Verdun 1916

by J E Kauffman

  The fortresses on the Eastern Front were not good examples of what such sites could achieve if properly built and defended when part of a larger defensive scheme. Thus, both the French and Germans could only use the Belgian forts and the French frontier forts to estimate the value of the ‘modern’ fort. During his time in charge of the army, Falkenhayn allowed the removal of half the 105mm gun turrets of Fortress Strasbourg and Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II at Mutzig in 1915, with the garrison reduced from 7,000 to about 2,000.59 It is doubtful they had lost faith in their forts since the Metz–Thionville fortress complex remained strongly manned. On the other hand, Joffre stripped his forts of artillery in 1915 because the French army needed the weapons. He had possibly concluded that the French forts would not stand up to modern artillery. He had also seen that for most of the first twelve months of the war the Germans had made no serious attempt to break the French fortress line, instead concentrating most of their efforts in northern France.

  Even if Falkenhayn had known the French were disarming their forts, he would have realized that with or without guns they still represented a serious obstacle if he directed an offensive to capture and/or pass through them. His choices for a decisive battle in 1916 did not include any location where he thought the French or the British were weak. As most historians have assumed, he did not seek a breakthrough that would return the element of manoeuvre to the campaign. He sought a battle in which his enemy would be defeated as decisively as at Waterloo or Königgrätz (Sadowa). His strategy was to select a spot where the enemy would not retreat to a new defensive position to continue the stalemate. His choices of Belfort and Verdun were easy to make. Belfort offered nothing more than a diversion to draw French forces as far away as possible since it occupied a gateway the French could not afford to lose. The main battlefront from Champagne to the North Sea, explained Falkenhayn, would not be decisive, as the actions of the past fourteen months had already demonstrated. The Charmes Gap lay between Verdun–Toul and Épinal–Belfort, but an offensive there would favour French defensive operations. Furthermore, striking at the fortresses of Toul and Épinal on either side of the gap would not force the French to overcommit themselves and to sacrifice everything for those towns. Thus, Verdun became the obvious objective for Falkenhayn’s strategy. In 1915, it occupied a central point on the Western Front that acted like a hinge where the French defence line changed directions. In addition, the fortress of Verdun was a short distance from Metz and was the only location where France might mount a serious offensive within striking distance of German soil.62 That appeared to be reason enough to keep Fortress Metz manned. The fall of Verdun would crack the French line. However, the French could easily pull back to a new position avoiding a decisive battle if they could accept the deterioration of national morale caused by the loss of Verdun. The illogical part of Falkenhayn’s choice was that Verdun was considered the strongest position on the French front and his plan called for taking the French forts on the right bank to occupy the Meuse Heights and create a killing zone for his battle of attrition. Falkenhayn counted on the fact that the French army would not retreat from their greatest fortress, and the historic town it surrounded. However, he misjudged the French high command because Joffre had actually been ready to abandon Verdun when the offensive began and he was prevented from doing so by the French government.

  General Maurice Sarrail – Scapegoat?

  Unlike most senior officers in the French army, Maurice Sarrail was a republican with socialist ideals. He maintained his position in the army while he had allies in the government. He was retired in 1917 when he lost support in the government. In 1907, he had been appointed as Director of the Infantry at the War Office. The next year, he was promoted from colonel to general. In 1908, he received command of the VIII Corps. In April 1914, he transferred to the VI Corps at Chalons, which became part of General Pierre Ruffey’s 3rd Army in 1914.60

