"...you will remember that there were men, women, children who lived there,
who loved this Lorraine landscape, who plowed its heavy, meager soil.
There were men here who lived at peace,
and the mortal remains of their ancestors are now mingled with those of dead soldiers!
All are now protected by the Ossuary where the soul of battlefield
still quivers and where burns the eternal flame of devotion."
-Gerard Canini
["The Great War" intro theme]
We're gonna look now at the village of Fleury,
which is a village quite close to Verdun,
and we're close right now to the absolute limit of the German advance, which they reached
in June of 1916.
Uh, can you pan around so we can see the village of Fleury?
Now, if you're thinking, "that doesn't look much like a village in the traditional sense",
you're absolutely right.
Fleury was absolutely blasted off the face of the Earth - the physical village.
There are eight such villages in the Verdun area that no longer exist as villages,
but still actually exist on the map and exist as an homage. Fleury still has a mayor
and every year they have a commemoration and maybe a dozen or two dozen people turn up
and the Mayor comes, and it will continue to have a mayor...
Well, probably forever as far as I can imagine.
Uhm...
It's hard to...
Overstate the importance of Fleury in the battle of Verdun though,
even though it was a village of only four or five hundred people.
It began being bombed... Bombed and bombarded from the very beginning of the Battle of Verdun,
and by the beginning of May, it was completely destroyed.
I mean we're not too far from Douaumont.
Which, of course the Germans took in February.
Uhm
In June, when the Germans launched another couple of offensives,
they were towards Fleury and Fort Souville which...
and Fort Souville was the last of the... of the real major forts
between them and Verdun which they never managed to take.
and Fleury, even though it had been destroyed, is a strategic point.
So, this was a big big scene of fighting. Actually, it changed hands 16 times during the summer
But in June, when the Germans launched new offensives
at the beginning of the month and towards the end of the month,
they were very very close to breaking through actually,
which we've talked about in our regular episodes.
However, at the same time, Conrad Von Hötzendorf, the Austro-Hungarian Army Chief of Staff,
had launched his own offensive into Italy, and as that was slowly failing,
General Brusilov's offensive - the Russian offensive - was hitting Austria in the back door,
so Conrad appealed to German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn
for help and von Falkenhayn took three divisions from Verdun and sent them over to help out the Austrians.
And this
could have actually been - may well have been - the difference between defeat and victory
at the Battle of Verdun, because many of the people fighting at Fleury and Souville said
their defenses were so thin if the Germans had had a few dozen more men,
that would have been it - let alone three more divisions.
Now, also around Fleury and Fort Souville, a Green Cross gas made its appearance
and this was another - yet another - new danger, the phosgene gas
which was the deadliest of the poison gases used during the First World War.
People... think more of the horrors of mustard gas
but phosgene gas was actually responsible for 75% of all the gas casualties of the First World War.
So, by August, the Germans had actually been pushed out for good from Fleury,
and in October - and in November,
Fleury - this - what's left of this, what was left - and these trees were not there.
There was...
There was nothing there.
What's left of this became a jumping-off spot for the French during their counter-offensives
to retake Fort Douaumont and retake Fort Vaux.
So incredibly strategic place throughout the year
1916, and nothing left today except
commemorative plaques and a mayor.
And we're going to take a walk around now,
and I'm going to show you something that it's going to seem cool, but again
it's not cool because nothing about this place being blasted out of existence is cool,
but it will be very interesting, so follow along with me.
[Indy]: "In the space of a few seconds, I see in the south corner the ruins of Fleury still occupied by the French.
Gigantic clouds of black smoke and flamethrowers in action.
I immediately see fanatic French groups - many screaming, wavering, and burning in place.
They fire blindly around them, some of them running like living torches, and die."
You can see who lived here, and what they did.
Winegrower. This is his house. This is where the winegrower lived.
Baker. Here's the bakery. Get bread here.
Farm. Okay, it had a little farm going back here, just completely blasted out of existence.
Really strange atmosphere here, something you're not used to. Another farm there.
It's another bakery.
Another farm.
I'm not certain if it's 400 or 500 people that were living here in 1914 when the World War began.
There were still people being buried here in the eighties.
I assume - although, I could be wrong - that it was people that might have lived here
when they were young
Here's something interesting.
Can you get a shot of that?
If you're wondering what this carving is and this plaque is, it's something fairly unique.
In 2013, the tree that was here fell over in a storm and there were people here that came by
and they found 26 bodies - they found a bunch of bones, turned out to be 26 bodies underneath.
Now there had been a farm here a hundred years ago, and the basement was being used as hospital space,
so this is from that, and what they've done is they've taken part of that tree and recarved it.
But notice - this is untreated wood
So eventually this is not going to exist. It's going to return to nature,
just like those bodies which were reburied in Douaumont.
Now, they've only identified... One two three four five...
They only identified seven of the bodies,
so 19 of those bodies still remain unidentified, but that just goes to show if...
I mean, under any of these trees could be another 26 bodies.
Could be another 50 bodies. Could be another hundred bodies.
This is...
This is Fleury. This is what's left: that.
If you'd like to see our episode from Fort Douaumont, which is just a few kilometers away from Fleury,
You can click right here for that.
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