"Verdun has become a battle of madmen in the midst of a volcano. Whole regiments melt in a few minutes, and others take their places only to perish in the same way.
The valley separating Le Mort Homme from Hill 287 is choked with bodies. A full brigade was mowed down in a quarter hour's holocaust by our machine guns. The scene there is appalling, but is dwarfed in comparison with the fighting around Fort Douaumont.
West of the Meuse, at least, one dies in the open air, but at Douaumont is the horror of darkness, where the men fight in tunnels, screaming with the lust of butchery, deafened by shells and grenades, stifled by smoke.
Even the wounded refuse to abandon the struggle. As though possessed by devils, they fight on until they fall senseless from loss of blood. A surgeon in a front-line post told me that of the 200 French dead, half had more than two wounds. Those he was able to treat seemed utterly insane. They kept shouting war cries and their eyes blazed, and, strangest of all, they appeared indifferent to pain.
At one moment anaesthetics ran out owing to the impossibility of bringing forward fresh supplies through the bombardment. Arms, even legs, were amputated without a groan, and even afterward the men seemed not to have felt the shock. They asked for a cigarette or inquired how the battle was going. Before our lines the German dead lie heaped in long rows. I am told one observer calculated there were 7,000 in a distance of 700 yards.
The dogged tenacity needed to continue the resistance far surpassed the furious élan of the attack. We know, too, the Germans cannot long maintain their present sacrifices. Since Saturday the enemy has lost two, if not three, for each one of us. Every bombardment withstood, every rush checked brings nearer the moment of inevitable exhaustion. Then...will come our recompense for these days of horror.” - Unknown French soldier describing the battle at Fort Doumont, Verdun, France May 23, 1916 #ww1 #reality #stayzero #zerofoxtrot