Battle of Verdun

The battles of Verdun was a Bataille of the First World War, February 21st with the December 19th 1916 close to Verdun in France, between the French Armies and allemande. Conceived by von Falkenhayn as a battle of attrition for " to bleed with blanc" the French Army under a flood of shell in a report/ratio of losses of 1 per 2, it will appear in fact almost also expensive for the attacker: it made more 300  000 dead (163  000 French soldiers and 143  000 German) and ended in a return to the former situation. In parallel, from July to November, the British army will be committed in the Bataille of the Sum, quite as bloody for also minor results.

Whereas, German side, in fact essentially the same army corps will fight all the battle, the French Army will make pass to Verdun, by rotation, 70% of its Poilu S, which contributed to the importance symbolic system of this battle and to re-elected of the general Pétain who ordered the first part of the battle. It is to the general Robert Georges Nivelle that returned the merit of the final stopping of the German offensive (June-July), then of the reconquest of the lost ground (October).

Retrospectively, Verdun appears as the place of one of the most inhuman battles to which the man delivered himself: the Artillerie causes 80% of the losses there, the role of the men especially consists in there surviving -- and to die -- under the worst conditions on a ground transformed into hell, all that for a military result no one.

Verdun will be, like the Somme, a terrible lesson that certain military theorists will be able to include/understand. The immobility of the face in spite of the average volunteers is due to the absence of Moteur: in 1940, subjected to the motorized fire of the Panzer S, Verdun will fall in 24:00.

Context with the beginning of the year 1916

For all the belligerents, the hostilities started in 1914 were to be of short duration. But, the Germans are stopped on the Marne. Then a race with the sea begins. Finally, the face is stabilized on a line making 750 km, of the the North Sea to the Suisse. The armies are buried. The mobile warfare is finished. The conflict is announced longer than envisaged.

During the year 1915, the French try to bore in Artois and Champagne. These offensives are bloody failures making approximately 350  000 died in the French rows. The war will be not only long but also fatal.

In this end of the year 1915, the effects of the war become hard to bear for the whole of the belligerents. The whole of the layers of the company is touched. It becomes urgent to carry the decision. That makes one year and half which the war began.

Strategies to resolve the situation

For the French command, directed by the généralissime Joffre, the mobile warfare remains of topicality. The chief of the armies pays all his attention to the preparation of an important offensive on the Somme. It is necessary to bore, take again the mobile warfare and to finish some.

For the German command, in the person of the general von Falkenhayn, Head of the State imperial major, it are not completely the same way of tackling the problem. Indeed, it is necessary to finish some with this conflict, because for him, the England seeks to asphyxiate the central empires in a war of attrition. But for that it is necessary to make the war expensive to the English by a new method, the underwater Guerre, and especially, should be destroyed the French forces: “the forces of France will be bled with died… that we achieve our goal or not”. The character extremist of this thought enables to foresee brutality of the combat to come. The goal is to discourage France which will require grace.

The site of Verdun is selected for multiple reasons.

  • It is an important strategic position because it is in the vicinity immediate of the factories of Obus of Briey - Thionville and of the railway complex of Metz.
  • It is a popular Symbole which cannot be abandoned with the enemy (Division of Verdun in 843 between the grandsons of Charlemagne: appearance of the Western Francie , according to the Treated of Verdun). Of this fact one supposes that the French troops will prefer to die on the spot rather than to move back.
  • It is clearly also that the Germans reflect in work their plan of attack more quickly than the French. If not, confrontation would have doubtless taken place on the Somme.

Importance of Verdun


They is projecting French lines, encircled on all the sides, the Meuse complicating the defense of the sector. In the projecting one, several forts are of which those of Douaumont and Vaux. But since the destruction of the Fortification S of Liege, Namur and Maubeuge by the German howitzers, the French command does not believe any more in the fortified towns. The gun S of the forts of Verdun are withdrawn by decree of the August 5th 1915, thus decreasing very strongly their operational capacity. Joffre needs these guns for the offensive which it projects. In the same way, the garrisons occupying the forts are very often reduced with a few tens of combatants, even less.

The defense system is him also sometimes brought back to a Tranchée instead of three. The barbed wires are in bad condition. Manpower are reduced and organized. All that lets think that a German attack would seek to gain ground.

The relative calm from which the sector during these last months profited could explain the little of interest carried by the French command for this section of the face.

