In trying to recall my impressions during my short war duty as an officer in the Austrian Army, I find that my recollections of this period are very uneven and confused. Some of my experiences standout with absolute clearness; others, however, are blurred... 

This curious indifference of the memory to values of time and space may be due to the extraordinary physical and mental stress... The same state of mind I find is rather characteristic of most people I have met who were in the war. 

... One gets into a strange, psychological, almost hypnotic state of mind while on the firing line which probably prevents the mind's eye from observing and noticing things in a normal way. This accounts, perhaps, for some blank spaces in my memory. Besides, I went out completely resigned to my fate, without much thought for the future.  

Source: Fritz Kreisler. 1915. Four Weeks int he Trenches. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. [Available online via Web Archive. URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20031228155950/http://h-net.org/~habsweb/sourcetexts/kreis1.htm.] 

We have not been told the exact points against which these successive assaults were directed; 'the region of Douaumont' only was indicated... Our adversaries then resumed the bombardment of the village, and made new attacks with redoubled violence...

Another action was going on meanwhile to the east of the village of Vaux, hidden in a hollow dug out in the breast of the ridges of the Meuse... Vaux spreads along this hollow.... and [is] crowned by a fort bearing its name... 

The struggle was bloody; the enemy, descending by a kind of defile... rushed against Vaux, without those repeated assaults enabling him to force our wire entanglements. Our machine guns and cannon inflicted enormous losses on him. Finally, he withdrew, leaving numerous corpses on the wires. 

Source: M. Ardouin-Dumazet. 2 March 1916. 'The Battle of Verdun: An Authoritative French Account Based on Official Records,' Current History (1916-1940), Vol. 4., No. 3., p. 418-431. [Available online via Jstor. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45327540?seq=1.] 

The village of Haumont was the scene of especially furious fighting in which the enemy suffered severe losses, but gained possession of the ground... The Germans squandered men belonging to seven different army corps; the prisoners we took said that certain enemy units had been completely destroyed. The enemy came forward, wave after wave, only to crumble under our fire, sowing the slopes and hollows with thousands and thousands of corpses. 

Source: M. Ardouin-Dumazet. 23 February 1916. 'The Battle of Verdun: An Authoritative French Account Based on Official Records,' Current History (1916-1940), Vol. 4., No. 3., p. 418-431. [Available online via Jstor. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45327540?seq=1.] 

What is the secret motive underlying the German attempt to break the French line at Verdun, in which the Crown Prince's Army is incurring such appalling losses? Is it financial, in view of the coming war loan? Is it dynastic? Or is it intended to influence doubting neutrals? From the evidence of German deserters, it is known that the attack was originally intended to take place a month or two hence, when the ground was dry. There were two final delays owing to bad weather and then came the colossal onslaught of February 21st. 

Source: Lord Northcliffe. 4 March 1916. Letter. In Charles F. Horne & Walter F. Austin, eds. 1923. Source Records of The Great War, Volume IV. National Alumni. p. 51. [Available online via Archive. URL: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.242620/mode/1up?view=theater.] 

Despite the horror of it, despite the ceaseless flow of blood, one wants to see. One's soul wants to feed on the sight of the brute Boches falling. I stopped on the ground for hours, and when I closed my eyes, I saw the whole picture again. The guns are firing at 200 and 300 yards, and the shrapnel is exploding with a crash, scything them down. Our men hold their ground; our machine guns keep to their work, and yet they advance.

Near me, as I lie in the mud, there is a giant wrapped in one of our uniforms with a steel helmet on his head. He seems to be dead; he is so absolutely still. At a given moment, the Boches are quite close to us. Despite the noise of the guns, one can hear their oaths and shouts as they strike... 

But the Boches are returning again, massed to the assault, and they are being killed in bulk. It makes one think that in declaring war the Kaiser had sworn the destruction of his race, and he should show good taste in doing so... 

I find a rifle belonging to a comrade who has fallen... What a ifght it is, and what troops! From time to time, a man falls, rises, shoots, runs, shoots again, keeps on firing, fights with his bayonet, and then, worn out, falls, to be trampled on without raising a cry.

The storm of fire continues. Everything is on fire—the wood nearby, the village... There is fire everywhere. The acrid smell of carbonic acid and blood catches at our throats, but the battle goes on. 

Source: Unidentified French Soldier. 26 February 1916. Letter. In Charles F. Horne & Walter F. Austin, eds. 1923. Source Records of The Great War, Volume IV. National Alumni. p. 51. [Available online via Archive. URL: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.242620/mode/1up?view=theater.] 

The American people had ever been resolutely devoted to maintaining such self-government among themselves. If, in all the years that came after 1914, the American masses had but once clearly seen the Great War for what it truly was... they would have entered it at once, without questioning the cost. 

... [Germany's] submarine note [attack] of January 31st called forth a general protest from all neutrals. The protest of the United States, however, was the most decisive... [The United States] broke off diplomatic relations with Germany... So, [Germany] planned to involve America in trouble at home, hoping thus to keep [America] out of Europe. Their secret agents in America redoubled their efforts...

