WWI Underground City Now Open to Public

For 18 months, hundreds of experienced miners and tunnelers from England and New Zealand worked diligently under the French city of Arras. Their goal was to link the numerous, old, chalk mines that lay beneath the city into a huge network of caverns and tunnels that would eventually stretch under No Man's Land and reach the German trenches. Ultimately, the tunnels became an underground city that could house up to 24,000 soldiers at a time. Since soldiers stayed in this underground city during German bombardments, it included electric lighting, latrines, a kitchen, running water, and even a hospital. On April 9, 1917, the Allies launched a surprise attack from the underground tunnels on the German trenches.

After the war, the underground city was officially sealed up until it was once again discovered in 1990. Since then, a $9 million project has been funded to restore parts of the underground city and create a museum. The museum, called Carrière Wellington Museum, is now open. The reach the museum, you travel 72 feet (22 meters) down a glass elevator in order to learn about the history of the building of the tunnels as well as see some of the thousands of graffiti left by lonely WWI soldiers.