A quiet stone town on the river Meuse whose name marks two hinges of European history — the treaty that split Charlemagne's empire and the longest battle of the First World War.
On the river Meuse in northeastern France, Verdun has twice turned the course of European history. In 843 the three grandsons of the emperor Charlemagne met here to carve up his lands, drawing a line whose two halves would slowly grow into France and Germany. On that same frontier, from February to December 1916, those two nations fought the Battle of Verdun — one of the longest and deadliest battles ever waged. About 17,000 people live in the rebuilt town today, while just outside it the forest still hides the wounds of the war.
Verdun's first turning point was peaceful. The emperor Charlemagne had welded much of western Europe into a single realm, but within a generation of his death in 814 his descendants were at war over the inheritance. In 843 three of his grandsons met at Verdun and ended the fighting by splitting the empire three ways. Charles the Bald took the western portion, which grew into France; Louis "the German" took the lands east of the Rhine, the seed of Germany; and the eldest, Lothair, kept a long middle strip running from the North Sea through Lorraine down to Italy. That fragile central band — including the ground Verdun stands on — became the seam between two great nations, fought over again and again for the next thousand years.
The bloodiest of those fights came in 1916. The German army chose Verdun on purpose: a proud fortress city that France, they gambled, would defend to the last man, letting them "bleed France white." On 21 February a firestorm of shells opened the attack, and within days the mighty Fort Douaumont fell almost without a fight. But the French held, rallying to the cry "Ils ne passeront pas" — "They shall not pass." For ten months men lived and died in a moonscape of mud and craters, kept alive by a single supply road that trucks crawled along day and night. When it ended in December, the French had won back nearly all the lost ground, at a cost of some 700,000 killed, wounded or missing on both sides.
The land never fully healed, and that is what you come to see. Nine villages were pounded out of existence and never rebuilt; at Fleury only signposts now mark where the school and the houses stood. Above it rises the Douaumont Ossuary, a long pale vault holding the bones of about 130,000 unidentified men, French and German mixed together. In 1984 the French and German leaders clasped hands here in silence — old enemies turned partners — and Verdun became a symbol of peace. Down in the town the Meuse still slides past the medieval Porte Chaussée gate, and confectioners sell the sugared almonds Verdun has made since the Middle Ages.
The making of Verdun
The Douaumont Ossuary
A 137-metre vault holding the bones of about 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers, beneath a 46-metre “lantern of the dead” that sweeps the graves by night.
Fort Douaumont
The strongest fort ringing Verdun — lost to the Germans in the battle's first days and retaken eight months later; you can walk its cold concrete tunnels today.
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Fleury-devant-Douaumont
One of nine villages that “died for France” — erased in 1916 and never rebuilt; now only signposts show where the homes, school and church once stood.
The Victory Monument
A helmeted warrior on a high stone stair in the town centre; climb the 73 steps to a crypt holding the roll of Verdun's defenders.
Charlemagne
The emperor who united western Europe; in 843, a generation after his death, his grandsons split his realm at Verdun — the first line between France and Germany.
Dragées de Verdun
Sugar-coated almonds an apothecary of Verdun is said to have invented around 1220 — often called France's oldest sweet, still boxed up in the town.
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