Review of 'Battle of Verdun' by Clive Harris (December 2016)

The battle of Verdun was the longest battle during WW1, it lasted from 21 February to 18 December 1916. Casualties on both sides were very high between 750,000 and 1,000,000. 2.3 million soldiers were involved (85 French Divisions and 50 German Divisions).

Verdun 1916 is as iconic to the French as the Somme battles of 1916 are to the British. Verdun lies in the kink of the L-shaped front line in Lorraine, part of the French Sector in 1916. The Meuse valley has always been a thoroughfare from East France to Paris and Verdun had been a Roman town with a permanent garrison before Gaul became France. Vauban built his forts to defend Louis XIV’s France at Verdun in the 17th Century.

The German plan, as devised by von Falkenhayn, was to attack the French psyche and to bleed the French Army dry in a battle of attrition as he believed the French Army would never withdraw from Verdun. The battle opened with the German artillery concentrating their fire on the fortresses, once these had been destroyed, the line was to be occupied by German troops. The initial battle plan did not include ‘hand to hand’ fighting. The concentration of German guns at Verdun was over seven times that used by the Allies on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

The forts were to the north, south & east of the town. The French army had stripped them of their guns as the upgrade required was deemed too much when it had been discussed in 1915. When the battle opened at 0715 on 21 February 1916 (having been delayed by the weather: the ground was already covered with deep snow, a blizzard still raged and mist lay over the whole landscape), over 1 million German troops were in the vicinity awaiting the call to advance, while at Verdun the French army had only 250,000 in the Verdun sector. In the first phase of the battle, the Germans fired over 1 million shells, 100,000 per hour, using 1,400 guns (by contrast the British only fired 1.3 million in their build up to the Battle of the Somme) on a front of 40km The Trommelfeuer (Drumfire) was the heaviest and longest Artillery barrage of the Great War so far.

The first day had not gone as well for the Germans as they had expected. The concentration of shell-fire was meant to destroy all life in the French front-line defences, but the 'blanket of shells' had not been consistent enough, there remainedstubborn and heroic pockets of resistance, and the German infantry were disturbed to meet such dangerous opposition. It took XVIII German Corps all day to clear Lt-Colonel Driant with his Chasseurs out of the Bois des Caures, so spirited and flexible was their defence.
Fort Douaumont fell to a small detachment of Brandenburgers during the afternoon of February 25th. An NCO entered the fort and captured the defenders. The officer who took the information back to HQ, being a Prussian aristocrat, was awarded the highest medal of valour, Pour la Mérite, even though he was not involved in the action.

As the outer forts fell, the local commander (General Langle de Cary) requested an order to withdraw. Instead he was sacked. The French supreme  commander, Joffre, appointed Pétain to command the defence of Verdun on the 25th February. Pétain, a divisional commander in 1914, promoted to Corps commander and then Army commander in 1915, had a reputation for being cautious especially as modern warfare weaponry favoured the defender over the attacker. Ordered to hold Verdun at all costs, his pledge, ‘ils ne passerons pas’ earned him acclaim as his artillery led the defence, backed by expert organisation of manpower & supplies. To do this he arranged a 50 mile supply route from Bar-le-Duc, christened ‘La VoieSacrée’ which he kept open 24 hours a day so that the troops could be rotated through Verdun together with ammunition & supplies. He  entrusted the smooth running of the route to Major Richards. One truck would pass along the route every 12 seconds. Any breakdowns were pushed off the road and repaired later. The option of using the standard gauge railway was denied him, it had been seriously interrupted since 1915.

In March the German offensive moved to attack the west bank of the Meuse and take the artillery which was impeding the attack on the east bank, Le Mort Homme and Côte 304. Now the German army was taking heavy casualties, it took until the end of May for the complete ridge to fall.

Meanwhile Petain had been promoted on 19th April to command the Central Group of armies and was replaced as commander of the French 2nd Army by General Nivelle, commander of the French 3rd Corps at Verdun. Nivelle immediately appointed Mangin, commander of the 5th division to retake the forts.

The 22nd May saw the first attempt by Mangin to retake Douaumont, it failed as the Germans had made preparations for this attack and the French artillery could not touch the inner workings of the thick-hided fort. On 26th May, Joffre and de Castelnau visited Haig to find out when he would be ready to launch the long-awaited offensive on the Somme, which now, because of the French involvement at Verdun, must be primarily a British responsibility. Haig agreed to bring the date of the battle forward to July 1st. When the Germans attacked again in June, fort Vaux was to fall after an epic struggle during the first week of June involving machine guns and flame-throwers in pitch darkness, but this was the limit of the German successes. Fort Vaux was commanded by Major Raynal, a severely wounded officer who was appointed to the fort as he could not serve in the front line. He and his men held out for five days, first losing control of the top storey and then finding the water supply was rapidly running out. He communicated with his superiors using pigeons, but only one managed to get through before dying. It was awarded a medal.

Once the British Army commenced fighting on the Somme battlefield in July, Falkenhayn was no longer able to send as much ammunition or fresh troops to Verdun. The French army took the offensive and Control of Fort Thiaumont went back and forth fourteen times. A decision was taken by the German High Command to wind down the offensive and 'go into defensive mode' as the supply of shells and reserves fail to arrive due to the British battle of the Somme.

Von Falkenhayn was dismissed in August and sent to command the armies in the Carpathian Mountains. He was replaced by Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Nivelle decided to make another attempt to retake the outer forts, he used a creeping barrage with the advancing troops just behind the shell fire. In addition he used 400mm Creusot-Schneider guns mounted on rails 6km from Verdun. These guns had enormous penetrating power and helped to soften the German defenses. On October 19th, the artillery prepared to assist the action to retake Fort Douamont. When the initial bombardment ceased on October 22nd, the remaining German field guns revealed their positions as they opened up on the expected French infantry attack. When the French artillery bombardment resumed, these guns were destroyed giving the infantry attack, once it started, a better chance of success. Douamont fell to the Regiment d'Infantery Coloniale du Maroc on October 24th. On October 25th the first attack to retake Fort Vaux was defeated by the well sited German machine guns. Ludendorff decided to withdraw from Fort Vaux, destroying most of the fort with explosives, on November 2nd. In December when the last French attack took 11,000 prisoners & 115 guns, the French had pushed the Germans back to their original positions before the battle began in February. December 18th is acknowledged as the last day of the battle, the day the Germans finally accepted defeat. The Battle of Verdun was the longest single battle during the Great War.

Finally, to illustrate how Verdun was also in the German psyche:  General von Stulpnagel, who had been a captain in the attack on Le Mort Homme, was governor of Paris in 1944. Involved in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, he was sent to Berlin under guard. Breaking the journey at Verdun, von Stupnagel attempted to commit suicide on Le Mort Homme hill. Unfortunately, he only succeeded in blinding himself. He was taken by the Gestapo from the hospital in Verdun to his trial & execution in Berlin in August 1944

Report by Peter Palmer