Summary Of Alistair Horne: The Price Of Glory

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Alistair Horne: The Price of Glory The battle of Verdun in is said to have been one of the greatest and most protracted battles in the history of warfare. The battle started in 1916; it was the longest war in World War 1. They thought the war would not last awhile with all of their artillery but they were wrong. . The war involved so many men, positioned on a small piece of land. The battle was between the German and French armies and lasted from February 21st, 1916 to December 19th, 1916 and caused over an estimated 700,000 casualties. Throughout the battle countless number of soldiers kept journals and or sent letters back home telling what it is like during the war. The physical conditions of the soldiers played a big part in the battle…show more content…
When getting information from the soldiers they can tell you personally what it was like in the trenches, or the sounds they heard from all of the guns and bombs, and the smell of death and gunpowder. If he focused on the soldiers back at the base they would tell you different because they did not experienced what the frontline did, they can give you just an overview on what was happening. The soldiers on the frontline went through a lot, from being stuck in a hole for the whole length and not seeing any soldiers at all, or watching people they know die in front of them; they witnessed the many horrors of battle that many people were not aware about. The way he focused on the frontline soldiers really makes you understand what they soldiers went through and how they dealt with those issues, you were able to see what they feared, like dying from a bomb instead of a bullet. You also felt their feeling of nervousness, and the anxiety of the soldiers that were in the trenches. The soldiers told you what they saw, felt, and thought while the battle was going on, like how “shells disinter the bodies, then reinter them, chop them to pieces, play with them as a cat plays with a mouse”(357) and how they considered “Verdun was terrible… because man is fighting against material, with the sensation of striking out of empty air”

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