iam-neptune asked:

I just saw an ask about how trenches were built. What happened to them after the war? Were they just filled in? Are they any still around?

ladyhistory answered:

Yes and yes! A lot of battlefields were on farmland, so when the residents returned home, they filled a lot of the trenches in to continue farming. Some trenches were left to be taken over by nature (especially if they were more out of the way or remote) while others were deliberately preserved as memorials.

Farmers are constantly plowing up all kinds of artifacts even over a hundred years later, but there are some fields and trenches that are off limits completely today due to unexploded munitions that were never cleared – only farm animals graze there to upkeep them. Shell holes are still around as depressions in the earth and mine craters have since become lakes in some places. WWI forever scarred the land, and even 100 years of continued civilization can’t erase it all.

You can still visit some trenches today, both preserved and rebuilt, though I think a lot of them are on private property.