Mass grave of Domat / Ems

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Hussars fight against the Bündner Landsturm

In the mass grave of Domat / Ems in the Swiss canton of Graubünden lie the remains of the Graubünden and French who fell in the fighting in spring 1799 as part of the second coalition war .

Find

In the spring of 2007, a fitter on the edge of the Axpo Tegra AG company premises near Domat / Ems noticed human bones that the rain had washed from the eastern flank of the Tuma da Zislis hill . The Archaeological Service of the Canton of Graubünden determined that it was the long-sought mass grave from 1799: a lime kiln in which the fallen Graubünden Oberlanders and the French were buried after the fighting on May 3, 1799.

Historical background

In 1799, after the French invaded Graubünden in March, the population of the Three Leagues rebelled against the French occupation. The uprising started in the upper Surselva . French guards were captured in the individual villages and brought to Disentis . For reasons that are no longer comprehensible, the Bündner Landsturm killed over 80 French prisoners below Disentis the following day instead of bringing them to Chur as planned . The farmers then moved down into the valley, along with other armed men. On May 2nd the first reached Reichenau near Tamins .

Battle of Domat / Ems

On May 3, there was heavy fighting between Graubünden and the French army. A report by the Swiss delegates Schwaller and Herzog provides information about the fighting, which they sent to the board of directors the next day . « Officers and soldiers assured them that they had never seen fencing with such fury in their lives; In spite of the most terrible grape fire, these misguided men were armed with axes, forks, hooks, etc., as if falling madly upon the Franks, and in spite of whole heaps of dead who lay prostrate before them, they repeated these attacks with the greatest determination. “The newspaper“ Freiheit - Gleichheit ”wrote on May 9th: “ The way in which these crusaders, including boys from 12 to 14 years of age, died is unbelievable (…) One always ran first to the Franconian voluntarily into the bayonet, while another and a third struck over it with his 3rd to 4th foot long morning star. "

The farmers initially succeeded in pushing the French back to Chur. Then the French received support from mounted hussars who fought back the land storm. Then they moved up the valley past the burning village of Tamins. Before Disentis they discovered their murdered comrades and set fire to the village and monastery in revenge.

After the battle

Commemoration at the site of the mass grave

According to contemporary sources, well over 600 Graubünden and a considerable number of French fell. On May 6th, the provisional government issued a decree, according to which the corpse and all the dead still lying in the depression of the battlefield are buried without loss of time and deep into the earth, so as not to expose the dear fatherland to the pestilence .

Some of the corpses were placed in old lime kilns in a makeshift manner or quickly buried. Until well into the 20th century, a wooden cross and an annual procession commemorated the fallen, after which the square was forgotten.

examination

The archaeological investigation was limited to the area of ​​the embankment where the bones had been washed out; no further excavations were made. The site is not threatened by building projects. How long the ovens had been out of use in 1799 could no longer be determined. The bones lay on top of a three-inch layer of demolition material. The layer with the bones was about 30 centimeters high, heavily compressed by the pressure of the earth and stones piled up over it.

The mass grave in the lime kiln is a so-called battlefield burial: the dead were not buried lying down, but rather hastily thrown into the pit. Most of the bones come from men under the age of 20. The heavily worn joints and vertebrae suggest hard physical work and a meager life full of privation. A total of 400 well-preserved pieces of bone were examined, from whole bone to small fragments. Equipment such as buckles, weapons or buttons were not found. The number of dead buried is unknown. The names of those killed are listed in the lists of the dead in the churches of Vella and St. Martin in Disentis.

  • Cross-section through the site

  • Bones of the Dead ( Rhaetian Museum )

  • Tomb

Tomb

In the winter of 2007, the cut lime kiln was protected with a wall. In memory of the battle, the tomb was given the year 1799. It is located on the Ems-Chemie factory premises and is not open to the public. On March 25, 2008, it was inaugurated on the occasion of a celebration. An information board on the outer fencing of the company premises indicates the event.

literature

Web links

Coordinates: 46 ° 49 '36 "  N , 9 ° 25' 27.2"  E ; CH1903:  seven hundred fifty-one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight  /  188,084