  When the 3rd Army advanced in 1914, Sarrail’s corps did not break during the assault of the German 5th Army. During the first ten days of September 1914, Sarrail’s V and VI Corps inflicted heavy losses on the German 5th Army – estimated at 15,000 casualties. Shortly after that, Joffre began removing generals, Ruffey among them. Sarrail took command of the 3rd Army as Joffre thought he had the resolve to fight. In September 1914, his 3rd Army held the front on the Meuse between St Mihiel and Verdun and also had the responsibility for most of the Argonne sector to Verdun. Joffre ordered Sarrail to stop the divisions of the German 5th Army that were sweeping through the Argonne and maintain a link with Langle’s 4th Army on the western side of the Argonne. Joffre authorized him to break his link with Verdun if necessary to maintain a continuous front and prevent the Germans from breaching between the 4th and 3rd armies, which risked collapsing the French defences in Lorraine and eastern France. Sarrail chose to hold on to Verdun, and did not move fast enough as far as Joffre was concerned. It is generally assumed that his actions were not effective during that first week of September. When the Germans began to retreat after 10 September, he did nothing for 48 hours. Joffre telephoned Sarrail expressing his displeasure with his performance and said he wanted an investigation, which Sarrail skilfully avoided. Joffre accused some of Sarrail’s regiments of being substandard and abandoning rifles and equipment, a problem caused by the division and regimental commanders.

  According to some historians, with over 60,000 men, Fortress Verdun was a strong position that could have remained isolated for an extended period and that Sarrail should have allowed it to happen. It is true that Verdun was one of the strongest positions in Europe at the time, but no other fortress in the West had survived encirclement in 1914. At this time, the defenders’ morale was fragile. Joffre had decided to concentrate all major reinforcements against the Germans at the Marne in an attempt to drive them out of northern France. The loss of Verdun might have weakened national morale because of its historical and strategic significance. The Germans could as easily have defended the terrain between Revigny and St Mihiel as they had done later at the St Mihiel Salient so the French would have had major difficulty in relieving Fortress Verdun.61 Sarrail was accused of being slow in preparing for offensive operations in the Argonne (1914–15). This may well be the case; he had to hold the salient around Verdun and supply it with only one small railway. French heavy artillery for these offensives involved old mortars and cannons. He may not have been an excellent tactician, but under the circumstances it is difficult to judge, especially since he had performed so well during the first weeks of the war as a corps commander.

  The engagements in the Argonne during the first few months of 1915 resulted in heavy French casualties, and Joffre was slow to provide Sarrail with the necessary reinforcements. His V Corps might have cleared the butte at Vauquois if properly reinforced. Joffre wrote little about Sarrail’s command of the 3rd Army in his memoirs, but he wanted him replaced and that was done by July 1915. In August 1915, Sarrail was sent to command the Army of the Orient, which was taking up positions in Salonika where it occupied a ‘no win’ position.

  Joffre attempted to justify his actions in his memoirs:*

  I made no appointments and carried out no removals or changes except in the interests of the country. I have arrested the careers of those who were dear to me; I have promoted generals for whom I had no particular liking. I have made it clear that when I had to relieve General Sarrail of his command in July 1915, my decision was taken only after … an impartial expression of opinion from General Dubail….

  General Sarrail himself has never accused me of Caesarism, but merely of preparing the way for General Foch.

  Dubail, the army group commander, did investigate for Joffre and reported inadequacies in Sarrail’s tactics, and problems between the XXXII Corps commander and Sarrail. That was enough for Joffre. In addition, according to some claims, General Sarrail had accused Joffre of planning a coup. Historian Elizabeth Greenhalgh points out that Sarrail claimed that his removal was due to his left-wing views, but
he also admitted that he had lost 80,000 men with little to show for it. On the other hand, he prevented Verdun from being isolated. It must be mentioned, however, that Joffre’s leadership had resulted in almost a million French casualties, many of them from his nibbling and failed offensives, and that he failed to drive the Germans out of France in 1915.

  A few months after Sarrail was sent to Salonika, Dubail, the commander of the Eastern Army Group, tried to warn Joffre of the impending threat to Verdun. He became the next target of Joffre’s displeasure and he was removed. By 1917, Joffre himself was on his way out.

  * Joffre, Personal Memoirs of Joffre, Vol. 2, p. 395.

