The Great War

by Peter Hart

  The German Fifth Army, commanded by Crown Prince Wilhelm, would launch the attack on the east bank of the Meuse to seize swiftly the commanding heights using relatively small numbers of infantry in open order, accompanied by flamethrowers and backed by overwhelming artillery fire on the French front line until the actual moment of assault, at which the guns would switch to the Second Line positions. Amidst all the mayhem and destruction, the sophistication of the bombardment had also taken a step forward with the widespread use of gas shells on the battery positions to suppress the ability of the French guns to fire during the German attack across No Man’s Land. Above all, it was intended that German casualties should be kept to a minimum. As Falkenhayn succinctly put it: ‘Our object … was to inflict upon the enemy the utmost possible injury with the least possible expenditure of lives on our part.’3 Once in control of the heights above the Meuse, the massed German heavy artillery could dominate the whole battlefield and Verdun itself. Special arrangements had been made to ensure that throughout the next phase of the offensive the German guns would be able to maintain a constant heavy bombardment, with shells continually lashing down on the French front lines and harassing their communications: this, then, would be the ever-turning screw of the ‘mincing machine’.

  Falkenhayn wanted the attack to be restricted to just the east bank of the Meuse, at least in the initial stages, as he doubted he had sufficient troops for such a large-scale effort on both banks. There was a clear divergence of view here with that of the Fifth Army staff, who not only preferred the idea of a simultaneous assault on both banks, but also seemed more intent on swiftly capturing the Verdun fortress than on ‘bleeding white’ the body of the French Army. Obsessed with secrecy, Falkenhayn denied access to the overall plans to his subordinates, with the result that many in the German High Command on the Western Front did not either understand or endorse his overall strategic approach. But Falkenhayn was determined to minimise intelligence leaks and secure strategic surprise, to which end he also allowed preparations to be made for several other offensives up and down the Western Front, thereby muddying the water for the Allies, who guessed an offensive was coming, but could not pinpoint where the blow would fall.

  At the start of 1916 the French position at Verdun was not healthy. A generally quiet sector since 1914, the great fortress had been denuded of most of its guns during the desperate combing out of heavy artillery for the autumn offensives of 1915. The whole sector was only defended by four divisions and two brigades of Territorial troops and there had been a definite complacency at Joffre’s headquarters despite warnings as to the inadequacy of the French defences. But the advent of a period of heavy snow and rain on 12 February 1916, the date of the originally intended attack, militated against the effective deployment of the German artillery that was essential to the success of the attack and forced a 9-day postponement. These precious few days allowed the French the chance to realise what was about to happen and belatedly to concentrate their forces. By the time the Germans attacked, the French had eight divisions and over 600 guns on the east and west banks of the Meuse.

  When the German bombardment began at 04.00 on 21 February it was far more concentrated than that which the French had employed in their wide-front autumn offensives the year before. Supporting barrages on either side of Verdun gave an apparent breadth to the attack, but the real meat was in an 8-mile sector east of the Meuse. Gradually, the shelling built up to a crescendo, but what followed was to some extent an anti-climax as the German patrols felt their way forward, investigating the situation, not committing masses of troops that first night. Verdun marked one of the first appearances of the German stormtroopers, a specially trained elite intended to feel the way forward, infiltrating centres of resistance and employing the flamethrowers premiered at Ypres in the summer of 1915. On the left the Germans over-ran the Bois d’Haumont, but stalled in the neighbouring Bois des Caures, where the defence was led by Colonel Émile Driant, who had been campaigning vigorously for improved defences in the Verdun area in late 1915. A second terrible bombardment lashed Driant’s positions on the morning of the 22 February and this time the German assault was pressed home in earnest. Driant was an inspirational figure as he co-ordinated the resistance but was killed as he tried to evacuate the last French survivors from the wood at about 16.30.

