![]() The ground is simply grey, and it is doubtful whether anything will grow there again. ![]() In parts, the earth was so shattered by high explosive, poisoned by toxic gas, and infected with thousands of rotting corpses that even today it will not bear life. Photograph by Matt Leonard (CC-BY-NC-SA). ![]() Signs exclaiming INTERDIT VERBOTEN FORBIDDEN are commonplace, and unlike elsewhere on the Western Front, visitors pay attention to the warnings.ĭamaged landscape of the Verdun battlefield. Millions of unexploded shells still litter the forest floors. Even today, much of the surrounding area is still off limits to the public. Landscape is transformed, and this transformation can be seen in its most extreme forms at Verdun. The modern, industrial nature of the weaponry used in the Great War meant that the landscape was changed forever modern warfare creates as well as destroys. It was a national struggle, a battle for the survival, the honour, and the sacred heart of France. The ordeal of Verdun is even more deeply ingrained in the French consciousness than the Somme is in the British. So began one of the most savage struggles of the First World War, one that claimed over a million casualties in under a year. His plan was not actually to capture the city, but simply to kill as many Frenchmen as possible. The German Commander-in-Chief knew that the French would never abandon Verdun and would hurl every soldier at France’s disposal into the furnace he was going to create. The rich history of Verdun endowed it with mythic status in the French psyche, a fact known to Von Falkenhayn when he launched his siege in February 1916. A French city since the Peace of Munich in 1648, it survived numerous attempts to capture it, not least during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. Considering it is the key to understanding the huge loss of life on the Somme, this is a strange feature of modern battlefield tourism. A French and German battlefield, it is rarely visited by other nationalities. The full horror of 20th century industrialised warfare was nowhere more intense than at Verdun in 1916.
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