  Joffre Prepares for the Big Offensive

  In 1914, the greatest threat to Fortress Verdun was the operations of the German 5th Army in the Argonne and in Woëvre. Having virtually cleared the forested hills west of Verdun and crossed the Woëvre to attack St Mihiel, the German forces came as close as they ever would to isolating the fortress. Joffre closed the year with one last offensive in Champagne in the autumn while his 3rd Army continued the fight in the Argonne where a short period of calm prevailed in October before both armies resorted to mine warfare. During the next year, as the battle for Verdun raged, the Argonne between the Bolante Plateau and Vauquois became the scene of numerous mine detonations and artillery duels. Except for a growing casualty list, little altered on either front. In early 1916, the impending battle for Verdun brought change to the St Mihiel Salient when German troops swept across the northern part of the Woëvre towards the Meuse Heights. This move in effect widened the salient on its north side leaving it less exposed.

  In December 1915, Joffre had to reflect carefully about the events that had unfolded in over a year of warfare. In the north, the Allies maintained control of a sliver of Belgium and the French Channel ports, but a huge German salient bulged into much of northern France enveloping Lille and putting Reims near the edge of the front. The Germans had taken control of the French mines in French Lorraine. Verdun, despite its forts stripped of artillery, stood like a rock in the storm, anchoring the French position and making it easier to maintain control of much of the eastern frontier to Belfort. The French army was increasing its inventory of heavy artillery, but it continued to rely heavily on older models. Late in the year, the French army adopted a new artillery doctrine and discontinued its reliance on elan-fuelled suicidal attacks. The troops were issued with the more modern horizon blue uniform and the Adrian helmet.63Airpower had proved its mettle during 1915 and the French air force finally acquired aircraft capable of taking on the ‘Fokker Scourge’. Joffre had disposed of several subordinates who displeased him, including Sarrail, commander of the 3rd Army. Shortly before that, he had shifted the 3rd Army to the command of General Castelnau’s Army Group Centre leaving Verdun under Dubail’s Army Group East.

  In the summer of 1915, Joffre invited representatives of each of the Allied armies to meet at his headquarters at Chantilly to coordinate future operations. In November, the Allies agreed to convene at Chantilly between 6 and 8 December in order to formulate a plan for concerted action in 1916. Joffre was pleased to gain unanimous agreement for the complete and immediate evacuation of Gallipoli, which he had always considered a drain on his resources. He believed, however, that creating an ‘entrenched camp’ in Salonika would leave an open option for future operations in the Balkans.

  The Chantilly Conference opened on 5 December 1915. Joffre allowed his armies to rest shortly after his failed autumn offensive in Champagne to give them time to recover before launching a grand offensive in 1916. He also needed to await the delivery of new artillery and to build up ammunition stocks. The Russian army had suffered more than any major army, having been driven from the Polish territories. It certainly would not be ready to return to the offensive until a lengthy period of recovery. The Austrians had repelled the Italians, who had tried to knock them out of the war. Joffre did not expect the Italians to resume a major offensive on their Alpine frontier until winter was over. The Austro-German forces had crushed the Serbian army, the remnants of which had made their way via Corfu to Salonika where the Central Powers’ new ally, Bulgaria, kept the Allied forces bottled up. The Turks had given the British Mesopotamian expedition a drubbing and at the other end of their empire, the Allies had evacuated their forces from Gallipoli. The Germans had opened a supply line directly to Turkey as the Berlin–Baghdad railroad was no longer blocked by Serbia. The British forces in Egypt had entrenched behind the Suez Canal awaiting a Turkish attack.

  After the conquest of Serbia, German and Austrian forces were able to redeploy to other fronts, leaving the Bulgarians to hold the Allies in Salonika. Except for Bulgaria, every nation had taken heavy casualties by the end of 1915. The major powers had to conscript additional men to refill their ranks. If the end of 1914 had not exhausted most of the armies, the end of 1915 certainly sapped their strength. The Eastern and Western fronts stabilized on all sides during the winter.