  I had just fallen in a shell hole, when a Sergeant who was accompanying Colonel Driant and was walking a pace or two in front of him, fell in the same hole. I distinctly saw Colonel Driant throw out his arms exclaiming, ‘Oh my God!’ then he made a half-turn and collapsed behind the hole, facing the wood. His body being stretched out flat, we could not see it from inside the hole, owing to the amount of earth that had been thrown up all around. We wanted to get him down into the shell hole with us without leaving the hole ourselves. When we had cleared enough earth to be able to look out, we could see the colonel. He gave no sign of life, blood was flowing from a wound in his head and also from his mouth. He had the colour of a dead man and his eyes were half closed.4

  Sergeant Jules Hacquin, 56th Light Infantry

  Driant’s unit was not alone in its defiance and several others performed exceptionally well in holding back, or at least delaying, the German advance, thereby buying time for their comrades to reorganise.

  The German advance was very gradual – just 1–2 miles in the first three days. Then there was a terrible shock for the French born of the sheer confusion of battle. Fort Douaumont was tactically the most significant of the forts, its glowering presence dominating the northern approaches to Verdun. It had only been completed in 1913 and was armed with a 155 mm gun, 75 mm guns and machine guns, all housed in steel turrets. The original brick construction had been covered with a thick layer of concrete which proved at least partially resistant to the huge shells that crashed down on its structure. Sadly for the French, the company of infantry attached to the fort had been despatched to help stiffen their front line and by some mischance had not been replaced, leaving the fort empty but for a few gunners. On 25 February, patrols from the 24th Brandenburg Regiment penetrated the outer defences of the fort and broke in to discover the building all but deserted. The great imagined bastion of Douaumont had fallen without a shot being fired. Although its guns were all but irrelevant, the psychological effect on both sides was considerable, while the military value of the fort lay in its position as an all-seeing observation point from which the German artillery could now be directed. The French fell back and the German advance continued until exhaustion and terrible weather brought it to a shuddering stop on the last ridge of hills only two miles from Verdun itself.

  At this point it seemed that the French were going to abandon the east bank of the Meuse to the Germans. However, Joffre’s Chief of Staff, General Édouard de Castelnau, was aware of what did, and did not, make military sense. Taking into consideration the likely impact of the loss of Verdun on French national morale, he persuaded Joffre that it must be held. This meant not only holding the last positions on the east bank but also ordering a policy of no retreat on the west bank, should the Germans attack there. It was resolved to place General Phillipe Pétain, in command of the Second Army, in charge of holding Verdun. A well organised, tenacious commander, Pétain had not had his career affected by his failure in the Champagne autumn offensives, and, more to the point, he had a reputation as a master of defence – clearly a useful attribute at Verdun. In deciding to stand at Verdun the French were unknowingly falling for Falkenhayn’s snare, but they had little choice. Indeed, Pétain ordered his men to ‘Beat off at all costs the attacks of the enemy, and retake immediately any piece of land taken by him.’5 Falkenhayn could have written this for him! Yet the Germans were also falling into their own trap created by the ambivalence of the Crown Prince Wilhelm and the staff of the Fifth Army to the original intention of the offensive. They began to press harder and harder, tempted by the success at Douaumont, with the result that their losses began to rise. By the end of February the G
erman and French casualties had achieved a rough parity. This was not the German plan.

  Pétain applied his methodical talents to sorting out the defences at Verdun. Massive reinforcements were moved up and Pétain ensured that they concentrated not only on front-line positions but also on creating a coherent system of defence in depth. His staff were ordered to ensure that the troops were constantly rotated so that no unit spent too long at the front. This meant that most of the French Army would gradually be introduced to the hell of Verdun, but not for long enough to break their morale or grind them to nothing. Pétain also deployed his vastly augmented heavy artillery on the west bank, tucked away in the hills, where they could fire en masse into the exposed flank of the German advance. The French flat-trajectory 75 mm guns were of little use against trenches, but Pétain reorganised them so that they could respond whenever the German infantry exposed themselves crossing No Man’s Land – then the 75 mms were as deadly as ever. So, just as the German guns were struggling with the enormous practical difficulties of moving forward across the shell-cratered battlefield in dreadful weather, the French artillery began to exert an equal and opposite force. Pétain also reorganised the frail supply route into Verdun: the railway had been cut and all that was left was one arterial road – soon to be tritely christened the Voie Sacrée – along which countless lorries passed carrying the supplies and munitions needed to keep Pétain’s army in the battle.