To supply the sector, there remains nothing any more but one way of Railroad connecting Bar-le-Duc to Verdun (the catch of Saint-Mihiel by the Germans in 1914 cut the Verdun line - Nancy). Genuine local train, it is unsuitable with the transport of heavy material. Parallel to the railroad is a secondary road that Maurice Barrès will call “the sacred way”. This lack of transportation routes with the back makes even more fragile this part of the face.

It was attack a surprise?

The German general Falkenhayn thus chooses Verdun for his vulnerability and also owing to the fact that it will not have to move many troops. Cash on the German heavy artillery superiority, it will employ the method of the “ Trommelfeuer ”: a preparation of artillery in drum roll who should allow to level the ground to be conquered.

The Germans pile up vis-a-vis Verdun some: 1225 parts of Artillery of all Gauges including 542 heavy howitzers. On average, one can count a fast mortar of 210  mm all 150  Mr. They deploy 13 howitzers Krupp of 420  mm, 17 howitzers Skoda of 305  mm (Skoda will become later Czechoslovakian), 2 parts of marine of 380  mm and ammunition consequently, approximately: 2500000 Shell.

They mass 72 battalions of infantry in buried shelters ( stollen ). On the 20 departments assigned to the operation, 10 are planned for the battle itself, the 10 others being reserved for a possible decisive battle on another consequently dismantled sector.

All these preparations cannot escape for submission to the defenders from Verdun who do not fail to bring back the information to the more military high authorities.

Thus the lieutenant-colonel Driant, ordering 56 {{E}} and 59 {{E}} battalions of hunters, benefits from his quality of member of Parliament, Member of the Commission of national defense, to draw the attention of the command to the sector.

Joffre sends a detachment of the genius, but it is well late. The general Herr, chief of the strengthened area of Verdun, said itself “each time I ask for artillery reinforcements, GQG answers by withdrawing me two batteries! ”

Since mid-January, the German preparations are confirmed by the French intelligence services (2nd office), by the air recognition which take worrying photographs and by Alsatian and Lorraine deserters. Joffre remains deaf with this information.

Apocalypse on Right Bank of the Meuse

Monday February 21st 1916 around 7 a.m., a shell of 380 explodes in the court of the episcopal palate of Verdun. It is the beginning of an inhuman battle - baptized operation Gericht (court) by the Germans - who will last ten months.

A flood of iron and fire falls down on a face of a few kilometers (the bombardment is perceived until in the the Vosges, with 150km). Two million Obus - a heavy shell every three seconds - falls on the French positions in two days.

With 16:00, this February 21st, 60  000 German soldiers pass to the attack on a face of 6km to the Bois of Caures. The German infantry carries out a limited progression, arranges the ground immediately in order to put field artillery out of battery. The range thus increased, the German guns directly threaten the French connections between the back and the face.

The French forces are crushed by this steel rain. The Driant lieutenant-colonel finds death the February 22nd in the wood of Caures. With him, thousand two hundred men fall. There will be only a hundred and ten survivors. On the remainder of the sector, defenses are crushed, dislocated, crushed. In a few hours, the main forests disappear, replaced by a lunar decoration. The solid masses of Haumont, Herbebois and Caures are shredded, chopped, levelled. Behind travelling fire, the 7th Rhenish body, the 18th hessois and the 3rd brandbourgeois advance slowly.

The Fort of Douaumont, which is defended only by one about sixty territorial, is removed the February 25th by the 24e regiment brandbourgeois. This success was immense for German propaganda and a consternation for the French.

Despite everything, the German progression is very strongly slowed down. Indeed, the preparation of artillery presents disadvantages for the attacker. The ground, plowed, becomes constraining, unstable, dangerous. Very often, the progression of the troops, must be done in column, by avoiding the obstacles.

Against any waiting, the Germans find an opposition to their progression. Incredible thing, in disappeared French positions, survivors emerge. Handles of men, often without officers, are armed and counteracted, at the place where they are. A machine-gun is enough to block a column or the head of a regiment. The French combatants, in a sorry state, resist with eagerness and manage to slow down or block the advance of the German troops.

A pretense of face is reconstituted. The 270 French pieces of artillery try to return blows for blows. Two French divisions are sent quickly in reinforcement, the February 24th, on what remains face.

With the survivors of the bombardment they stop the progression of the German troops.

It is the end of the first phase of the battle of Verdun. Obviously, the objectives of Falkenhayn are not achieved. A too limited face, an impracticable ground and the aggressiveness of the French soldier seem to have been right of the plan of the German.

