The Battle of Verdun was one of the most critical battles in World War I on the Western Front , fought between the German and French armies from 21 February to 18 December 1916 around the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse in northeast France .

The Battle of Verdun resulted in more than a quarter of a million deaths and at least a million wounded. Verdun was the longest battle and one of the bloodiest in World War I and more generally in human history . In both France and Germany it has come to represent the horrors of war, similar to the significance of the Battle of the Somme to the United Kingdom , the Battle of Gallipoli to Australia and New Zealand , or the Battle of Gettysburg to the United States . The Battle of Verdun popularised the phrase "Ils ne passeront pas" (" They shall not pass " ) in France, uttered by Robert Nivelle , but often incorrectly attributed to Philippe Pétain . As a matter of record, during the early part of the Battle of Verdun on 16 April 1916, General Petain issued an order of the day which ended with the phrase: "Courage ! On les aura" ("Courage! We shall get them"). The Battle of Verdun — also known as the Mincing Machine of Verdun or Meuse Mill — became a symbol of French determination to hold the ground and then roll back the enemy at any human cost . It was essentially a battle of materiel, however, where artillery played the dominant role. A significant factor that helped even out the odds in favor of the French Army was their uninterrupted use of night-and-day trucking to keep fresh troops and artillery supplies coming onto the front lines. Furthermore, during the summer of 1916, a relief standard gauge railway line ( Nettancourt-Dugny ) was completed and took over most of the traffic on the " Voie Sacree ". All this had not been anticipated by the German military planners. One of the reasons they had selected Verdun is that, out of the two standard gauge railway lines leading into the city and its forts, one line was permanently interrupted at Saint Mihiel while the other one, leading to Paris, was under their direct artillery fire. Thus, at the outset, the German planners saw Verdun for what it was : a salient that was cut off on three sides, a cul-de-sac onto which they could strike the fatal blow against the French Army. What they did not anticipate was that, once the initial surprise had worn out, French logistics would steadily improve with time and rob them of their initial advantage. The perceived success of the fixed fortification system led to the adoption of the Maginot Line as the preferred method of defense along the Franco-German border during the inter-war years. In reality, French field artillery emplaced in the open on the Verdun battlefield outnumbered turreted artillery in the forts by a factor of twenty to one and inflicted most of the casualties suffered by the German assailants.