They called Verdun the Meat Grinder. The Furnace. Hell. When the fighting died down, almost a year after it began, French and German armies were back where they started -- minus close to one million men. The Battle of Verdun came to symbolize the senseless slaughter of the First World War, but for the French, who won the war at enormous cost, it left a deeper and more personal mark. The soul of France was ripped out in the muddy trenches of Verdun.