Verdun

The Battle of Verdun was the largest and longest battle on the Western Front during World War One.

By the time the fighting finally died away (officially 16 December 1916) the French had lost 315,000 casualties, the Germans 281,000.

Verdun was the only offensive on the Western Front where the defensive cost was greater than the offensive. This casualty ratio is unusual in modern warfare and unique in World War One battles.

The geographical scale of the battle is in direct contrast to the casualties. Verdun saw the most intense concentration of troops in any given space during the war. Along a front that stretched barely more than 8km at its widest point, over 115 divisions (78 of them French) were fed into what the historian AJP Taylor referred to as the 'mincing machine' of Verdun.

The Battle of Verdun came close to destroying the French army and in places brought it to the brink of mutiny, precisely what the Germans had intended when they planned the attack during 1915.

The French held Verdun. For a town with little strategic or tactical value, the costs - militarily, politically, socially and psychologically - were enormous.

Posts will follow - roughly - a chronological order but will also concentrate on themed reflections on the battle that have occurred to me since I first visited Verdun over 20 years ago.