Disposing of corpses during WWI, by Romain Fathi (Flinders University)

Contagion is a podcast series on circulation and pandemic threats throughout history jointly promoted by Cromohs and the Cost Action CA18140 ‘People in Motion: Entangled Histories of Displacement across the Mediterranean (1492’1923)’, or PIMo, edited by David Do Paço.

3rd podcast: Disposing of corpses during WWI

By Romain Fathi, a senior lecturer in Australian History at Flinders University, College of Humanities, arts, and Social Sciences.

Belligerents that took part in the First World War could not have anticipated the lethality of the conflict. Within a few weeks of the war’s outbreak, armies were overwhelmed with corpses. Their existing policies and logistics to dispose of dead bodies were insufficient. As corpses piled up, they became a real epidemiological threat. Armies were relatively mobile, and it was feared that contagion from corpses to soldiers could also spread to civilian populations. When corpses putrefy, bacteria multiply and corpses become agents for the propagation of pathogens, particularly if the bodies were infected with typhoid, cholera or dysentery prior to their death. As a result of the threat posed by unprecedented number of corpses, First World War armies set up what I refer to as ‘body disposal policies and practices’. Those were created and trialled to dispose of corpses as efficiently and safely as possible through mass graves and cremation for instance, mobilising many soldiers, gravediggers and complex logistics.

How to cite: Fathi, R. (2020). Disposing of corpses during World War I. Cromohs - Cyber Review of Modern Historiography. https://doi.org/10.13128/cromohs-11594