Walking Verdun

The Verdun battlefield of 1916 is unlike any other. Blasted by shells for ten months until forests, fields, farms and houses were completely wiped off the map, it was regarded by the French government as impossible to restore to pre-war use and handed over to the forestry department. No one was allowed to live there again and the nine villages destroyed in the battle were not rebuilt. As the years went by, trees covered the devastated landscape but under the trees the battle lives on, unvisited and unknown.

If you’ve ever wanted to walk the battlefield you can do so with Walking Verdun, a guide for visitors who want to get away from the crowds and see at first hand what remains of the longest battle of the First World War. And what remains! Trenches, camps, bunkers, machine gun posts, batteries and shelters Forts and fieldworks all bear witness to the months of struggle. With Walking Verdun you can head out from the destroyed village of Bezonvaux, now emerging like some Sleeping Beauty from a century of abandonment, through ravines used by thousands of German soldiers as they moved up to Fort Douaumont. Along forest tracks you’ll pass through a landscape of shell holes and trenches until you emerge from the forest at the edge of the ditch surrounding the fort and get a sense of the size and power of the greatest permanent work in the Verdun system before the First World War. Or you can discover the Bois des Caures, a scene of the heroic defence by Lieutenant-Colonel Driant’s Chasseurs - two under strength battalions – as they found the courage to face two German divisions after hours of unimaginable bombardment. Then, for a change, explore Fumin Wood, swamped by shells between March and June 1916 as the Germans inched towards Fort Vaux, or walk the Mort-Homme, the Dead Man, the sinisterly named hill on the Left Bank where the most striking monument of all, Death triumphant with French flag and laurel branch, marks the place where the German advance was stopped.