The French command reacts

The February 25th 1916, Joffre decides sending with Verdun of the 2nd Army, which had been placed in strategic reserve, and whose general Pétain was ordering it since the June 21st 1915. He entrusts to him the command as a chief of the sector of Verdun.

It is in the hotel where it is with its mistress that Pétain is informed of its nomination by its ordinance. He joined his assignment at once.

Philippe Pétain is a infantryman of formation which has the respect of fire. Doesn't he unceasingly repeat “fire keep silent”? For him the progression of the infantry must be carried out with the support of artillery. The previous year, the accuracy of its tactic was shown. It is sparing efforts of its men. It will take care to soften to the maximum hardness of the tests for its troops.

Initially, the Pétain general reorganizes defense. It is articulated on two banks of the Meuse. An artillery reinforced in the measurement of the availabilities covers the units on line. The forts are rearmed. To spare its troops, it forces “the swivel”. The troops take turns for the defense of Verdun. In July, 70 of 95 French divisions will have taken part in the battle.

In the second time, it reorganizes the Logistique. The only way of possible supply consists of a doubled sinuous railway of a secondary road. The road makes only seven meters broad and is transformed into mud pit as of the first rains. On these 56 km of track, an uninterrupted succession of trucks will circulate rolling day and night.

This vital artery for the face of Verdun will be called “the Crowned Voie” by Maurice Barrès. It will circulate there more 3  000 trucks, every fifteen seconds. 90  000 men and 50  000 tons of ammunition will be transported each week.

Careers are open in neighbouring limestone. The territorial ones and civilians empierrent the road permanently. Thousands of tons of stones are thrown under the wheels of the trucks which go up and go down from the face. The two files act as road roller and ram the stones.

A Draconian payment governs the use of this road. It is interdict to station. Rolling is made avoid-shock against avoid-shock, of day like night. The flood should stop under no pretext. Any broken down vehicle is unrelentingly thorough with the ditch.

Lastly, it reorganizes artillery. The remaining heavy artillery is recovered. An autonomous grouping is created and directly placed under its orders. That makes it possible to concentrate fires on the most threatened points. These changes brought to this part of the face make go up moral troop which feels in Pétain a true chief who supports them in the effort and the suffering.

For the first time since the beginning of the war, aviation will intervene in a way truly organized with creation of the first great unit of hunting, charged releasing the sky of the enemy machines, and with informing the command about the positions and the movements of the adversary: “I am blind, release the sky and light will say me”, them it. The Germans are stopped to 4 km of their starting positions, advances very weak have regard to the means which they engaged.

The engagements are delivered on two banks of the Meuse

Kronprinz begs Falkenhayn to attack left bank to make conceal the French guns. The Germans attack around the Death-Man, on the side of left bank, the wood of Bourrus, the wood of Cumière and the wood of the Corbels. Then they attack on Right Bank around the fort of Are worth, of the Coast of Pepper and Avocourt. They are each time butcheries for the two camps. In these places, these men showed all at the same time of courage, despair, sacrifice and abnegation.

On these positions, the French Army is pitilessly worn and bleeding with white. Many are the units which must be entirely reconstituted on several occasions or which disappear.

The March 6th 1916, the Germans ram and attack the Death-man on left bank. But French fire stops them. This “battle in the battle” will last until the March 15th. During these 10 days, the sector is transformed into desert. The combatants of the two edges know all the sufferings there. At the same time, the March 7th, the Germans launch an offensive on Right Bank, starting from Douaumont. One massacres oneself in the ruins of Douaumont which is taken and taken again 13 times. The projecting one of Verdun is transformed into an unnamable butchery where brutality overrides any kind of compassion.

Iron, fire and mud form the infernal triad composing the life of the “hairy ”, but also that of the German “ feldgrau ”.

Pétain claims reinforcements with Joffre. But this last privileges its future offensive on the Sum. That made say to Pétain “ the GQG gives me more evil than Boches ”.

The 11th Bavarian division invests, the March 20th, the dimension 304 which covered with its fire the Death-Man. In spite of these successes, the German general offensive on two banks of the Meuse is stopped by the French. “The furious attacks of the armies of Kronprinz were broken everywhere. Courage… one will have them! ” Pétain will say.

