(French soldiers moving into attack from their trench during the Verdun
battle, 1916, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
In February, 1916, the world
was in utter turmoil. A Great War had erupted after Serbian-backed assassins shot
to death Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife (and their unborn child) while
they drove in their car around Bosnia. In response to the assassination, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, and the two belligerent nations
pulled in their broad nets of alliances. Soon major countries from all over the
world were called into what would be later named World War I.
At the onset of the war, Germany
had pressed quickly through Belgium into France, but became bogged down well
shy of Paris, and the war gridlocked into WWI’s iconic trench warfare. In early
1916, however, General Erich von Falkenhayn of Germany believed he knew a way
to crush France and weaken Britain’s will to fight—by seizing the French
defensive position at Verdun.
(Highlighted Map of Verdun from J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill,
Francis Trevelyan Miller (eds.)- The Story of the Great War, Volume V. New
York. Specified year 1916, actual year more likely 1917 or 1918, [Public
Domain] via Creative Commons)
On February 21, 1916, German
forces barraged the French line at Verdun with an artillery bombardment. In a
period of twelve hours, around 1,400 guns fired around 1.2 million shells
(100,000 per hour) at the region of Verdun. After the shelling, the Germans
advanced against the French positions on the east side of the Meuse River. Overall,
this first offensive at Verdun gained little ground against France’s return fire—in
two days they only advanced around three miles.
Nevertheless, the Germans
were about to have a breakthrough. The advancing German troops were nearing
Fort Douaumont, a major fortification near the front line, and possibly France’s
most important fort at Verdun. The French commanders defending Verdun were
confident that the powerful garrison guarding Douaumont would be able to defend
the position, so the commanders focused their attention elsewhere. These
commanders, however, made a crucial mistake—there was no great garrison holding
Fort Douaumont. In actuality, only a scattering of French soldiers defended the
fort.
Douaumont
Fort nearby Verdun, France, aerial photography, 1916, [Public Domain] via
Creative Commons)
Fort Douaumont was an
impressive sight. The fortress was built mainly during the late 19th century,
but construction continued until 1913. The 1,200 foot tall (around 366 meters)
Fort Douaumont was built sturdy—its walls were reinforced with two layers of
meter-thick concrete and its ceiling was protected with around six meters of
material. In addition to the intrinsic defenses of the fort, Douaumont also
reportedly had a moat about six meters deep and a jungle of barbed wire around
its perimeter around thirty meters wide.
Douaumont was designed to
comfortably garrison around 635 soldiers, but many more could be crammed into
the fortress. The complex had its own water tank, kitchen, dormitories, and
latrines. It even had wiring, presumably for messaging or sounding alarm. Nevertheless, by 1916, Fort Douaumont had been
neglected by the French military.
When the German advance
reached Fort Douaumont, only 57 French soldiers were manning the fortress that
was constructed to house over six hundred men. In addition to the tiny
garrison, the fort had also been stripped of nearly all of its heavy firepower.
When the Germans attacked, the French garrison had too few men to defend all
the entrances to the large fort and too little firepower to repel an assault.
The almost effortless fall of
Fort Douaumont was a miracle for Germany. On February 25, 1916, the German 24th
Brandenburg Infantry Regiment managed to sneak into the fort without any of the
few French soldiers inside realizing what had happened. The German soldiers
were able to surprise the garrison of Fort Douaumont, then capture and disarm
them without firing a single shot. Without a fight, without discharging any
firearms and without causing any bloodshed, a small squad of German soldiers
was able to capture the most important French fort at Verdun. Ironically, the
bloodless capture of Fort Douaumont would only prolong the Battle of Verdun,
which would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties.
(1926 portrait of General Henri-Philippe Pétain painted by Marcel
Baschet (1862-1941), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
After losing several miles of
ground—including defensive positions like Fort Douaumont—the French forces at
Verdun needed some new brainpower. General Henri-Philippe Pétain (future Vichy
France Chief of State) arrived at the scene to ensure that the French lines
would hold under Germany’s ferocious attack. He made sure his forts were well
garrisoned and he maintained and improved the infrastructure between Verdun’s
defensive positions. Pétain also reorganized his forces, making sure all of
Verdun’s corps had artillery support and employed a new strategy that called
for the French defenses to be less rigid and more adaptable to German pressure.
With General Pétain’s
measures in place, the German advance began to stall by the end of February. Germany
responded by attacking the Verdun defenses to the west of the Meuse River. As
with the earlier attack, Germany made progress, but it was frustratingly slow.
By the end of March, the German attack had only resulted in two miles of gained
ground.
(1914 photograph of Paul von Hindenburg taken by Nicola Perscheid
(1864-1930), restored, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
Around this time, Germany
made a change in leadership. Paul von Hindenburg usurped power in Verdun from
General Erich von Falkenhayn. Even though Falkenhayn had spent months
attempting to wrest Verdun from the French, Hindenburg immediately de-escalated
Germany’s attack in that region.
(French bayonet charge, from "The Story of the Great War, Volume
III", Francis Joseph Reynolds et al., 1916, [Public Domain] via Creative
Commons)
Once the German advance broke
off, the French launched into a counter-attack with an offensive of their own.
They pressed against the German lines that had enclosed on Verdun with a
combination of artillery and infantry. Eventually, France regained much of its lost ground, and reestablished the equilibrium between the sides. By the
time the Battle of Verdun was officially over, French and German casualties may
have reached higher than 700,000 people. Of these casualties, the French
suffered 377,231, with 162,308 either killed or missing in action.
Fort Douaumont fell back into
the hands of the French on October 24, 1916. The Germans had utilized the
fortress much more than the French had—around 3,000 German soldiers may have
been garrisoned inside the fort at one point. In another incident, over 800
German soldiers died when an explosion, thought to have been caused by
flamethrower fuel, occurred in Fort Douaumont.
In Germany, some called the
bloody Battle of Verdun a ‘sausage grinder,’ where opposing armies ground each
other’s soldiers into sludge with bullets and bombs. In a similar fashion, the
French called the battle a ‘furnace.’ Both are apt names for a battle that
caused hundreds of thousands of casualties over a couple miles of land.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
- