Recommendation for anyone wanting to get into the gory, shocking details of WWI:

The podcast, Dan Carlin's A blueprint for Armageddon[1].

Over 24 hours on the topic, and I was left absolutely devastated by the descriptions of the impact and events of WWI. I guess I just didn't have a great appreciation or knowledge of WWI. At least for me, my grade school education was mostly focused on WWII and other more recent conflicts.

1 - https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-55-blu...

What a weird article. The only WW1 era picture is actually from Belgium, not France. It is easy to find pictures of WW1 France! They even have one in another article on their site on the same exact subject:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/zone-rouge-plant-growt...

There's also no actual pictures of any red zones?? The only picture of the area is something that is no longer a red zone and has been rehabilitated.

I am french and didn't know about these, thanks for sharing.

Growing up in the north, I remember holes in the forests that were supposedly dug out by shells a century earlier. They were fun to ride on a bike.

Wow. The problem is, this immediately makes me consider all the industrial pollution sites across the world. I genuinely wonder how much of our planet has already been rendered completely inhospitable to life? I'm not trying to be dramatic or bait arguments, I legitimately wonder how much.

WW I is much more interesting to study than WW II, I think. How it started and might have been prevented, for instance. Why the combatants kept going when it turned out to be much more horrible than they'd ever imagined. And especially, how it ended, and the Treaty of Versailles.