by J E Kauffman
It is conjectured that if the attack had gone as scheduled, despite the weather on 12 February, the Germans would have made more gains in the first days since the 51st Division had not moved into position. The 72nd Division, whose front was too large, may not have survived the first day and the Germans would have easily blown past the second French line. Assuming the weather did not hinder the attack, or even supposing it had been good that day, the Germans could have reached the line of forts so quickly that Herr would have evacuated the eastern bank, as he was about to do after 22 February. Verdun would have become indefensible and the French divisions in reserve would have had less time to move forward. This may have considerably shortened the Battle of Verdun, but it was most likely not the kind of victory Falkenhayn wanted. The only victory, in his mind, would have been a bloodbath for his enemy.
On the night of 27 February, the VII Reserve Corps tried to cross the Meuse near Samogneux, but could not get past wire entanglements in the riverbed. The Crown Prince and Knobelsdorf had hoped to secure this crossing for the VI Reserve Corps to attack the west bank. Falkenhayn released the 113th Division at Metz to reinforce the offensive. Army Detachment Strantz tried to make some headway against the southern end of the heights on the east bank. The French position continued to grow stronger, but it did not expand.
Crown Prince Wilhelm lamented that no further surprises had been possible after 25 February. His troops were tired. By the end of April, he realized they could not crack the stubborn resistance, ‘for every foot of ground’ and that despite changing ‘our methods of attack, a decisive success at Verdun could only be assured at the price of heavy sacrifces, out of all proportion to the desired gains’.* From that point on, he wrote, he did everything he could to end the futile attacks, against the wishes of his chief-of-staff who continued to order additional attacks. The public and the soldiers blamed the Crown Prince and called him ‘The Butcher of Verdun’.
On 29 February, Castelnau returned to Chantilly and reported that Verdun was safe for the moment. Joffre recalled his reaction to the events:
it seemed to me that the best way of arresting any succeeding efforts of the enemy would be by retaking the ground which he had conquered. Our ammunition was plentiful and our flanking positions on the left bank made it possible to bring the enemy under a convergent fire; this chance must, therefore, not be neglected, and when General Pétain took command, I indicated it to him as his earliest task.
He supposedly repeated this to Pétain during a visit at Souilly between 1 and 5 March and stressed that ‘The most important of these operations should be the retaking of the fort at Douaumont.’**
* William, My War Experiences, p. 166.
* William, My War Experiences, p. 167.
* Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, Vol. 2, p. 437.
* Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, Vol. 2, p. 440.
** William, My War Experiences, p. 4.
* William, My War Experiences, p. 180.
* Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, Vol. 2, p. 436.
* Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, Vol. 2, p. 443.
** Doughty, Pyrrhic Victory.
* Henri Philippe Pétain and Margaret MacVeagh (trans.), Verdun (Toronto: Dial Press, 1930), p. 72.
* Count Charles de Souza, ‘The First Assault on Verdun’, in Charles F. Horne (ed.), Source Records of the Great War, 7 vols (New York: National Alumni, 1923), Vol. 4.
** William, My War Experience, p. 184.
* William, My War Experiences, p. 199.
** Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, Vol. 2, p. 448.
Chapter Five
On Ne Passe Pas
‘Siege and defence will, in the future, be nothing but a number of artillery engagements, in which the opponents will severally hurl at each other thousands of tons of iron, and make their projectiles, by filling them with a large charge of explosives, have the effect of mines; thus ploughing up the whole battle-field and destroying all bulwarks. Fortresses which are well constructed … can now … serve as bulwarks and display powers of resistance with which they are now scarcely credited.’
Colmar von der Goltz, The Nation in Arms (London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1887; English translation of Goltz’s 1883 Das Volk in Waffen)
‘“On ne passe pas” – “None Shall Pass”’
General Robert Nivelle, spring 1916
March Madness
On 4 March 1916, an order from Crown Prince Wilhelm’s headquarters exhorted the troops to make a supreme effort to take Verdun. General Falkenhayn decided to send the 5th Army to seize Le Mort Homme Ridge and Cumières Wood on the left bank to protect the German rear and flank. However, snow followed by rainstorms delayed the operation, and deep in the trenches, the infantry on both sides hunkered down in misery, mud and slush. A massive bombardment began on the afternoon of 5 March in preparation for the assault on the west bank. From the beginning to the end of the battle, the defenders (French and German) took more losses than the attackers did since they were the prime target of the cannons. Attempts to improve defensive positions or captured ones became difficult under constant artillery fire and in bad weather. The soldiers often found it more practical to occupy and defend shell craters.
General Georges de Bazelaire’s Group (VII Corps) held the western sector of the Verdun Front with four divisions on line and a fifth in reserve. The weight of the German assault fell upon the 67th Infantry Division. At the end of the first day of bombardment, the VII Corps reported, ‘The whole area included in the resistance position and the zone of batteries behind it looks like a foaming trough.’ The trenches on the reverse slope of Le Mort Homme and Côte de l’Oie were destroyed. On 6 March, the 5th Army launched the ground assault on the west bank; a new attack on the east bank was to follow. The Crown Prince recorded a severe snowstorm on that day.
