LECTURE REPORT

The archaeology of Armageddon

ANDY SIMPSON

At our March lecture, Andy Robertshaw, Head of Education at Chelsea's National Army Museum, told how he started military archaeology early, digging on the Civil War Defences at Colchester as a schoolboy.  It was possible to study First World War battlefields on the Western Front through archaeological methods, but sadly sites continue to be lost.  There are many similarities and connections with regular archaeology - renowned archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler was a British Army Artillery Officer during the Great War.

Our lecturer has been involved in a village excavation project uncovering Great War trenches in the Somme area of France for the past eight years. At Beaumont- Hamel, a mine was found still intact under Vimy Ridge, complete with explosives and detonators, right beneath the visitor centre.

Interest in the period remains high with a recent BBC "Ancestors" programme entitled Journey To Hell featuring the war poet, Wilfred Owen. For the excavation featured in the programme, ten archaeologists from Belgium, Britain and Germany undertook a ten-day excavation at Serre on the Northern Somme battlefield where Owen was stationed in January 1917, spending fifty-two hours in a dugout, which the excavation hoped to find. A desktop study included looking at Casualty Lists to find men killed from the 2nd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment.  Other research included extensive map-work, with Allied trenches shown in blue on contemporary maps, German in red, hence "blue on blue" referring to casualties inflicted by "friendly fire".

Aerial photographs were also studied.  One German map showed the positions of dugouts, which were built to a standard size to accommodate eight bunks. A second German map showed sub-surface features, eg. Trench layouts and tunnels.  When the area was recaptured by the Germans they found 250 dead of both sides mixed up together. The area was then re-mapped showing craters and the one remaining dugout, the one the excavation team aimed to find. All features had nicknames such as "Blue Pig Crater" which was where Owen had positioned his men. The Germans had blown in the entrance to the dugout and then abandoned it. Visitors on modern Western Front "Rust and Dust" tours can see how the chalk upcast from some trenches shows up clearly in fields even today.

As part of this project, excavations were underway in October, 2003, for a large project at the Serre Road Cemetery No 2, near the former front lines.  French local government was involved.  Much material still remains in the ground.  Many techniques of excavation/research were used, including dowsing, ("the Magic Baguette...") since there was no money available for geophysics. Deep tunnels were located and clearance work carried out by a JCB.  A windsock had to be installed to show wind direction so diggers could quickly move downwind of any ruptured gas shells disturbed by such activity, with an EOD man to handle any ordnance uncovered always present with the archaeologists.   Removal of topsoil rapidly revealed the lines of chalk back-filled trenches, the chalk occurring naturally at a depth of 6 metres below clay. The chalk was blown in by the explosion of a nearby mine, sealing the contents of the trench as it was in 1916. Full recording was insisted upon by the archaeologists present.

A U-shaped trench had been cut through the clay - the clay subsoil in the area caused problems for the troops with waterlogged trenches, the excavations revealing trench boards preserved in the damp soil at the base of the trench. Steps were found leading into a presumed dugout with a box of live hand grenades still lying at the entrance. It turned out that this was the entrance to a mine with a tunnel leading out under the former no-mans land.

One lower half of a body found lying on the clay close to the surface was shown to be that of a German soldier still wearing the remains of his jackboots; the shoulders and head were missing. He was lying in a shell hole and the upper part of the body had been ploughed away. He had been killed by shellfire, as evidenced by shrapnel fragments in his body, and buried wrapped in his groundsheet by his comrades.

A metal identity disc dated 1914 was found and analysed by UCL London; he came from the 121st Reserve Regiment, Stuttgart. Unusually, his name was stamped on the back of the disc - he was 34 year old farm labourer and reservist Hans Jacob Holms, killed  13 June, 1915, by a French attack. Blowfly egg cases found with the body showed that it had lain exposed for some time.  The remains were passed to the British Commonwealth War Graves Commission who handle WW1 German dead since the German authorities' are so swamped by WW2 casualties, particularly from the former Eastern Front (10,000 in 2003 alone). One of his six children (born 1914) was found still living in Germany – his descendants were all excited by the discovery of his grave.

Over five days, two more bodies were found, one British and one German - an average of one body per 80 square metres excavated. The Owen dugout was not found, but the multi-national team - calling themselves "No Mans Land" will undertake more work at Easter and in the autumn of 2004.  The British body, lying on top of trench boards, was one of 83 men killed on the day of the attack, and he was due to receive a full military funeral from his former Regiment on 21 April.  At the time of his death his grave was marked by a metal picket post that had later fallen to the ground. The second German soldier was found with his pen, book and a prehistoric worked flint – all German army units had an archaeologist on their strength at this time!

These excavations shed light on how trenches were built, damaged by shellfire, repaired, occupied and backfilled, with not all being "typical" types, differing from those built to the manuals. On current estimates it will take 300 years to clear the buried ammunition from the former Western Front. The French are less interested than the British and Belgians in recording and preserving this period of history, the French being more interested in Gallic resistance to the Romans, French WW1 military records still being on their secret list!

This was an excellent and thought-provoking lecture. It is good to know that at least a few more Great War combatants are being identified and will now have a known grave.