Until 1918 the French were the Huns of Western Europe. Seriously, for all the ink spilled giving the Germans a hard time, their reputation for bloodthirstiness really only goes back to just before the beginning of the 20th Century. France had been the spawning ground of killers since the days of Charles Martel.
The French armies fought in more wars, took more ground, killed, looted, raped, and burned their way across Europe from medieval times up until the middle of the 19th Century. Until then if you were looking for a good place to get killed, for a jolly little war to fight in, there was probably a Frenchman involved in it, too. Frenchmen were the Beasts of Europe for hundreds of years. Until Verdun.Verdun, and other places like it, but because of the sheer grim uselessness of it Verdun was what Frenchmen and women thought of when they thought of the hideous killing ground that their northeastern frontiers had been for four long years.
Up until then the notion of war had had something of adventure, of attraction, of glory and honor and excitement to it.
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