February 1916 saw the opening stages of one of the most fearful battles of the World War I, at Verdun, between France and Germany. The German High Command believed in a strategy of attrition and felt that Germany could, by choosing a point of attack which the French felt they would have to defend at all costs, bleed France to death. They chose Verdun, a small fortress that had been of strategic importance to France for hundreds of years. Six months...