Verdun was a horrorshow, to be sure, but it was only the 4th bloodiest battle of WWI with 976,000 total casualties. The 3 worst battles were:
3. The Battle of the Somme (1916), 1,219,201 casualties (623,000 Allied, 600,000 German). On the worst day of that battle the British army suffered over 60,000 casualties.
2. The Ludendorff Offensive (1918), 1,539,715 casualties (850,000 Allied, 680,000 German).
1. The Hundred Days Offensive (1918), which basically ended the war: 1,855,369 casualties (1.07 million Allied, 786,000 German).
These numbers are staggering to the imagination. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War was Gettysburg, which resulted in 51,000 casualties. This in no way addresses the subjective level of horror experienced by combatants, which really can't be measured.
