The fifty-month-long Great War affected France as no other country. With dozens of major battles on its territory, greater losses per capita than any other nation in men wounded and killed (some 1,385,000 dead out of 39 million in 1914), countless villages destroyed or disfigured and woods, fields, orchards ruined, France, the chief prize, was also the chief casualty of the war, both physically and emotionally. The effects persisted for decades and indeed last until this day. The scars left on the countryside and the national consciousness were deep, and few aspects of French life were left untouched. No town or village is without its memorial, prominently located. Some areas were permanently depopulated: twelve villages destroyed around Verdun, the site of the bloodiest battle, which France fought alone for over 300 days, have never been rebuilt, although a chapel has been erected on each site, and thousands of acres there remain off-limits because of live shells. The number of deaths and mutilations contributed to a serious decrease in the birthrate, already much lower than Germany's before 1914, and to national obsession with natality. Maurice Barrès, a militant nationalist from Lorraine, whose wartime journalism fills fourteen volumes, wondered whether France could recover from the bleeding. The French recoiled from the idea of further fighting on their territory; the rapid collapse of 1940 is not unrelated to awful memories of the previous war. Early in World War II, for instance, peasants removed army mines strategically placed to help protect against invasion.