Mass grave of Prussian and Napoleonic soldiers

Construction workers found a mass grave in the German town of Mainz. It contains the remains of soldiers who died of typhus after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, according to archaeologists who are now searching the site and planning to secure it from vandals.

The grave is believed to contain the remains of about 1,000 soldiers. They were members of the Prussian and French armies. In Mainz, which is the administrative city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the soldiers are believed to have lain in one of the local hospitals. During the Napoleonic Wars, there was a typhus epidemic. It is a serious infectious disease that is transmitted by fleas, ticks and blood. During the retreat from Russia in 1812, for example, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by the Russians.

Typhus was also rampant among soldiers during the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, the decisive and largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. In it, the combined armies of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden crushed the much weaker army of the French Emperor Napoleon. He resigned shortly afterwards and was placed in exile on the island of Elba.

Some of the soldiers who died of Typhus were buried in the aforementioned Mainz. "The bodies were carefully placed in rows," said Jens Dolata, chief archaeologist for Rhineland-Palatinate. The grave was found by workers when they were preparing the site for the construction of a new shooting range for the local shooting club. Archaeologists want to secure the grave so that no one can dig there in the future. "Unfortunately, we can't take all the bodies and bury them individually," Dolata explained.

The remains found under the house

Several mass graves have been found across Europe. One smaller one was even found seven years ago during the securing of the foundations of a house in Stankova Street in Brno. There, archaeologists discovered the remains of twelve men in their thirties. They were probably soldiers who succumbed to wounds or infectious diseases during the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805. This is suggested by the fact that after the battle a makeshift hospital was set up in a dance hall and inn in Brno's Lužánky Park, which was located only 200 metres from the mass grave.

Archaeologists have even found a mass grave of Napoleonic soldiers in the capital of Lithuania. Unlike in Mainz, however, in Vilnius the bodies were simply dumped in a pit. Archaeologists were able to find out which soldiers they were based on the buttons from their uniforms. The bodies of about forty regiments, which also belonged to Napoleon's army, were found in the grave. According to archaeologists, the remains of three thousand men who died during Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in 1812 were found in the grave. It was a fatal defeat for the French commander, and heralded his final end.

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