Days before the 5 March offensive, the 5th Division had battled its way into Douaumont village. It finally wrested possession of this hot spot on 6 March. Due to heavy fighting, it was unable to move any further. When the right-bank offensive resumed on 7 March, the 113th Division had to take its place. Several other changes had occurred before the March offensive: a brigade of the XV Corps was detached to reinforce the III Corps and the 13th Reserve Division (VII Reserve Corps) relieved the 25th Division (XVI Corps). Falkenhayn dispatched the 121st Division from his reserve to support the V Reserve Corps.
On 6 March, the 22nd Reserve Division, attached to the VI Reserve Corps, opened the assault on the corps’ left flank and took Regnéville.1 Meanwhile, the 77th Brigade of VII Reserve Corps crossed to the west bank to reinforce the attack. In the morning of 6 March, on the VI Reserve Corps’s far right flank, German infantry surged late towards Malancourt driving back the French 29th Division. The corps’ effort was concentrated across the Forges stream. The feld grau infantry encountered no major resistance until after it overran the lightly defended outpost line, took Forges village and marched up the slopes of Le Mort Homme and Côte de l’Oie. The next day, they overran Côte de l’Oie, but came face to face with French units. There ensued a ferocious battle with fixed bayonets for control of Corbeaux Woods on Côte de l’Oie. The French stopped the Germans from moving down the southern slopes and taking Cumières.2 However, in the next few days, the Germans finally took Hill 265, part of Le Mort Homme, after heavy fighting on Côte de l’Oie. On 10 March, 22nd Reserve Division continued its advance up the ridge and secured Corbeaux and Cumières woods. During this engagement, two French battalions were smashed. The surviving men were only enough to form a company sized unit. On the same day, the other divisions of the VI Reserve Corps were held up around Béthincourt and were unable to reach the northern slopes of Le Mort Homme (Hill 295) until 14 March.3 On that date, the German artillery mercilessly bombarded the French infantry on Le Mort Homme crippling the defending unit and knocking out most of its machine guns. Both sides claimed they had taken light losses and inflicted heavy ones on their opponent. In actuality, bo
th forces suffered heavily. The fight for Hill 295 became an almost endless succession of attacks and counter-attacks.
The German pressure against the XX Corps on the east bank compelled Pétain to reinforce it before it crumbled. He committed General Paul Maistre’s XXI Corps to the east bank leaving only the XIII Corps to support the VII Corps, already under heavy assault, on the left bank. Pétain’s main concern was that the Germans were sending as many as four divisions to reinforce the VI Reserve Corps on the west bank, which could trigger a crisis if they broke the French line from Malancourt to Cumières. The Germans had already taken Regnéville in the Meuse Valley creating a link with Samogneux on the other bank of the Meuse and opening a new route to the front. The French held the advantage since Pétain still had Joffre’s full support and could count on getting reinforcements. The XXXIII Corps was heading to Bar-le-Duc by train and Maistre’s corps was crossing to the east bank. The Crown Prince, on the other hand, could expect little from his commander-in-chief. As a result, his units had to fight to the point of exhaustion, which forced each corps to husband its own reserves to replace divisions at the front.
Hill 304, north of Esnes, dominated Le Mort Homme, which made it the next German objective. Just to the south of Esnes was Hill 310, which was also a significant feature in the area. Pétain thought that the Germans employed two corps with up to eight divisions supported by mortars and heavy artillery to assault the French lines from Hill 304 to Le Mort Homme in ‘a frenzied duel [that] raged unceasingly’ from 10–15 March. General Eugène Debeney, commander of the 25th Division and in charge of the defence, ordered no retreat.4
Across the Meuse, German troops had to contend with increasingly heavy bombardments as Pétain built up his artillery strength. Numerous French probing actions delayed the German assault scheduled for 7 March until 9 March. Pétain had made it clear to Joffre that his forces were not ready for a serious offensive and that he needed to build up his artillery. The French artillery proved effective in interdicting German supply lines to the point that the Crown Prince’s forces on the east bank had to postpone their operations until ammunition was delivered to them. On 9 March, the VII Reserve Corps tried to clear the Poivre Ridge, but the French stubbornly resisted. The 77th Brigade returned from the west bank to rejoin V Reserve Corps. Further east, the XVIII Reserve and III Corps set off to clear the Vaux Valley and to take Fort Vaux. The 9th Reserve Division approached Fort Vaux, but the 5th Army failed to achieve its goals for that day. The Germans, recalled Pétain, ‘hurled themselves with great violence against the fort of Vaux …’ but after they reached its moat, his XXI Corps launched counter-attacks that drove them back. The Crown Prince attributed that day’s failure to unbroken wire obstacles, French artillery barrages and flanking fire into the valleys from French positions. On 11 March, a ‘violent artillery duel’ took place along the entire front from Army Detachment Strantz in the St Mihiel Salient all the way to XVIII Reserve Corps at Douaumont. This action, combined with French flanking fire, slowed the advance of the V Reserve and III Corps across the Vaux Valley and prevented them from taking the fort. After the Germans sustained heavy losses the next day, the 19th Reserve Division rushed by train from Upper Alsace to the III Corps.
