📅 On This Day in Military History
1 event across history
Germany's plan was not to capture Verdun but to 'bleed France white' — to force the French to feed so many men into the battle that the French army would collapse. The battle lasted 303 days, the longest of the war. France held, but at catastrophic cost. The landscape was so devastated by shells that it remains uninhabitable today.
Over 300,000 dead; nearly 700,000 total casualties. Verdun became the symbol of French sacrifice and endurance — but the strain on the French army led to mutinies in 1917. General Pétain's defense made him France's greatest hero, a reputation that would later be destroyed by WWII collaboration.
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