It seemed to us then as if a quite exceptional bond linked up with those few who had been with us at the time. It was not the normal sensation of affinity that always binds together men who have endured common hardships… It derived from the fact that Verdun transformed men’s souls. Whoever floundered through this morass full of the shrieking and the dying, whoever shivered in those nights, had passed the last frontier of life, and henceforth bore deep within him the leaden memory of a place that lies between Life and Death, or perhaps beyond either…
Source:
Horne, Alistair. “Aftermath.” The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. New York: St. Martin's, 1963. 326. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Reichs Archives, Vol. I (Werner Beumelburg, Douaumont).
Further Reading:
I visited Verdun a few years back, very impressive. Well impressive isn't the right word, it's sort of an omniprecense of creepiness. At many of the monuments you hear total silence for example, no birds or nothing. Almost like mother nature learned to avoid the place.