What is it about?
The Great War altered human–environmental interactions. This article have shown the impact of anthropogenic influence on battlefields and attempts to demilitarize the Eastern Front landscapes during the war (decontamination of trenches and the surrounding space from the effects of poison gases; sanitation; soil recultivation, and the collection of weapons from battlefields; demobilization of animals).
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Photo by National Library of Scotland on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This article shows the contradictory nature of the processes of demilitarization of the war landscapes. During the war was it used as a means to maintain the army’s combat efficiency, and later the chaotic demobilization of the Eastern Front in 1918, beset by the more mundane problems of military asset transportation and maintenance, pushed environmental issues into the background.
Perspectives
Writing this article gave me great pleasure as it was part of our larger project on environmental change in Central Eastern Europe during and after the Great War. This article lead me to diverse the field of my research and pay more attention to burial practicies and chemical impacts to the landscape.
Yulia Zherdeva
Samara National Research University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Toxic Heritage of the War: Demilitarization of Eastern Front Landscapes, October 2024, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004711815_013.
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