Bayonet Trench

Lore & Background

The Battle of Verdun, the longest of the First World War, began on 21 February 1916. By 11 June the French 137th Infantry Regiment was posted to a defensive line west of Fort Douaumont. On 11 June the regiment was subjected to a German artillery bombardment and a series of infantry assaults. The 3rd Company and part of the 4th Company were left isolated, and by 12 June the 3rd Company had a strength of only 25 men when a renewed assault came and they were forced to surrender. German forces buried the French dead in part of the trench, a standard practice, and likely left the soldiers' rifles exposed to mark the location of the graves.

In January 1919, Colonel de Bonnefoy visited the site and found the row of rifles still buried in the ground, though without any bayonets affixed. An investigation confirmed the presence of bodies beneath the rifles. A legend soon arose that the French soldiers had been buried alive on 11 June 1916 by the German bombardment and had died with their rifles (with fixed bayonets) still held upright. Excavation found none of the bodies standing with rifle in hand; the position of the rifles was consistent with grave markers. Fourteen soldiers were identified and reburied; the seven unidentified bodies were reburied in the trench, with new rifles and bayonets with broken blades placed protruding from the graves.

Reader's Guide

The Bayonet Trench memorial is significant as the first permanent memorial erected on the Verdun battlefield, commissioned by American banker George Franklin Rand and designed by French architect André Ventre. It was finished and dedicated in 1920. The structure consists of a single roof slab supported by substantial pillars over the top of the trench and graves, featuring a large concrete Latin cross. According to American historian Jay Winter, the minimalist memorial is a 'war memorial of a special kind: a tomb frozen in time and preserved not by, but from art.'

The memorial's legacy is intertwined with the 'buried alive' myth, which continues to proliferate despite later plaques installed by the Directorate for Heritage, Remembrance and Archives clarifying that it is a myth. The site was designated as a French National Heritage site in 1922, and in March 2014 the French Ministry of the Armed Forces designated it as one of the ten Major National Remembrance Sites. On September 20, 2023, it was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List along with 139 other funerary and memory sites of the First World War on the Western Front. The memorial serves as a reminder of the human cost of the Battle of Verdun and the power of myth in shaping historical memory.

Did You Know?

• The memorial was commissioned by American banker George Franklin Rand, who died the day after offering 500,000 francs for its construction.
• The myth that French soldiers were buried alive with rifles in hand was created by battlefield tourists, according to French writer Jean Norton Cru in 1929.
• The memorial's wrought-iron entrance gate was designed by former munitions designer Edgar Brandt, who later designed the bronze burner for the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris.
• The memorial was unveiled by French president Alexandre Millerand on 8 December 1920, attended by Generals Joffre, Foch, and Pétain.