This is probably going to be one of the most difficult blog posts for me to write because it is so hard to put into words what I feel going to such a place, and it is hard to put impressions into words, and pictures don't do it justice. After reading so much about World War I, seeing movies and having courses, I had really wanted to visit this place. I didn't really know what it would look like today--a landscape that had been turned into no man's land because of heavy shelling and trench warfare. Somehow it was odd to be there on a sunny, snowy day. But it was very quiet, and there weren't many other visitors, so I appreciated having time to reflect.
The Battle of Verdun took place from February 1916 to August 1917, along a front 124 miles long (200 km), and resulted in the death of 400,000 Frenchmen, almost as many Germans and a few thousand American soldiers. I was really surprised that you can still see how the war changed the landscape--almost 100 years later! People have compared the post-war trench areas to the face of the moon--deserted, bare, huge craters from bombs...but if you see detailed pictures you also see body parts, machinery pieces, barbed wire, tree remains...just horrible.
What! THE GERMANS BOMBED THE MOON? Nooooooo!
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