Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Digging the trenches: the archaeology of the Western Front

Andy Robertshaw, Military Historian, Author and Broadcaster

Digging the Trenches is a study of recent archaeological research conducted on the Western Front by the team headed by Andrew Robertshaw.  The work to date indicates that our knowledge of trench warfare is partial and that more investigation is required. The talk includes case studies and examples of the identification of human remains discovered on sites in France over the past 10 years.

 Report

This Armistice Day lecture gave us a vivid reminder of what life – and death – was like in the trenches of the Western Front in the First World War. Of the millions who died on both sides, hundreds of thousands are in anonymous graves, often buried where they fell, or in mass graves, or lost in shell holes or tunnels. Even 100 years later, ‘bodies come up all the time’ in the course of construction work or road building.

Often the dead were hurriedly buried, still in their uniforms, in the walls of trenches – time and circumstances didn’t permit much else. Sometimes their identities can be established by piecing together clues found with their remains. Details of uniform, or the type of helmet, can indicate the regiment and date of death. Personal possessions – a few coins in the pocket, a letter, a book – sometimes make it possible to name an individual. In one case, this also made it possible to identify where a certain German corporal would have been, who served in the same regiment, in the same rank, at the same time, who survived and was awarded the same Iron Cross 2nd class – one Adolf Hitler. A reminder that the ‘war to end all wars’ didn’t.

Peter Hogarth