Verdun Tours
General | 5 Days Itinerary | View Full Itinerary
The Battlefields of the Verdun and Argonne Area : France.
The Agony of the 'Mincing Machine'
Verdun goes down in History as one of the most horrendous battlefields of the First World War. The losses were phenomenal, with over 750,000 casualties, of which 305,000 were killed on both side. After the war, the whole area was designated a red zone, which effectively meant that it was too polluted to use in the near future. Thus, it was left or planted with trees and the destroyed villages in the zone were never rebuilt. So even today, the scars of battle are still all too evident. Saving Verdun became a national obsession and the soldiers were sacrificed to this aim. The supply route came to be known as the Sacred Way, reflecting this quasi-religious feeling. Dante’s Inferno was seen as tame in comparison, indeed the soldiers named Verdun ‘The Inferno’, as well as other terrible epithets, such as Hell, The Mill and the Mincing Machine. Meanwhile the whole of France was encouraged to see Verdun symbolically as the beating heart of La Patrie and the slogan used by Joan of Arc, “Courage! On les aura” became a rallying cry.
Why did the Germans put such a huge effort into attacking Verdun?
Why did the French do likewise in defending it?
What were the consequences of the bitter fighting for the war in general, in the short and the long term?
The Final Reckoning?
Meanwhile, not far away, another battlefield, as dreadful in its intensity, but without the national obsession, was the Meuse Argonne Offensive, one of the final battles of the war. The American ‘Doughboys’, under General Pershing, sustained grim losses here, in September 1918, as finally, with hugely increased numbers on the allied side, a million American soldiers had arrived, the war became one of movement. Along with the French and some British, the Germans were unable to hold the line. Official statistics declare that the US First Army took 122,063 casualties, of which 26,277 were killed. German figures were similar.
Why did the Americans sustain such heavy losses in a relatively short time?
How far was the outcome of this battle a key offensive in ending the war overall?
How important was American involvement in ending the First World War?
Come and find out the answers to these and other related questions, before you go the areas where these great events, many of them now forgotten, took place, where the impact of the fighting is still very much in evidence. Pay homage to the men who had to fight and died in these battles.
