"At ten o'clock in the morning, the Boches started to bombard us with large caliber shells for ten hours. It was enough to drive you mad. We've been completely brutalized by the bombardment. We were buried alive; but miraculously, all seven of us emerged without a scratch. One sees some bodies who don't have legs, others without any heads, who have been left for several weeks on the ground.
Nature has been ruthlessly murdered. Every sign of humanity has been swept away. Roads have vanished, and forests are fire-blackened stumps. Villages are gray smears where stone walls were tumbled together. Only the faintest outlines of the great forts can be traced against the churned up background....only broken, half obliterated links of the trenches are visible...It's an unending Hell." - Unknown French Soldier, 65th Infantry Reg., 21st ID, Verdun, France, June 1916.