To troops who had not yet been through the mill at Verdun, passing men whom they were about to relieve was an unnerving experience; they seemed like beings from another world. Lieutenant Georges Gaudy described watching his own regiment return from the May fighting near Douaumont:
First came the skeletons of companies occasionally led by a wounded officer, leaning on a stick. All marched, or rather advanced in small steps, zigzagging as if intoxicated… It was hard to tell the colour of their faces from that of their tunics. Mud had covered everything, dried off, and then another layer had been re-applied… They said nothing. They had even lost the strength to complain… It seemed as if these mute faces were crying something terrible, the unbelievable horror of their martyrdom.
Some Territorials who were standing near me became pensive. They had that air of sadness that comes over one when a funeral passes by, and I overheard one say: ‘It’s no longer an army! These are corpses!’
Two of the Territorials wept in silence, like women.
Source:
Horne, Alistair. “Widening Horizons.” The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. New York: St. Martin's, 1963. 188. Print.
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