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In the middle of the First World War, France was shaken in mid-December 1917 by the worst rail disaster in its history. After a year which saw the massacre of hundreds of thousands of French people in the Battles of Malmaison, the attack on Nivelle and the Battle of Passchendaele, the French were stunned to learn that hundreds of their soldiers had been killed in a train accident. as they returned home to spend their Christmas vacation with their families.
Italian prisoners of war after the battle of Caporetto
Due to the state of war in which the country was living, the French military leadership withheld a lot of information about this incident, in the hope of preserving the morale of its soldiers.
Christmas holidays
After the Italian defeats against the Austrians and the Germans at the Battle of Caporetto at the end of October 1917, the French sent military units to support their Italian allies, who had faced many difficulties since entering the war in 1915.
A photo of the train cars destroyed after the accident
With the stabilization of the Italian front after about a month, French General Emile Fayolle (Émile Fayolle) agreed to grant a number of his soldiers, who had fought earlier in the war on the Eastern Front against the Germans, a permit to return home. to spend the Christmas holidays with their families. In the hope of bringing this large number of soldiers home, the French military transport administration decided to take advantage of the Italian and French railways, providing numerous vehicles and locomotives.
German soldiers in the Battle of Caporetto
On December 11, 1917, the ill-fated train, consisting of 17 passenger cars and a locomotive, left Bassano del Grappa carrying around 1,200 French soldiers, all from the 46th and 47th Infantry Corps, who survived the horrors of the fighting. In northern Italy, they are hopeful that they will return home to see their loved ones over Christmas time.
Hospitals transformed into dead rooms
On a ramp between Modane and Saint Michel de Maurienne on December 12, 1917, the driver lost control of the train, which weighed more than 530 tonnes, while it was empty. Due to the driver’s inability to control the speed and the brakes, the train derailed and many passenger cars separated from the locomotive vehicle before crashing into each other and all within minutes, transforming into a pile of scorching iron and wood, coinciding with the outbreak of a huge fire instead.
Portrait of French General Emile Fayol
On the spot, teams of ambulances came to look for survivors. Along with the pursuit of search and rescue operations, hospitals in the towns of Modan and Saint-Michel de Morien were turned into dead rooms, with a large number of mutilated and charred corpses arriving within hours.
675 dead, hundreds injured
Initially, the French authorities counted 425 dead, the bodies of 128 were identified and hundreds more were injured of varying severity. The next day, only 183 soldiers were present during the survivor count.
A photo of one of the vehicles destroyed after the accident
In addition, the French military leaders practiced a media blackout on the unfolding of this disaster and went to bury the victims in the cemetery of Saint-Michel de Morien and built a memorial for them by the year 1923. Subsequently, the death toll from this disaster accident rose rapidly and leveled off at 675, to be classified as the biggest bloody train crash in history.
Italian soldiers in the battle of Caporetto
In 1962, the French authorities moved to open the graves of the victims of this accident, which dates back to the end of 1917, then transferred the bodies to a military cemetery in Villeurbanne, north-east of Lyon.
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