French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.

Les Cartes du Front

Verdun et Côtes de Meuse

Echelle 1:32,000

Routes

Chemin de fer

Canaux



Maps of the Front

Verdun and the Hills of the Meuse

Scale: 1:32,000

Roads

Railways

Canals



1. - Les Flandres

2. - Artois, Picardie

3. - Aisne, Champagne

4. - Argonne et Meuse

5. - Lorraine

6. - Vosges et Alsace

7. - Route des Dame et Plateau de Craonne

8. - Région de Perthes

9. - Verdun

10. - Somme et Santerre

11. - Plateau d'Artois

12. - Belgique - Flandres



A. Hatier. Editeur.8.Rue d'Assas, Paris.



Outer front:

Correspondence of the Armies

Military Franchise

Other views: Larger, Larger, Back

Monday, May 22, 1916

"How long is this going to last? Anguish makes me wonder when and how this gigantic, unprecedented struggle will end. There's no resolution in view. I wonder if it won't just finish for lack of men left to fight. It's no longer one nation fighting another. It's two great blocs fighting, two civilizations colliding. The peoples have been touched by the madness of death and destruction. Certainly humanity has gone mad! It must be mad to do what it's doing. Such slaughter! Such scenes of horror and carnage! I can't find the words to convey them. Hell could not be worse. Men are mad!"

Quotation Context

Excerpt from the diary of French Second Lieutenant Alfred Joubaire writing on May 22, 1916, the first day of French General Mangin's attempt to retake Fort Douaumont, captured by the Germans on February 25, in the first days of the Battle of Verdun. Joubaire had arrived in the Verdun sector on May 17, having learned of his deployment the previous day: 'There's no longer any doubt of the position we're going to take up . . . It's Verdun, it's the big one, real carnage, real slaughter. Everybody is very calm and very happy.' Joubaire was killed on June 2 on his second rotation into the Verdun front lines.

Source

The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby, page 304, copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Ian Ousby, publisher: Anchor Books, publication date: 2003

Tags

1916-05-22, 1916, May, Verdun, Battle of Verdun, Douaumont, Fort Douaumont