https://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/battleverdun/getuigen.htm I used the following statement from this website:
A French soldier describes the horrors of a bombardment: …When you hear the whistling in the distance your entire body preventively crunches together to prepare for the enormous explosions. Every new explosion is a new attack, a new fatigue, a new affliction. Even nerves of the hardest of steel, are not capable of dealing with this kind of pressure. The moment comes when the blood rushes to your head, the fever burns inside your body and the nerves, numbed with tiredness, are not capable of reacting to anything anymore. It is as if you are tied to a pole and threatened by a man with a hammer. First the hammer is swung backwards in order to hit hard, then it is swung forwards, only missing your scull by an inch, into the splintering pole. In the end you just surrender. Even the strength to guard yourself from splinters now fails you. There is even hardly enough strength left to pray to God….
I used this Wikipedia article for general background on the Battle of Verdun and via lists of years on wikipedia, I searched for an occasion that the young couple could have good memories of. I chose Le Sacre du printemps (because of the year, its distance from the events in the story and the fact that it captures a time frame. )