<BFrench President Francois Hollande, right, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrive at the
Douaumont Ossuary, in France, during a remembrance ceremony to mark the centenary of the battle of Verdun
During the ceremony in Verdun, Hollande and Merkel laid a wreath at the
Douaumont cemetery for the 300,000 soldiers killed; they also visited the German cemetery Consenvoy to lay a wreath.
A photo of then French President Francois Mitterand and then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl holding hands in the
Douaumont cemetery at Verdun became a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.
Names of the 162,000 French dead are listed on the battlefield
Douaumont Ossuary memorial.
During the first several months of the fighting, the Germans captured Fort
Douaumont and Fort Vaux, and by late June were on the verge of taking Verdun.
These soldiers would have been among those who fought in the critical Battle of Verdun and served in France's 43rd Senegalese Battalion, which took the fort of
Douaumont in October 1916.
Otra dramatica noticia fue la muerte en la batalla de la toma de
Douaumont del delantero del Sporting de Gijon y del Real Racing de Santander, Juan Moleres.
Ten months of attrition and slaughter result in a million casualties, the bleached bones of many of them now piled in viewing galleries at the epic
Douaumont ossuary.
Stages six and seven visit Arras, the Chemin des Dames, Verdun and
Douaumont - all sites of key battles and home to memorials to the fallen - and a finish in Reims, in Champagne country, where French kings were once crowned.
The Franco-German post-war rapprochement is a model, illustrated, among other images, by former French President Francois Mitterrand and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl holding hands on 22 September 1984 in
Douaumont cemetery in Verdun, where the remains of 150,000 French soldiers rest from one of the bloodiest battles of the first world war.
With the fortifications neutralized or in German control, the combination would defeat Fort
Douaumont, the linchpin in the French defensive lines.
We do see trenches, the glare of flare rockets, the nightly moves of trucks, we do hear intermittent guns, and we certainly smell the battle-soiled living men and the stench of rotting corpses in
Douaumont. But with the exception of two very brief scenes, the double barrage fire to crush the attempt at fraternization on the no man's land on Thursday and the resumption of gunfire that causes the blowing away of the corporal's coffin on Sunday morning, there is no war action whatever in A Fable.
