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A review by alex_ellermann
The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916; Revised Edition by Alistair Horne
3.0
‘The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916’ is the definitive popular history of Verdun. Verdun, of course, is one of those one-word signifiers. Like Stalingrad or Agincourt, Verdun occupies a place in the imagination so large that it requires no “Battle of” prefix.
Personally, I was always aware of Verdun. However, I never took much interest in it. Verdun ended before the United States got into WWI, and my focus tends to be on American history and subjects that related to that history. Nevertheless, on a family vacation a couple of years ago, I dragged my family to the great Ossuary at Verdun as a side trip after a visit to the Meuse-Argonne U.S. National Cemetery. Standing among the fields of grave markers in the shadow of the Ossuary in the late evening, I was taken with the vastness of the place, the unimaginable loss of human life that occurred there (roughly 700,000 soldiers, mostly French and German with a sprinkling of English), and my relative ignorance of the battle. That’s when I put ‘The Price of Glory’ on my reading list.
The book itself is something of a grind. With a relative dearth of maps and an assumption of reader familiarity with French language and culture, it requires a fair amount of focus from non-Francophile audiences. Additionally, it reflects the battle itself in that it sometimes devolves into a horror show which, it seems, may never end. Hecatombs of men and animals died in countless horrific ways at Verdun, their uninterred corpses contributing to a ghastly landscape that became the stuff of nightmares. As a reader, it’s hard to plow through those scenes, to let them take up space in the brain. Nevertheless, for those of us who are insatiably curious about our collective history, the investment is worth it.
Because this book can seem daunting, I don’t think I’d recommend it to the reader with a casual interest in WWI. Readers planning a trip to Eastern France, however, may find it worth the investment of time and imagination required to absorb ‘Verdun.’ At least that way, when they drag their families to the Ossuary, they’ll know what they’re looking at and why.
Personally, I was always aware of Verdun. However, I never took much interest in it. Verdun ended before the United States got into WWI, and my focus tends to be on American history and subjects that related to that history. Nevertheless, on a family vacation a couple of years ago, I dragged my family to the great Ossuary at Verdun as a side trip after a visit to the Meuse-Argonne U.S. National Cemetery. Standing among the fields of grave markers in the shadow of the Ossuary in the late evening, I was taken with the vastness of the place, the unimaginable loss of human life that occurred there (roughly 700,000 soldiers, mostly French and German with a sprinkling of English), and my relative ignorance of the battle. That’s when I put ‘The Price of Glory’ on my reading list.
The book itself is something of a grind. With a relative dearth of maps and an assumption of reader familiarity with French language and culture, it requires a fair amount of focus from non-Francophile audiences. Additionally, it reflects the battle itself in that it sometimes devolves into a horror show which, it seems, may never end. Hecatombs of men and animals died in countless horrific ways at Verdun, their uninterred corpses contributing to a ghastly landscape that became the stuff of nightmares. As a reader, it’s hard to plow through those scenes, to let them take up space in the brain. Nevertheless, for those of us who are insatiably curious about our collective history, the investment is worth it.
Because this book can seem daunting, I don’t think I’d recommend it to the reader with a casual interest in WWI. Readers planning a trip to Eastern France, however, may find it worth the investment of time and imagination required to absorb ‘Verdun.’ At least that way, when they drag their families to the Ossuary, they’ll know what they’re looking at and why.