Verdun

A city in the Meuse department in Grand Est, northeastern France, known before 1970 as Verdun-sur-Meuse. It is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital of the department is Bar-le-Duc, which is slightly smaller. In 843 the Treaty of Verdun, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms and is considered the foundation of Germany and France, was signed there. Verdun was an episcopal principality of the Holy Roman Empire from the tenth century until it was subjugated by France in 1552; with Metz and Toul, the other free cities of the Empire, it formed the province of the Three Bishoprics, attached to the Kingdom of France in 1648 by the Treaty of Munster. It gave its name to the longest battle of the First World War.