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At the start of the First World War, in the summer and early fall of 1914, German troops poured across neutral Belgium and into France behind the thunder of artillery, the lightning of explosions, a rain of shells and a hail of shrapnel. The effects were both immediate and long term and they encompassed all aspects of life in Northeastern France. Certain environmental effects of the war on the French countryside and cities were immediate and …

…obliterated towns can still be visited today. Naturally, the cemeteries and memorials remain as well. Thus, unlike wars previous or subsequent, the effects of World War I on northeastern France can be seen to have affected the area in not only the short term, but also, due to its nature as the first industrial total war and a positional stalemate for four years, over an expanded time frame whose end we have not yet seen.