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Mystery graves unearthed may be of WWI soldiers
Archaeologists searching for a mass grave containing the bodies of hundreds of British and Australian soldiers killed in a First World War battle have unearthed human remains.
- By Jasper Copping, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
- Published: 23:35 June 1, 2008
London: Archaeologists searching for a mass grave containing the bodies of hundreds of British and Australian soldiers killed in a First World War battle have unearthed human remains.
The team is now confident it has discovered the final resting place of 399 soldiers who went missing after a battle in northern France in 1916.
The "lost army" was killed in an allied attack at Fromelles in July 1916, and its discovery would be the biggest of its kind since the 1920s, when efforts to recover bodies lost in the mud of the Western Front ended.
The combat - in which Adolf Hitler, then a 27-year-old corporal in the Bavarian reserve infantry, is believed to have fought - was intended to divert German troops from the Battle of the Somme, the main offensive raging further south.
But the attack across open ground on heavily fortified German positions on July 19 and 20 was a disaster, leaving 5,500 Australian and 1,500 British troops dead or injured.
The missing soldiers were known to have been among the dead because their bodies were recovered by the Germans and their personal belongings passed to their families.
Repeated attempts
However, their final resting place remained a mystery, despite repeated attempts to find them.
The Australian government commissioned the British historian, Peter Barton, and Glasgow University's Archaeological Division to carry out the search.
They started their dig last week and have found human remains in three of the test excavation sites, including a hand and an arm.
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