Des tranchées aux musées : l’archéologie pendant la Grande Guerre en Alsace et en Lorraine

During the First World War, several archaeological sites were discovered by chance, during the construction of military fortifications. Both belligerent armies undertook various archaeological excavations and observations. These 'safeguarding' operations, like the emergency rescue excavations carried out today, were not undertaken in an identical manner in Alsace and in Lorraine. Although this observation cannot be held to be generally true for the whole of the front, in these two regions the French operations were often carried out hastily and were rarely the object of scientific publication. German work, on the other hand, was far more methodical. After the annexation of Alsace and the Moselle department in 1871, the structuration of museums at Metz (Moselle) and at Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), made it possible to take these chance archaeological finds into account. Several archaeologists were active here, in particular Johann Baptist Keune (1858-1937) in Lorraine and Robert Forrer (1866-1947) in Alsace. Some discoveries were even the subject of photographic documentation and were widely communicated in publications, some of which even appeared during the wartime period