At the beginning of the battle French manpower were of 150  000 men. In April, they rise with 525  000 men. This human concentration on a so weak surface could explain to a certain extent the blood bath which Verdun constitutes. However, the Germans being stopped, Joffre wants somebody of more offensive. He names Pétain chief of the Group of Armies Centers and Nivelle in Verdun.

This last charges the general Mangin with taking again the fort of Douaumont. The battle begins by six days of ramming of the fort by the French. The infantry takes foot on the fort the May 22nd, but is driven out by it the 24.

During this time, 10  000 French fall to keep the dimension 304 where the Germans are hung on the slopes.

The artillery, showpiece of this battle field, is always in favor on the German side with 2  200 parts at this time there for 1.800 parts French side. It would be said that Verdun acts like catalyst. The belligerents do not seem any more to be able to give up and are condemned to invest more and more forces on this battle field which cost already so much.

Falkenhayn takes again the offensive on Right Bank of the Meuse. On a face of 6 km, the Germans are to four against one. They put the means to carry the decision which delays since so a long time. To 3 km in the south-east of Douaumont the Fort is Are worth. It is defended by a garrison of 600 men. Water, the vivres and the artillery are in quantity insufficient. After an intense preparation of artillery, on June 1st, the German infantry launches out to the attack of the fort. The June 2nd, they penetrate in the enclosure. However, the place still should “be cleaned”. The engagements deliver corridor by corridor. Gazer is needed the garrison to reduce it. A forwarding of help is destroyed the June 6th. Finally, ordering it Raynal, chief of the place, capitulate. The honors are returned by the enemy with the defenders of the place.

The Germans are very close to Verdun of which they can see the bell-tower. Falkenhayn believes the victory in its range. The June 18th 1916 it makes bombard the sector with shells with the Phosgène. But, 70  000 Germans must wait, the weapon with the strap, until the gas is dissipated to attack. This invaluable time is made profitable by the French forces to reinforce the position. When the attack takes place the June 23rd, the Germans are contained.

The fate of the battle rocks

Indeed, the allies attacked on the Sum. The Russian S advance on the Eastern face. The Italians make move back the Austrians. Troops and artillery were taken on the face of Verdun. These conditions complicate the situation of the German command to continue the operations with Verdun.

The July 11th, Falkenhayn launches the offensive of the last chance. It is blocked by the fort of Souville, to 3 km of the town of Verdun. At this time, the Germans lose the initiative.

From October 21st to 24th the French ram the enemy lines. Crushed and gauzes by shells of 400, the Germans evacuate Douaumont the October 23rd. The located enemy batteries are destroyed by French artillery.

Then, the October 24th, three French divisions pass to the attack on a face of 7 km. Douaumont is taken again and 6.000 captured Germans.

The November 2nd, the Fort of Be worth is evacuated by the Germans. Mid-December, the German troops are driven back on their starting positions. After ten months the battle is finished.

Bitter victory

The losses were appalling, for a profit in conquered territories no one. After 10 months of atrocious sufferings for the two camps, the battle will have cost 378  000 men (62  000 killed, more 101  000 missings, and more 215  000 wounded, often invalid) with the French, 337  000 with the Germans, 22 million shell, of which a quarter at least do not have not exploded. The men were the proof of worst brutalities during ten long months. They underwent the rain, the cold, snow, fire and iron. Many are those which testified that only in front of death, they felt plastered with the state of animals. All that for nothing? All that for a few square kilometers of a ground become died and without life.

With it only this battle could symbolize all the nonsense of this war, all the nonsense and the waste of all the wars. 90 years after the battle of Verdun, if the forest pushed back, it is noted that the after-effects of war are far from being regulated. The grounds of the red zone are polluted, and for a long time.

Verdun symbol of heroism and resistance to the invader

The resistance of the French combatants to Verdun is reported in the whole world. The small town meusienne, especially known for the treaty of Verdun signed into 843, acquires a world reputation. This defensive victory is regarded by the combatants as the victory of all the French Army, of which most of the quota took part in the engagements. “ Verdun, I was there! ” affirms, with a mixture of pride and retrospective horror, the hairy ones which returned from there. For the very whole nation, Verdun becomes the symbol of courage and the abnegation.

Important places

To visit

  • Official site 90 years of the battle of Verdun;

  • the ossuary of Douaumont;
  • the Memorial of Verdun;
  • Montfaucon;
  • the forts of Be worth and Douaumont, worth visiting in summer;
  • the underground Citadel;
  • the world center of peace;
  • the sacred way, connecting the face to Bar-le-Duc;
  • the Sliced Bayonets;
  • the shelter of the Four Chimneys;
  • the work of Froideterre.

