We see hundreds of miles of torn up and destroyed countryside during the First World War. What was the process to repair the environment. Did much of it become usable again? Or was it just left alone?
I visited the battlefield of verdun, which was one of the biggest battlefields on the french/german border. There you dont see any flat fields for hundrets of squarekilometers, everything is cratered. There are tons of explosives which are still dangerous and you see a lot of barbed wire which is mostly overgrown and rusty. When visiting, you should not leave the marked paths, as there are still mines everywhere. When you look on the ground you can still find shells and bullets, grenade debris and scrapped metal. besides nature, which grew all over the place, its a mess and we were told that its not possible to make this area human friendly again, the last bombs and shells which are still technically active will decay in 100s of years. Trenches quickly eroded, but barbed wire and mines are still an issue in regions where there was fought. In some places it was worth it to clean, as cities wanted to expand, but in more rural areas you can still find the remains.