  Joffre was convinced that France was the key to victory or defeat. Falkenhayn, who was also making plans for 1916, was of the same mind. According to Joffre, 97 French infantry divisions and the equivalent of 37 territorial divisions had served in the war up to the end of 1915, 106 of these units on the Western Front.64 He estimated that the Russians had 128 divisions, but lacked equipment, including rifles. His British ally, he claimed, had difficulties merely maintaining its seventy divisions, but would continue to grow in strength. He believed that the Germans would continue to direct their main efforts against Russia and that the Allies’ main objective should be to destroy the German and Austrian armies. Falkenhayn, on the other hand had concluded that he must destroy the French army to achieve victory. Their methods for achieving similar goals, however, were dissimilar. Although the French realized in 1915 that the conflict had become a war of attrition, Joffre’s objective was not to bleed the Germans dry.

  The French as well as the Germans had stretched their human resources and realized that drafting new classes of males was not enough. They decided, therefore, to change their divisional structure. Joffre’s infantry divisions began the war with two brigades, each of which had two or three regiments. This gave each division a minimum of four infantry regiments and some as many as five or even six. To save on manpower, the brigade headquarters were removed and each division maintained only three infantry regiments. In December 1915, these changes affected only two divisions. Between June and August 1916, nine more converted – five of them in the Verdun sector.65 This modification did not actually weaken the French infantry division because emphasis switched to the artillery during 1916. In addition, the percentage of men assigned to the infantry decreased and the percentage of the soldiers assigned to the artillery increased. In addition, the distinction between active and reserve divisions disappeared in the French army during 1915.

  The German infantry division began the war with twelve infantry battalions organized somewhat like the French into two infantry brigades, but each of these brigades consisted, with few exceptions, of only two infantry regiments.66 The German reserve division often did not have the four machine-gun companies of the regular division and lacked sufficient artillery. One of the few notable exceptions was the 1st Guard Reserve Division. In August 1914, the German army went to war with 92 divisions, which included 51 infantry, 3 reserve, 4 Landwehr and 6 Ersatz divisions. More than two-dozen divisions were added at the end of 1914. In January 1915, the German army included 128 divisions, including 51 infantry and 54 reserve infantry. In March 1915, the Germans formed five new divisions numbered in the 50s, each of which consisted of one infantry brigade of three infantry regiments and one artillery brigade. An eleven additional infantry divisions were formed at the same time (numbered 101–23) and had a similar infantry brigade but only one artillery regiment. By the end of 1915, all German infantry regiments included one machine-gun company. At the beginning of 1916, the German army had 162 divisions that included 78 active infantry, 54 reserve and
20 Landwehr. By the end of 1916, the German army’s strength had grown to 207 divisions including 115 active infantry, 55 reserve and 25 Landwehr. The army eventually converted all the infantry divisions to the single-brigade structure.67

  Joffre appeared to have finally absorbed some lessons from his costly battles and even became more tolerant of the views of his subordinates. Years later, he wrote, ‘No longer were men to be pitted against materiel, since France had suffered too many casualties this way.’* The most significant changes, besides the new artillery doctrine issued in November, were the guidelines formulated in the document entitled Small Unit Combat Training, issued to the infantry in January 1916.

  After his letters failed to go beyond Joffre’s staff, Colonel J.B. Estienne was finally able to contact the general at the end of 1915. He proposed the adoption of an armoured vehicle that mounted artillery, which was being developed by a couple of French manufacturers. In January 1916, Joffre witnessed the successful test of a modified Holt tractor and the government placed an order for 400 of these vehicles. The Allies required this type of weapon for delivering the close support the troops needed to reach the first enemy trench and go beyond. Estienne did not get enough of these vehicles to organize an armoured force until the end of 1916. Thus, Pétain, Nivelle and Estienne finally managed to convince Joffre to put the emphasis on artillery, and to pin his hopes of success on it.