[Germany] have found no course more sure to harden the American spirit against her... On April 2nd, the President proclaimed the necessity of war, and on April 6th, Congress in solemn session and with practical unanimity voted the declaration of the war 'which thus had been thrust upon the United States'. 

... At the same time, the United States Government entered into immediate and most cordial harmony with her European allies.... 

Soon, both Britons and Americans devised new ways of snaring the hidden submarines... In similar fashion, the French envoys had said to the United States Government, "Send us troops at once..." Some twenty thousand soldiers followed... 

On that rejoicing July 4th in Europe, it seemed as though the War was practically at an end. If Germany had been staggering before under the blows of Britain, France, Italy, and Russia, what hope had she now with this new unsuspected military colossus, preparing so gigantically for the attack...

The hardest fighting of the fall of 1917 was undergone by the Britons. At this time, their army in France had reached the maximum strength of which the whole British Empire was capable. Canada and Australia vied with Britain itself in sending to the field every man who was fit for service... France, as we have seen, already felt her powers waning... [and] had now to call on the great British army, as later the Britons were to call on America. But, for the moment, with Russia down and America unready, this was Britain's day. 

Source: Charles F. Horne & Walter F. Austin, eds. 1923. Source Records of The Great War, Volume V. National Alumni. p. xxi-xxiii. [Available online via Archive. URL: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.242620/mode/1up?view=theater.] 

It was an aftermath of the terrible Somme battle of the preceding fall. That had cost the Germans heavily and left them in many portions of their line in positions but poorly defensible. Now, having resolved to spend this year on the defensive while their submarines fought for them... The country which they abandoned they deliberately desolated, so that it should furnish to their enemies neither shelter nor supplies. Thus, the French and British, if they advances, would have to confront the solid [German] Line from new defences... So quietly was the withdrawal conducted, that the Allies did not suspect it until it had been in progress almost a month. 

Source: Karl Rosner, Georg Querl, Marshal Haig. 18 March 1917. 'Official French and American Reports,' in Charles F. Horne & Walter F. Austin, eds. 1923. Source Records of The Great War, Volume V. National Alumni. p. xxi-xxiii. [Available online via Archive. URL: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.242620/mode/1up?view=theater.] 

Every German who knows the character and sensibilities of our highest leaders knows that it was no easy decision for them to make the terrain... now ruthlessly serviceable for military purposes. But here, there were greater things at stake... 

Therefore, in the course of the last month, great strips of France were converted by us into a dead land, which ten, twelve, to fifteen kilometres broad... offers a ghastly wall of emptiness for every enemy who designs to get at them. No village, no hamlet, remains standing... no street remains traversable; no bridge, no railway tracks, no railroad embankment, remains. Where once were woods, only stumps are left. The wells have been blown up; wires and cables destroyed. Like a vast band, a kingdom of death stretches before our new positions. 

Source: Karl Rosner. 18 March 1917. 'Official French and American Reports,' in Charles F. Horne & Walter F. Austin, eds. 1923. Source Records of The Great War, Volume V. National Alumni. p. xxi-xxiii. [Available online via Archive. URL: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.242620/mode/1up?view=theater.] 

In July 1915, the British had taken over most of the line from Arras to the Somme, and had passed a quiet winter int he trenches. The long pause had been occupied by the active Germans in transforming the chalk hills they occupied into fortified positions... The motives for the Allies' projected offensive on the Somme were to weaken the German pressure on Verdun, which had become severe in June... 

German high command had seen its larger aims fail. Why did it continue to assail Verdun after the chance of piercing the French lines had passed and when the cost was so terrific? The answer is not wholly clear, but we do know that the concentration of artillery and men had taken months; these could not be quickly moved elsewhere... 

Conversely, it was clear that, while the French lines could not be pierced, Verdun might be taken and the moral value of the capture would be enormous in Germany, France, and the neutral world, although the military value would be just nothing... 

By July 1, 1915, the French were in their last ditch before Verdun... but on July 1, 1916, there began that allied offensive at the Somme which changed the whole face of the western operations. Thus, by August 1, 1916, the Germans had been compelled to remove many troops from Verdun, and the French were able to take the offensive here again, and by August 6, 1916, had made material progress in retaking portions of the ground they had 'sold' the Germans for so great a price in previous weeks. 

Source: Francis J. Reynolds and Allen J. Churchill. eds. 1916. The Story of the Great War: History of the European War from Official Sources. P. F. Collier & Son Company: New York. [Available online via Project Gutenberg. URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29341/pg29341-images.html#page340.] 

Verdun, then, was the third failure of Germany to win the war by a major thrust... Relatively speaking, it wa a far greater failure, because it brought no incidental profit as did the other campaigns: it won only a few square miles of storm-swept hills, it has cost not less than 250,000 casualties, and allied statements placed the cost at half a million. From the military, the moral, the political points of view, Verdun was a defeat for the Germans of the first magnitude. 

Source: Francis J. Reynolds and Allen J. Churchill. eds. 1916. The Story of the Great War: History of the European War from Official Sources. P. F. Collier & Son Company: New York. [Available online via Project Gutenberg. URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29341/pg29341-images.html#page340.]