In a lot of retrospectives and articles about Verdun people say that the Germans attacked it because it had symbolic importance to the French, meaning they would spend more resources to recapture it beyond what it’s military value warranted. Yet I haven’t seen much info on why the French thought Verdun was so symbolically important. I also want to be clear that I don’t mean the way Verdun became a symbol because of the WWI battle that took place there, I’m asking about why it was symbolic to the French before the Battle of Verdun.