That day, 23 June, marked both the high point and crisis of the Verdun offensive. About twenty million shells had been fired into the battle zone since 21 February, the shape of the landscape had been permanently altered, forests had been reduced to splinters, villages had disappeared, the surface of the ground had been so pockmarked by explosion that shell hole overlapped shell hole and had been overlapped again.
Worse by far was the destruction of human life. By the end of June over 200,000 men had been killed and wounded on each side. The losses had fallen more heavily on the French, since they had begun the war with a third fewer men than the Germans, but to both armies Verdun had become a place of terror and death that could not yield victory.
Source:
Keegan, John. "The Year of Battles." The First World War. New York: A. Knopf :, 1999. 285. Print.
Further Reading:
The Great War has forever changed perception about wars. Young men were excited about going in it.
Look how the Verdun battlefield is looking now. The shelling is still apparent after a century.