Food was plentiful and the one day in the week that was meant to be meat-free was not kept by the majority. Here, those French soldiers lucky enough to get leave from Verdun found an alien world. Just 150 miles away, life in the French capital went on as ‘normal’. “To die from a bullet seems to be nothing parts of our being remain intact but to be dismembered, torn to pieces, reduced to pulp, this is the fear that flesh cannot support and which is fundamentally the great suffering of the bombardment.” “I saw a man drinking avidly from a green scum-covered marsh, where lay, his black face downward in the water, a dead man lying on his stomach and swollen as if he had not stopped filling himself with water for days.” Humanity is mad it must be mad to do what it is doing.” “An artery of French blood was spilt on February 21st and it flows incessantly in large spurts.”

Senior officers at the fort complex around Verdun complained to Joffre about the state of the defences in the area. Also the trenches dug for defence had not been completed. In fact, all the forts around the area had been weakened as the French High Command had moved ammunition out of the forts to other areas on the Western Front. However, Falkenhayn’s plan also had one major weakness – it assumed that the French would be an easy opponent and that it would be the French who would take massive casualties – and not the Germans.

The forts were very much part of the French psyche and they would fight ferociously to keep the Germans out of the area. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death.” Falkenhayn to Kaiser William IIįalkenhayn’s plan had credibility. Within our reach there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw in every man they have. A mass break-through – which in any case is beyond our means – is unnecessary. “The string in France has reached breaking point.

Where was the battle of verdun fought