Original WWI Battlefield Relic German Army Barbed Wire

The group of islands is located in Daugava on the southern side of the Riga HPP reservoir near Daugmale. The Death Island is one of the scariest and most legendary battlefields of World War  I. When the Russian Army withdrew from Kurzeme and Zemgale in 1915 some units remained on the left bank of Daugava, where they took positions to fight the German Army. The banks of the river were connected by a bridge. One of the largest chemical weapons usage cases in the territory of Latvia took place here. Latvian soldiers called the place ‘Death Island’, but soldiers of other nationalities called it ‘Hell’. The position of Death Island was of strategic and symbolic importance. For Latvian soldiers it was part of Kurzeme occupied by Germany. Fights took place on the banks of Daugava near Ikšķile, and in some way they were associated with the fights of the ancestors during the Crusades.