of the ambassador of the United States.
These videos are fantastic, and so important. The battle of Verdun was the forge of the 20th Century. It is impossible to understand the tragedy that befall France in 1940 - and Europe overall - without reference to the battle of Verdun in 1916. Even 100+ years later the unyielding carnage is still turning up from beneath the poisoned soil, adding more bones to the vaults below the Ossuary.
Woot! First view!
Keep 'em coming. Glad to see all the WW1 content.
hello, I'm French and I live 30 km from Verdun (in Doulcon). Thank you so much for showing how terrible the 14/18 war was for us. (And please, say that the French are not cowards, damn I'm tired of hearing that all the time)
Thanks JD. I bet it all looks like any civil war battlefield times 1000. There were many myths or fallacies about soldiers and what they did. People asked me if we marched on weekends when I became a reservist. Thanks for brining the 40000 foot view down to ground level.
I often wondered about that .
Cool. Truth or not its an amazing story and only fitting that the bravery of the soldiers was recognised so uniquely.
a fitting post for Remembrance day.
bringing the horror of a great war down to the human level.
thank you.
Great video, I always wondered about that story. To me, the legend made little sense. Seing the bayonets sticking out neatly does not make sense if a big shell buried them.
The legend is fascinating. However, the true story is darn cool too. Thanks for showing this awesome and horrible place.
Have you had much stand time yet? Still bow here in Michigan. Hope you fill freezer.
Thanks. And yeah, I got a pretty good buck this morning.
@@TheHistoryUnderground congrats.
As always, great coverage of a war, very few has no clue of most the history. Its a shame these men had to die for empire and bank.
I the eighties the rifles were still sticking out. But very rusty.
Ww1 has so many myths, take the angels of Mons, the 10,000 deaths at Mesen by a mine explosion, the fused bullets of Gallipoli or the football game during Christmas 1914.
Yes this one of them to.
WW2 has them to I guess
Learn the difference between "to" and "too".
In other words: learn basic English.
What happened to these 1st WW memorials when the 2nd started ? Be interesting to know if they were damaged etc
The Germans destroyed or dismantled some like the Glade of the Armistice or the Australian St Quentin memorial but as a rule memorials that were not seen as insulting or denigrating Germany or Germans were left alone. (The St Quentin memorial featured an Australian infantryman trampling and bayonetting the German eagle.)
Hitler actually toured some of the allied memorials that he liked, like the Canadian one on Vimy Ridge.
Thanks for info appreciated
Wars lends to myth making.
Fascinating origin of wartime mythology. Of course it’s a courageous act to hold your position through a terrible artillery barrage. Whether the French soldiers were killed by jagged chunks of steel hurtling through the air or buried alive by the earth thrown up from the explosion doesn’t matter much in the end. Still it would be so eerie seeing a row of rifle barrels sticking up through the earth lined up along the old trench line.
It does matter, as the soldiers who were said to have died in this spot in fact surrendered to the Germans (because they had no more ammunition, food or water). Sure, other soldiers did genuinely die in his trench, but not the ones to whom the rifles belonged.
The French government shamelessly turned the tragic and desperate situation these men were in into a completely bogus tale of heroism.
Obviously, the soldiers who fought there weren't very happy about this nonsense.
(If you want a clue of how much the government actually cared about the real men rather than the imaginary heroes they had turned them into, the men from the 137th Infantry Regiment who fought in this trench during the war were not even invited to the opening of the monument in 1920!)
@@subscriptions1586 apparently, a hole got created in the 1st line on their right (something like a regiment going away but not being replaced), germans seized the opportunity to infiltrate and go behind their line. nodoby noticed that at 1st, until they realised they were getting shot from that direction. some trenchs may have been captured by surprise but i think most held until no more ammo. and the french just left the guns standing against the trench wall when leaving, prisonners.
There are thousands of aerial photos of this battlefield taken though out its course. That still exist mostly in British archives. The place assumed the landscape of the moon. Train loads of artillery rounds were expended every week.
One of the biggest battlefields of WW1 that is rarely documented is Gallipoli, hopefully one day THU can do so
JD I know you must get tired making these videos. But we won't be mad if you'd like to make them a little longer. 😂 I appreciate what you're doing!
From a soldier’s standpoint, I always wonder which WW1 battle was the worst to endure. There are so many. And I can’t even name the ones that happened in Palestine, Italy, and Serbia
Congratulations on your buck,he's a good one 👍
Few places had as many people killed in combat in as short of time as at Verdun, in all of history. You should look it up.
Is 300 days of fighting a battle short? Not being sarcastic. Nothing can portray or help us understand what a soldier has gone through being shelled with heavy artillery for extended periods of time.
I was there in the 60s the bayonets were sticking thru the dirt
The fact that this particular story is untrue does not change the fact that untold numbers of soldiers on both sides died because they were in a trench that collapsed under artillery fire. I believe that artillery was the leading cause of death during WW1.
I realise that every country wants their war heroes, and to vilify the opposing country, but I actually prefer the true story here over the myth.
The place to find soldiers buried with their bayonets is at the site of all those mines the British exploded under the German trenches.
Thank you for your interesting info about this battle.
Do you think you could explore the beginning of WW1?
Why did all this destruction take place?
I realize that I’m asking selfishly cause I have no clue why the entire world would be willing to participate in this destruction.
Thank you for another excellent video. I’ve been to the Trench of Bayonets and knew the myth, knew the soldiers bodies had been reinterred after the war, but somehow I didn’t understand the reality.
I have to say I didn’t like all the brutalist concrete architecture that the French had employed at this location. I like to see the topography of a battlefield for myself and I felt that it was too overpowering and hid the horror of the human story that occurred. Perhaps that explains why I didn’t understand the reality of the story.
while i don't know (or remember) who designed that concrete monument, it was offered by an american citizen when the story made around the world. That's why you can read 'leur freres d'Amerique' (their american's brothers) on the entrance gate.
He probably sided with Vichy France having seen what the German war machine could bring to a fight
Having seen it first hand you probably couldn’t blame him for not wanting to experience that again
Petain had a lot of influence
I have been there. Trees shown were all not there/destroyed in 1916. Just so you know
Correct. I think that one of the photos that I put up shows the devastation.
à la mémoire des soldats français qui dorment debout le fusil em main dams cette tranchee
leurs frères d'amèrique = in memory of the French soldiers who sleep standing with their rifle in hand in this trench
their brothers in America
🇫🇷
I don't know why, but i'm absolutely fascinated by these black & white pictures, taken in the 1. World war. Whether it's Ypers or Verdun or somewhere else on the western front, all these photographs reminds me of the surface of the moon. Or a meteor attack from outer space. Just tree trunks, dirt, craters, lakes of blood, carcasses, wire...livin the gruesome live in the trenches on both sides isn't imaginable for me. And the smell of rotten corpses, booze,feces, farts, tobacco, freshly brewed coffee, vomit, the frozen fingers and toes, always wet, the fleas under your helmet and in your pubic hair. Officers, shoutin' out some orders to attack... And now, imagine the whole scene in color...