  After a lull the Germans attacked again, on 6 March, this time including the west bank of the Meuse, reaching for the French artillery in the hills. Here the focus of the assault would be the ridge of Mort Homme and the rather more prosaically named Côte 304. The soon-to-be-denuded woods and hills would become another slaughterhouse. Sometimes the French would fall back, deterred by a particularly vicious bombardment that tore at their spirits, but they always seemed to have another battalion to launch a desperate counter-attack, catching the Germans before they could consolidate. And all the while the French artillery was taking its own heavy toll on the German infantry. As days turned into weeks and months, the front line was never static, but nor did it move much. Meanwhile, a similar month-long battle raged on the east bank as the Germans tried to prise Fort Vaux from the grip of the French. On, on the fighting raged, deep into April, with German assaults, French counter-attacks, segueing into yet more German attacks. And still the rain poured down.

  Pétain did not last long, for all his virtues. He demanded more, ever more, reinforcements from Joffre, who was desperate to conserve his reserves in case the Germans attacked elsewhere, but also for the huge joint offensive with the British planned in the Somme area. Joffre was a man who did not brook continual demands, no matter how they were phrased. At the end of April he had had enough, but as Pétain was by then a national hero, he promoted him to command the Central Group of Armies. General Robert Nivelle took over the Second Army at Verdun. Nothing much changed, Pétain had set in train the necessary reorganisation to, as far as possible, secure the defence of Verdun. Nivelle had a more offensive-minded approach and sought to make major counter-attacks to reverse the totality of German gains. This would have been playing into their hands were it not for the fact that the Germans themselves had lost the focus of their own operations: they had become intent in pressing on when a suspension of the offensive, or switching it to another area, might have been more logical. But the fighting had gained its own momentum: some progress forward was necessary to maintain the morale of front line troops undergoing absolute torture. In essence the Germans had fallen into their own ‘mincing machine’.

  Soon the wet spring was replaced by a long hot summer – and still the fighting raged. Soldiers arriving at Verdun for the first time were daunted by the grim reputation of the sector.

  We set off in clouds of white dust. So began our ascent to Verdun, an ascent to Mount Calvary which was to last ten days, ten days in which we had the feeling that we were being carried along on that gigantic supply chain which kept the battle regularly fed, like those bucket pumps in Mediterranean countries which bring the water up to the parched earth; ten days of piercing agony, which for me were more painful than the nine days that we were to spend in the heart of the battle. The worst mental suffering during wartime occurs when one’s thoughts run ahead of one’s actions, when the imagination has full rein to contemplate the dangers in advance – and multiplies them a hundredfold. It is well known that the fear of danger is more nerve-racking than the danger itself, just as the desire is more intoxicating than the fulfilment of it.6

  Second Lieutenant René Arnaud, 337th Infantry Regiment

  Finally, on 2 June, the Germans managed to encircle Fort Vaux, holding the ring of the Meuse Heights. The officer in charge of the fort was Commander Sylvain Eugène Reynal, who had already been badly wounded in September 1914 but whose idea of recuperation was active service commanding a vital lynchpin in the Verdun defences. Having run out of water, his garrison had few prospects of survival.

  Towards 23.00 our artillery ceased abruptly, and the night passed away in a silence, more nerve-racking for me than the storm of battle. Not a sound, not a sign of movement. Had I the right to prolong resistance beyond human strength and to jeopardise unnecessarily the lives of these brave men who had so heroically done their duty? I took a tour of the corridors. What I saw was awful. Men were overcome with vomiting, for so wretched were they that they had reached the point of drinking their own urine. Some lost consciousness. In the main gallery a man was licking a small wet streak on the wall. 7th June! Day broke, and we barely noticed it. For us it was still night, a night in which all hope was extinguished. Aid from outside, if it came, would come too late. I sent my last message, the last salute of the fort and its defenders to their country. Then I returned to my men, ‘It is all over, my friends. You have done your duty, all of your duty. Thank you!’7

  Commander Sylvain Eugène Reynal, Fort Vaux Garrison

  The final surrender came at 06.00 on 7 June.

