The Unknown Warrior (30 page)

Although there do not appear to be traces of wounds treated by field surgeons, a common complaint seems to be Scheuermann's disease or ‘march foot'. These are fatigue fractures of the metatarsal bones of young soldiers not used to such heavy marching (see Plate 20). The soldier would feel pain, but he would not be disabled; he could continue to attempt his desperate escape. Walter illuminates this in his diary: ‘When in the night a little moonlight appeared, I set out upon the march again, for, on account of the cramps in my feet, I could not lie still for a quarter of an hour' (
ibid
.: 87).

The skeletal evidence also provides other details, which add to our knowledge of these last, catastrophic days of the retreat and of the conditions endured by the soldiers. For the most part, these were the remains of quite large robust individuals of ‘prime' fighting age, in their 20s and 30s. It seems that several of these soldiers suffered from some type of venereal disease – be it gonorrhoea, syphilis or another. Although debilitating, this would not have prevented active military service. Tertiary syphilitic lesions were present on a number of skulls at Vilnius.

Venereal diseases could be widespread among an infantry regiment, as Holmes (2001: 300) points out: ‘On one day in 1844 the 63rd Foot found itself with 27 per cent of its soldiers infected, 112 with primary and 15 with secondary syphilis, and 125 with gonorrhoea.'

The bodies were tightly packed in the ‘grave' (up to seven individuals per square metre according to Jankauskas (pers. comm.)), and thus it was very difficult to associate any of the artefacts with a particular person. But it seems possible that detailed studies of the properties of the skeleton (and the person's dietary changes in life) might reveal the Pan-European nature of Napoleon's army. Jankauskas believes that studies of several femurs have shown that some of the men were from the Poland/Lithuania region, others were from northern central Europe, while others originally came from southern Europe.

Professor Jankauskas has provided details of one individual – presumably a member of the infantry of the defeated Grande Armée – chosen at random, who is representative of those who died at Vilnius in 1812 and were buried in the ditch.

UNKNOWN WARRIOR 12

The weather is quite comfortable. I have paid a visit to the old Chantilly battle field, two miles from here, and in which engagement the noble Kearney [
sic
] and the gallant Stevens fell. In passing over the field, what horrible scenes were presented to my view; I pray to God that I may never witness the like again. Human bones lay in every direction, half covered bodies met my gaze, showing that no pains had been taken in their burial, and revealing the horrors of a battle field, stamping indelibly upon my mind impressions that time can never eradicate.

(J.C. Williams, Corporal, B Company, 14th Vermont Regiment, Fairfax Courthouse, 27 December 1862; Mario Espinola, pers. comm.)

The battle of Ox Hill (Chantilly) was fought as one of the engagements of the American Civil War on 1 September 1862. Unusually, it took place in a violent thunderstorm, which rendered much of the powder required by firearms useless. Greatly outnumbered, the Union troops under the command of Generals Stevens and Kearny, both of whom were killed during the battle, prevented the Confederates under ‘Stonewall' Jackson from cutting off the Union Army's retreat to Washington. This was a bloody action in which the bayonet was liberally used in desperate hand-to-hand fighting, resulting in 2,100 casualties in just two hours. The bodies of many of the soldiers lay on the field for several days, and, in some cases – as Williams's letter reveals – cursory burial attempts led to bodies still being visible some months later.

Excavations in January 1997 recovered the remains of six unknown soldiers next to the main field hospital in Centreville, where a significant number of the wounded from the Battles of Second Manassas and Ox Hill had been treated. Victims from these battles would not normally have been buried in coffins – a shallow grave at their point of death being more efficacious for a hard-pressed army. The individuals here seem to have been buried in a coffin (as evidenced by the nails in the burial) – and had perhaps died sometime after the engagement, possibly in hospital. It is most likely that the burials occurred when the rescue party from Washington used the main hospital in Centreville as their base of operations to treat the wounded who had been abandoned on both battlefields. Espinola believes their presence in hospital would account for their varied state of undress and that Union civilians, who were part of the rescue effort, may well have made these coffins for the rank and file who had died while under their care (M. Espinola, pers. comm.).

The boys are gradually getting over the terrible Battle of Chantilly. It was a scene I shall never forget. It was wholesale murder to stand at the muzzle of the enemies' guns and have a volley poured into us. I had a very narrow escape of my life and being taken prisoner. A ball passed through my collar. (Private Henry Brown, F Company, 21st Massachusetts Volunteers. Leesboro, 8 September 1862; Last Salute, 2005)

SEVEN

Marching to Hell: The Poor Bloody Infantry in the First World War

Military Definitions: Infantryman … An animal of weird habits, whose peculiarities have only just been discovered. It displays a strange aversion to light, and lives in holes in the earth during the day, coming out at night seeking whom it may devour. In colour it assimilates itself to the ground in which it lives.

