Book Review
YVES DESFOSSES, ALAIN JACQUES & GILLES PRILAUX. Great War archaeology. 128 pages, numerous colour illustrations. 2009. Rennes: Ouest-France; 978-2-7373-4817-4 paperback €15.90.
Review by Timothy Clack
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK
(Email: timothy.clack@arch.ox.ac.uk)
This is a book with hidden depths. It is the English-language edition of the French volume Archéologie de la Grande Guerre (2008) and complements a growing collection of popular works interrogating the material culture and legacy of this pivotal period. The subject matter resonates in the popular consciousness. Although at first glance, given its glossy feel and copious maps and illustrations, one would be forgiven for thinking this a coffee-table read; in reality it exudes both style and substance.
The volume is divided into six sections. Section 1 provides a narrative from preventative or mitigation projects to an established archaeological agenda for the Great War. The validity of such is made clear in terms of heritage management but also in the undoing of post-war deletions, enacted through political and economic imperatives to reclaim scarred landscapes. There is also some fascinating commentary on archaeologists in the trenches, archaeological research on contested territories and the past as propaganda.
Section 2 highlights, on the basis of the rich stratigraphy of industrial conflict and abundance of material in certain locations, the inevitability of encounters between modern fieldworkers and Great War remains. One of the authors provides a diary-style account of a day's excavations. Such reflexive concern for experience adds to the thick description which emanates from the very recent past. Emotional dimensions of participation are also considered in assorted case studies concerning graves of the fallen, where professional involvements often evolve into powerful personal ones.
The daily lives of soldiers are considered in Section 3. This, of course, is the essential gap found to exist between what is recounted in grand historical narratives and the localised experiences observable in the field. Thus we read of the poignant proliferation of trench art, superstitious charms and religious artefacts. However, the daily experience of personnel in the area behind the immediate front lines or of those taken prisoner go largely unreported and remain research priorities.
Section 4 concerns human remains and this is fitting for this conflict was the first in which significant value was accorded to the individual identification and systematic burial of casualties. Given shifting lines, fragmented bodies and the vast number killed this proved impossible. A range of mass mortuary activities, envisaged as temporary measures, followed. These collective burials are elements of experience little known as contemporary accounts omitted coverage for reasons of censorship and propriety. Indeed archaeological investigations of these features, such as the grave of the 'Grimsby Chums', demonstrate a subtle range of habit and emotion which sterile records and cemeteries do not.
The highlight of the book is Section 5 and its discussion of the heritage needs and expectations of the present and a public lacking personal recollection of the period. Given that monuments might be an inappropriate means of commemorating this past, archaeology offers an alternative. The strength of this kind of work is underpinned by confrontation with past trauma. The authors note, quite rightly, that 'the power of a few excavation photographs is much stronger than that of history books' (p. 97). This is because we are able to juxtapose with our own eyes modern casualty-averse warfare and its sanitised media reportage with evidence of incomprehensible casualty rates in the recent past. Section 6 'Should we be interested in the remains of the Great War?' clarifies some ethical points. Indeed there is the potential to discover evidence of controversial measures and this must be accepted, as must the realisation that public support may prove fickle.
At some point it would have been useful to read the authors elaborate on the changes precipitated by the fighting and the potential educative roles of archaeology and its contributions to social memory. We could have been reminded that only a handful of veterans from this conflict — the 'last of the last' — live on, and in numbers so small they can be individually named. Indeed Frank Buckles and John Babcock, who in addition to Claude Choules comprise the small cohort of surviving veterans, have been approved respectively for burial at Arlington National Cemetery and Canadian state funeral. These men, through their longevity and responsive efforts, are embraced as living monuments, providing direct and sadly failing links to an evocative heritage which, according to convention, demands — and few would think inappropriately given recent geo-political events — remembrance.
There are a few weaknesses, albeit minor ones considering the intended readership. One could object to one or other approach or interpretation, or bristle at a subjective conclusion presented as fact, certain recording priorities could have been better stressed and the copy-editing more rigorously attended to. Nonetheless this book provides an exceptional introduction to this maturing field of research.
Heritage Technology
