French 83-year old First World War veteran in his old uniform holding a flag from the Battle of Verdun in Lyon for the 50th anniversary of the Armistice, November 11, 1968.
French 83-year old First World War veteran in his old uniform holding a flag from the Battle of Verdun in Lyon for the 50th anniversary of the Armistice, November 11, 1968. . The following are extraits of French Private Georges Pilliet's memoirs of April 1916 during the Battle of Verdun: ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "At the end of April, we were astonished to see that the Germans had put sign boards on their trenches, writing in French that 'You are going to Verdun and good luck to you'. (...) We left our trenches and we were taken by train to a place a certain distance from Verdun and we had to walk by night- a very difficult long and hard walk. . We arrived at Verdun and remained south of the city in barracks. (...) I had to go into a tunnel on the railway line from Verdun to Meaux. In this tunnel lived about a thousand men, who had been there for months. It was filthy, smelly; we had the impression we could cut the air with a knife. . From there we went to ...