  As was so often the case, the capture of one vital feature merely brought to prominence the next string of objectives, one more last line of defence stretching from the Ouvrage de Thiaumont strongpoint, through the desiccated remnants of Fleury village to Fort Souville. Both sides expended reserves with the recklessness of gamblers believing success must come with one last throw of the dice. Equally, neither side could achieve victory. The Germans also knew that Joffre’s long-planned major offensive on the Somme was about to commence. A last desperate German thrust captured Thiaumont and Fleury on 23 June, utilising to deadly effect the new weapon of phosgene gas shells – each shell marked with a distinctive green cross – falling all around the French batteries to stem much of their fire. The German infantry reached the ramparts of Fort Souville, but were ultimately forced back.

  On 24 June 1916, the British and French bombardment had opened on the Somme. Slowly, the German reserves that remained – severely depleted already by the intensity of the Verdun fighting – were deployed to counter the new Allied thrust. Battery by battery, the German guns began to move north. One last gasp effort was made to take Fort Souville, on 11 July, but the French gunners had by this time been issued with more effective gas masks and the phosgene was less of a deadly threat to them and more of a nuisance. The Germans were held back and Fort Souville remained in French hands. The German Fifth Army adopted a posture of ‘aggressive defence’ and the threat to Verdun was ended.

  Yet the Battle of Verdun was by no means over.

  Now it was the turn of the French to hit back. The French Army was learning all the time. New weapons were being issued to the infantry. The 1907 Berthier 8 mm bolt-action, firing 3-round clips, marked a considerable improvement on the obsolete Lebel rifle, while there were increasing numbers of the Chauchat light machine gun and the excellent Hotchkiss machine gun to help bolster firepower. Rifle grenades, mortars and 37 mm mini versions of the 75 mm gun were made available to act as close-support weapons. The infantry attack tactics had also dev
eloped, with less emphasis on a single wave of attack and more on specialist functions, with bombers, men with rifle grenades and ‘mopper uppers’ to eradicate any pockets of resistance and to ensure there were no Germans left concealed in captured dugouts ready to emerge behind the advancing lines.

  Time and time again the French attacked the Germans, who responded with characteristic aggression: the village of Fleury would change hands fifteen times in some of the worst fighting of the whole war before the French finally took it for good on 18 August. By now the French artillery was dominant as much of the German artillery had departed for the Somme. The next major thrust was the scheme of General Charles Mangin, a truly determined officer who would let nothing stop him once he had his enemy in his sights. His plan was cunning. A dummy attack, preceded by a major bombardment, would cause the hidden German batteries to open fire and thereby reveal their positions to the watching French reconnaissance aircraft. By the time the real attack was launched on 24 October most of those German guns had been silenced. Verdun was hell on earth for the German infantry. Private William Hermanns of the 67th Infantry Regiment was based in the battered structure of the Thiaumont strongpoint.

  The entrance was a mere hole in the scarred battlefield, and the silhouettes of cowering men constantly crawling in or out looked like huge ants in the dark. I descended an iron ladder some forty feet into the concrete cavern. It was an enormous place crowded with many hundreds of soldiers. Some lay on bunks sleeping, snoring and moaning. Some cluttered the passages between the bunks, chatting or writing letters. Others sat or knelt in corners, packing or unpacking their belongings. Here a flashlight, there a candle, match or cigarette dotted the dark with flickering islands of light, continually shifting in brightness. From this subterranean stronghold, a small patch of sky could be seen when one stood close to the iron ladder or looked through the shaft which contained the ventilator fans. A current of warm, stale air from 40 feet beneath brought to my nostrils the sickening smell of first aid medications. Every one of the chicken-wire berths was filled with mutilated, muddy, torn and befouled uniforms. A dismal sight. There was a man with closed eyes, a blood-soaked bandage around his head. Another beside him lay twisting in pain. I saw some lice-ridden men who had scratched their bandages off to ease the itching. The passages between the bunks were crowded. There must have been a thousand men there. Some had been relieved, but could not withdraw to the rear, and some who had come to relieve the others could not proceed to the front line. All were imprisoned deep within the concrete and rock entrails.8