(
Wipers Times
, IV, 2, 20 March 1916, in Beaver, 1973: 44)

Archaeology of the First World War (1914–18) is a relatively new phenomenon. The conflict has generally been considered too recent and too well documented, and, because of unexploded munitions, the sites too dangerous for archaeologists to study in any depth. Huge swathes of France and Belgium suffered from the ravages of the First World War and an enormous quantity of ordnance was expended. Every year, the ‘iron harvest' sees French and Belgian farmers ploughing up artillery rounds, Mills bombs, bullets and even gas shells. All this serves to ensure that any risk assessments written by field archaeologists working on sites with First World War elements have to be considered and that extreme care is taken during excavation.

Many of the sites have been and continue to be subject to development for roads, railways, housing and industry. Nowadays, archaeologists often have the opportunity to become involved before the land is disturbed, and, as a result, a wealth of information on the First World War is coming to light. In addition, examination of Gallo-Roman or prehistoric sites sometimes uncovers vestiges of the war through evidence from deposits cutting the earlier sites and from aerial photographs.

This chapter examines some of the finds that have come to light in recent years along the Western Front, the region of the conflict that, to date, has been the subject of most of the archaeological investigations. The battles that took place around a system of static trenches stretching from the Belgian coast to Switzerland resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men. Herein lies another deterrent to archaeological investigation, the macabre finding of human remains. One has only to consider the large number of men for whom there is no known grave, such as those recorded at the Menin Gate in Ypres, to realise that discoveries of this nature will continue for many years to come.

The fact that the First World War ended relatively recently has resulted in the excellent preservation of much of its related artefacts, although, as with all sites, this varies depending on the geology of the region. The waterlogged nature of many of the Flanders battlefields, due in part to the high water-table, has allowed organic deposits to survive that might not have done on drier sites. This level of artefactual information also helps to justify, should it be needed, our archaeological study. Such work is not simply the handmaiden of history; it can be a powerful tool in its own right and is especially useful when used in conjunction with historical documentation, oral testimonies and photographic images. After all, many of those who would have been able to tell the tale of the infantry were killed in action, and their story – how they lived and how they died – can be derived only through archaeology.

By concentrating on the troops in formalised infantry regiments, the examples featured in this chapter are almost exclusively male. This is not to say that women were not involved in the fighting on the Western Front – indeed, a French woman, Émilienne Moreau, was awarded the Croix de Guerre by her government for killing two German snipers when she was in the front line at the Battle of Loos in April 1915 (Jones, 1997: 199). In addition, some women disguised themselves as men in order to travel to the front. Although contradicting almost every contemporary military edict and social taboo, ‘a few individual British women nonetheless managed to serve in the armed forces. Dorothy Lawrence, an aspiring journalist, disguised herself as Private Denis Smith. She was able to spend ten days on the Western Front with the Tunnelling Company of the British Expeditionary Force before she confessed her true status to her superior officer' (Grayzel, 2002: 54).

WEAPONRY

Given the close historic proximity of the First World War and the plethora of war museums, film footage of troops and photographs of participants, one might think that archaeology could add little to our knowledge, certainly in terms of weaponry and its usage. Before looking at the items that were indisputably used in combat, we must consider the conundrum that soldiers at the front were liable to improvise in an attempt to survive. Artefacts viewed as humdrum in the archaeological record by those who excavate them might have been used for an altogether more deadly purpose by those who fought in the trenches.

Our greatest trial was the German canister – a two gallon drum with a cylinder containing about two pounds of an explosive called ammonal that looked like salmon paste, smelled like marzipan, and, when it went off, sounded like the Day of Judgement. The hollow around the cylinder contained scrap metal, apparently collected by French villagers behind the German lines: rusty nails, fragments of British and French shells, spent bullets, and the screws, nuts, and bolts that heavy lorries leave behind on the road. We dissected one unexploded canister, and found in it, among other things, the cog wheels of a clock and half a set of false teeth. (Graves, 1960: 1361)

Here lies one of the major problems confronting archaeologists as they try to interpret the battlefield. The sheer quantity of munitions expended over a relatively small area by forces that were relatively static over a long period renders an analysis of troop movements through a ballistics study very difficult, though it is possible to denote the presence of particular armies. The situation is not rendered any easier by the redepositing of artefacts such as in the example above of British and French shell case fragments and spent bullets. An analysis of the material record, without access to accounts, would lead the archaeologist to conclude that these items were just that – part of a set of false teeth (these are, on occasion, located with the remains of fallen soldiers) and part of a clock.

Trench warfare was nothing new – what was new was the sheer range of weaponry available to those in the trenches and this swung the advantage back from attacker to defender. Industrialisation at last applied to war … [This included] bolt action machine-fed rifle, machine gun, breach-loading artillery with axial recoil, elongated shell with shrapnel bullets and high explosive in selective delivery. (Prior and Wilson, 2002: 8–9)

The excavation of a communication trench at Auchonvillers (also known, in true Tommy fashion, as the Anglicised ‘Ocean Villas'), in use during the Somme campaign in France, located several items pertaining to weaponry, including numerous, mostly unfired, rounds of .303 rifle ammunition and the foil from an ammunition box (Fraser, 2003: 11). Throughout the Somme region, a vast range of munitions is brought to the surface every year when the land is ploughed, supporting what we already know about the panoply of arms of the First World War infantryman.