'The ruins of Verdun , 1916', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/the-ruins-of-verdun, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage)
It began Feb. 21, 1916, and killed nearly 700,000 Germans and Frenchmen by the time it ended in December.
Here are the attackers:
And here the defenders:
The pretty little city that is modern-day Verdun:
Visiting the Verdun Ossuary is an unbelieveable experience. From the outside of it you can look down into the basement windows and see nothing but bones piled inside. Wikipedia says it is 449 feet long and most of that length, I believe, contains bones stacked to the ceiling of the basement level. I don’t know if it really caused me to understand the horrific magnitude of that battle, but it sure gave me a starker picture.
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and attackers or defenders at the end of the day just ordinary men with moms and dads,brothers ,sisters,wives kids…….700 000 of them poured into the meat grinder…. scary and horrific waste and terrible tradegy indeed……………….
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They left behind parents, siblings, wives and children — I read somewhere that one of every four Frenchmen sent into combat died there. And 350,000 of them died in and near Verdun.
We think of this as a tragedy for France, yet nearly the same number of Germans were killed there as well.
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