On May 4, 1917, more than 150 German soldiers from the First World War were immured alive in a tunnel, after a bombardment.
One hundred and five years later, a week of drilling and excavations was programmed, in the forest of Craonne, in the Aisne.
No precise image of the interior of the tunnel could be obtained in spite of the introduction of a camera in a cavity of the tunnel buried under a hill.
The mystery remains.
After three days of drilling and excavations, the German organization in charge of war graves (VDK) suspended, on Thursday, its research in the forest of Craonne, in Aisne.
The objective was to locate a tunnel where at least 150 German soldiers died in 1917, during the murderous offensive of the “Chemin des Dames”.
Two boreholes, one vertical, the other horizontal, had made it possible, as of Tuesday evening, to locate and reach a cavity about 50 m from the entrance to the tunnel, in which the bodies of the missing could be found.
However, the sending of a camera, Wednesday and Thursday, inside this cavity was not crowned with success.
"The camera introduced made it possible to visualize the limestone ceiling and the profile of the tunnel, but the poor visibility conditions due to the dust particles in suspension prevented obtaining precise images of the interior of the tunnel", underlines a press release from the prefecture of Aisne which specifies "the impossibility of penetrating without very heavy means into this tunnel deeply buried in the ground of the hill, thus guaranteeing the respect due to the bodies of the soldiers".
New phase of research?
The so-called “disaster” burial site was secured and returned to its original state following prospecting work.
The German and French authorities must decide, in the coming weeks, whether or not to initiate a new phase of research to find the soldiers who disappeared after the collapse of the entrance to the tunnel on May 4, 1917.
In April 2021, a first operation made it possible to identify the entrance to the site, baptized "Winterberg tunnel" and to discover objects belonging to German soldiers of the 111th reserve infantry regiment of Baden-Württemberg who died of asphyxiation. or deprivation.
Episode of the Chemin des Dames Offensive
The decision of a possible exhumation of the remains of soldiers will not be taken until later, "there will be work afterwards to make this place a place of memory", specifies, moreover, the prefect of the 'Aisne, Thomas Campeaux.
The Chemin des Dames offensive, a small ridge road between the Aisne and Ailette rivers, was launched by General Robert Nivelle in April 1917 to break the German lines.
Supposed to be quick and decisive, it turned into a fiasco and the fighting finally lasted until October 25, 1917, causing colossal losses: 187,000 lives on the French side and 163,000 on the German side.
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