First World War

Old CALAIS The railroad strongly influenced the development of the harbour at Calais. The arrival in 1848 of the first train of the Paris-Calais line provided the necessity of a station able to welcome the travellers on the trans-channel journey. It was also beginning of the first day trippers and shoppers.

A French Trench Douaumont Ossuary

THE FIRST WORLD WAR The First World war was triggered by the assassination, in Sarajevo, of the archduke François-Ferdinand, heir of the throne of Austria, this event  only crystallised existing tensions. The event was the detonator of a war with deeper origins. The human balance sheet of the First World war came to about 9 million dead and about 8 million wounded, that is about 6 000 deaths a day. Proportionately, France was the most affected country with 1.4 million killed and missing, that is 10 % of masculine working population. Military deaths in World War I: Russia 1,811,000 France 1,397,800 UK 885,138 America 116,708 Battle of Verdun