Word: verdun
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...middle age who saw what took place last week in Belgium and northern France said that it was more terrible to endure for two hours than all 299 days in 1915 when 278,000 Germans and 460,000 Frenchmen died on the blasted hilltops of Verdun. For this 1940 war was vertical as well as horizontal. To the old curtains of shell and rifle fire were added machine guns spitting from the sky, bombs bursting suddenly upon fields and highways, the unearthly roar of airplane motors drowning even the outcries of men. Fleets of land battleships crushed walls and swept...
...Liegnitz, Silesia, whose honorary chiefs were the Kaiser and the Tsar. Schoolmates recall him as a witty wisecracker, gay, with a talent for dramatics. But he stuck to soldiering faithfully, gained his lieutenancy in time for World War I. By bravery at Longwy and the Meuse, by luck at Verdun, he rose and survived to become a staff officer under Count Rüdiger von der Goltz, who in 1918 was sent to help Baron Mannerheim win Finland's independence...
...blood-soaked snow and frozen muck of the plain south of Viipuri, Finland's Verdun, a sleepless, exhausted and incredibly brave Finnish army had for twelve days withstood a mighty offensive by the best & biggest army that Russia could put into the field. Not since Marshal Haig sent tens of thousands of Britons to their slaughter at the Somme in 1916 had a high command been so prodigal of its men. Stung by its failure, in two months of bitter warfare, to subdue the stubborn Finns, apprehensive that outside help might make the Finns unconquerable by spring, Soviet Russia...
...overlooked in such calculations is another comparison. In 1916 Germany, fighting at Verdun and the Somme, burned up every day more materials than in the entire Franco-Prussian war. So far in this war Germany has fought only an in expensive Polish campaign, some minor air and sea battles. Germany's income may be as small as in 1916, but so far her expenses are far smaller...
Along the front there is something in the air. Jerphanion is moved back to a reserve position, blessedly peaceful. During February the Army hears slightly intensified artillery fire from the Verdun sector, hears news that French guns are being sent...