The situation on the west bank was also eating up manpower, so the 58th Division of Army Detachment Falkenhausen and the 113th Division joined X Reserve Corps. Crown Prince Wilhelm’s staff and Knobelsdorf continually had to juggle units by replacing divisions and corps temporarily and shifting divisions from one corps to another. For instance, the 19th Reserve Division was sent to relieve the 6th Division of the III Corps, but shortly afterwards it had to replace the 25th Division of the XVIII Corps. This division next took part in the assault on the northern part of the front where it incurred heavy casualties. Both the III Reserve Corps and V Reserve Corps had to leave the front to rest and rebuild. Both German and French media sources concurred that these actions had been bloody, but one claimed that Fort Vaux had surrendered and the other denied it. This convinced the Crown Prince – or so he claimed – that he could only hope to inflict more casualties than he took since the possibility of taking Verdun had evaporated. He did not like the idea, since this was resorting to Falkenhayn’s policy of bleeding the French army dry.
These relatively futile efforts continued throughout March. The only bright spot for the Germans occurred on 20 March on the left bank when the 11th Bavarian Division launched an assault against the 29th Division holding the woods of Malancourt and Avocourt. The Bavarians overran the 29th Division, some elements of which fled while others stood their ground and became isolated. Nevertheless, the Bavarian’s advance was slow. According to Pétain, the 29th Division was taken by surprise, but it ‘quickly rallied and by 29 March fought their way back …’.* Supposedly, on 29 March, the division counter-attacked and began to close the gap it had left during its rout the week before. Whatever the case, the division lost Malancourt on 31 March and Haucourt on 5 April. On 8 April, it had to abandon Béthincourt before the town became isolated. According to the Crown Prince, the Bavarians took 3,500 prisoners, greatly depleting the division’s strength especially if the wounded and killed are included.5 During the month of April, the bad weather continued and the rain added to everyone’s misery.
As the fighting wound down in April, the front of the VI Reserve Corps stretched from Avocourt Woods to north of Hill 304, to Hill 265 (northern part of Le Mort Hommes) and Côte de l’Oie. The next German objective was Hill 304 and the remainder of Le Mort Hommes. Once those positions fell, the next move was to advance all the way to the Marre Ridge from which the Germans could threaten the French defences of Verdun. To achieve this, Falkenhayn promised the Crown Prince the XXII Reserve Corps with the 43rd and 44th Reserve divisions. These divisions were of little use until they underwent intensive training in trench assault tactics. The Western Attack Group formed on 28 March under General Max von Gallwitz.6 It consisted of VI Reserve Corps (11th Bavarian Division, 192nd Brigade and 11th Reserve Division) on the right and XXII Reserve Corps (12th, 22nd, 43rd and 44th Reserve divisions) on the left. The Crown Prince kept the 2nd Landwehr Division, on the right of VI Reserve Corps, under direct control of the attack group.7
Meanwhile, Pétain carefully husbanded his forces and tried to wheedle more artillery from Joffre. He refused steadfastly to launch costly and fruitless attacks, despite demands from Joffre. However, he ordered his subordinates to hold the final positions at all costs, which produced costly counter-attacks. His policy was to keep the divisions at the front for only a short period and pull them out before they lost their effectiveness. Despite his policy of rotating divisions, he could not prevent them from taking heavy casualties during artillery bombardments or fierce infantry attacks and counter-attacks which occurred quite often during the months of hell at Verdun. His main goal was to let the artillery handle the main job of smashing the enemy so that the infantry would not have to make costly assaults. His methodical procedure for attacking did not produce dramatic victories, but it reduced French casualties.
Crown Prince Wilhelm realized chances for a major victory at Verdun had already slipped away and that, unless a dramatic change occurred, he would lose the battle. He blamed Falkenhayn for forcing him to continue engaging in a bloody and costly stalemate. The Crown Prince penned these sentiments after the war when he was trying to vindicate his actions, but it appears from his writings that, like Pétain, he had an emotional connection with his troops. On the other hand, empathy for the common soldier is clearly lacking in the post-war works of both Joffre and Falkenhayn. In reality, the Crown Prince was a mere figurehead, and his chief-of-staff, Knobelsdorf, handled the important decisions. Thus, it was Knobelsdorf who was the driving force behind the increasingly runinous attacks. The Crown Prince tried to work with him and show that he did have a reasonable degree of competency as an army commander.
In mid-March, the Crown Prince and Knobelsdorf decided to take a different tack. Instead of continual
ly shifting corps back and forth, as they had been doing, they ordered General Bruno von Mudra to leave his XVI Corps in the Argonne and to take command, with a provisional staff, of a newly formed Eastern Attack Group, consisting of the V Reserve and X Reserve corps on the east bank.8 They hoped that Mudra’s skills would be the game changer. Probably as a result of his experience in the Argonne, he adopted, like Pétain, a more methodical approach. He felt a series of small local gains would be more productive. Knobelsdorf was sceptical of this method and preferred the all-out attack. Meanwhile, as the Germans reorganized, Pétain’s artillery inflicted serious losses on the V Reserve and XV corps in the Woëvre.