Century old shock and awe

And it didn't work then either, just created the set up for WWII.

Via Eli of Multi Medium, the New York Times story about a man who makes keepsakes from WWI weaponry:

A half-million Britons, Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and Germans were killed or wounded, fighting among villages and farms over five miles of muddy Belgian terrain. Drawn out over five months from June to October of 1917, Passchendaele became a symbol of senseless killing.

[snip]

Few battlefields in the world still yield so many bombs, guns and bones — 200 tons a year around Ypres….

”You never know what my husband brings home; you can bet it’s not a bunch of flowers,” farmer Charlotte Cardoen-Descamps says, chuckling as she shows a fresh crop of shells, gas shells, grenades, and an unexploded basketball-size aerial bomb her husband Dirk plowed up.

Farmers have to use extra care, because some shells still leak toxic gases. However explosions are rare because the farmers have become experienced at handling the iron harvest.

”We got 17 pieces this plowing season, but we can expect even more later this year,” said Cardoen-Descamps. The ammunition is neatly stacked around the farmyard ready to be collected by bomb disposal experts.

200 tons a year a century later. How much will they find in Iraq a century from now?