Zone Rouge (First World War)
Coordinates: 50°22′N 2°48′E / 50.36°N 2.80°E / 50.36; 2.80
The Zone rouge (French for "Red Zone") is the name given to about 1,200 square kilometres (460 sq mi) of land in northeastern France that was physically and environmentally destroyed during the First World War. Because of hundreds of thousands of human and animal corpses and millions of unexploded ordnance that contaminated the land, some activities in the area such as housing, farming or forestry, were temporarily or permanently forbidden after the war by French law. Some towns were never permitted to be rebuilt.
Restrictions in the zone rouge still exist today although the controlled areas have been greatly reduced.
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Famous quotes containing the words zone, rouge and/or world:
“He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace,
She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair
Propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face.
She would not have us sad because she is lying there,
And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit,
Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)