They fought in Verdun

A certain number of famous actors of the Second world war were used for Verdun, and the German testimonys and accounts over the Second world war on the face of the East frequently refer to the memories and the experiment of the countryside of Verdun.

As of 1942 certain German officers note thus that the Red Army is able to join together artillery concentrations (as one of with more seen since the battle of Douaumont). Future experts of the Blitzkrieg, Guderian and von Manstein have one and the other been used for Verdun, the first with the staff of the 5th Army, or he was officer of associated information, the second within the staff of von Gallwitz.

Twenty-two years before governing the tragic destiny of the 6th German Army with Stalingrad, this Verdun of the the Volga, Friedrich Paulus lived the true battle, in 1916, it was Oberleutnant with the 2nd regiment of Prussian hunters, and it took part in the battle of Fleury in June. Governor of Paris in 1942, the general Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel ordered a battalion with Verdun. Member of the conspiracy which tried to kill Hitler in July 1944, it tried to commit suicide close to the Death-Man, but only managed to disbud itself. He was hung a few weeks later.

One of the best generals of Hitler, the general Hans von Kluge, who ordered the group of army B, and also took part him in the plot, had been artillerist with Verdun in 1917. He managed to commit suicide before the S do not stop it.

The chief of staff of Hitler, the Generaloberst Wilhelm Keitel, was used for the staff of the 10th body of reserve, on Right Bank of the Meuse, during the summer 1916. Wehrmacht of 1913 (??? 1913, really?) at 1941, was him artillery officer with Verdun. probable confusion: the commander-in-chief of Wehrmacht was Walther von Brauchitsch --> still Let us quote, among the other German participants in the battle, the chief of SA, Ernst Röhm, and its assistant, Rudolf Hess.

In addition to the Marshal Pétain itself, one raises among the names of the French veterans that of his protected future, then adversary, Charles de Gaulle. The future president was wounded and captured at the beginning of March 1916, when its company had to go.

The admiral Darlan, ordering French fleet and vice-president of the Council of the government of Vichy, was as for him, lieutenant in 1916; he was used within a battery of deployed naval artillery for Verdun.

The general Raoul Salan, who was to lead the putsch of the generals to Algiers, also passed by Verdun in 1918. Finally the most famous marshal of the Second world war, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny (marshal on a purely posthumous basis, well after 1945, contrary to June), also took part him in the battle. It is him which stopped old the Kronprinz, in 1945.

The battle field today

The battle field with changed aspect with time. The " vast brown band " described by James McConnell disappeared under a forest from conifers in the years 1920. Certain zones for summer have deforested and returned to the Agriculture, work remains there testing, because the plowshares of the plow continue to tear off with the ground of impressive quantities of not exploded Obus. The latter are now completely rusted, their contents escapes little by little in the ground, but the " pop" deaf person of a shell with Gas letting escape his load remains a call seizing of what could be the battle. When one walks in the forest, one still clearly distinguishes the edges from the craters which overlap. But they is undoubtedly the sites of the destroyed villages which constitute the most poignant vestiges: practically no trace remains of their existence, only small a Chapelle rises at the place or was formerly the church.

The construction of the famous Ossuary of Douaumont with begun in 1923. The first bodies were deposited there as from 1926, and chair it Doumergue inaugurated in 1929. A memorial Juif was added there in 1938, but it should have been waited until 1971, so that a memorial with the soldiers Musulmans died for France is also set up (16 142 Moslem soldiers rest in the Cimetière of Fleury, turned in direction of the Mecque)

Publications

Alexandre Niess “Of the Way of the Ladies to Verdun. Characteristics of the memory of the First World War in the war memorials of the Red zone” in daN Brewer, Patricia Lorcin (to dir.), Spaces off War. France and the French-speaking World , University off Minnesota, to appear in 2008.

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • animated chart battles of Verdun
  • Verdun, day after day by those which lived it;
  • http://www.ville-verdun.fr/
  • http://www.verdun.fissiaux.net/
  • http://www.docsources.org/
  • the testimony of pacifist engaged in spite of him in the battle
  • Consideration of the military history of the Battle of Verdun with tourist indications with the address of the visitors
  • the homage paid by Mitterrand and Kohl on September 22nd, 1984 (document INA)

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