WW1 for the day

War History Online has an article about a reenactment of the centenary of Verdun:

The Battle of Verdun is known as one of the most brutal battles fought during World War One. In the battle, tens of thousands of German and French troops were killed. The fighting lasted some ten months and strained the resources of France so much that, at one point, it was feared that it would collapse and seek peace terms with the Germans.
A hundred years since the first day of combat, France held a joint commemoration ceremony (photop, to) with Germany to honor their fallen countrymen and to educate future generations about the atrocities of war. This event would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. Once Verdun was a symbol of the hatred between France and Germany, but, today, it has become a symbol of the new spirit of cooperation between the two nations.
The Verdun memorial was specially renovated for this centenary commemoration. Three hundred people dressed in World War One German and French uniforms and marched down the lane to the exact spot where the battle started at dawn, a hundred years ago to the day. The sound of shell fire was played to re-enact the sounds of the shells fired on that first day of the battle.
It was at this battle that French general Robert Nivelle uttered the now infamous words:‘On ne passe pas (They shall not pass)’.
Within a three-hundred-day period of relentless bloodshed, three hundred thousand soldiers from both Germany and France were killed or missing in action, and approximately a half million others were wounded. On the first day of the battle alone, two million shells were reported to have been fired, with thirty million shells fired in total.
The town was selected for attack by Germany’s chief strategist, General Erich von Falkenhayn, because of its position along the Allied line and to cause maximum destruction to a region which was historically important to the French. The ten-month-long battle between France and Germany is referred to as the ‘hell of Verdun’. Both sides stubbornly refused to give in, and it was this reluctance to relinquish any of the ground they had fought so ruthlessly to win that led to the drafting of more troops into combat and the eventual mass loss of lives.
In fact, the battle is reputed as having been so traumatic, due to the vast losses of both German and French troops, that it was only  in 1984 that the governments of each of the countries agreed to a joint hosting of an annual memorial service.

Rico says it's yet another war he's glad he missed...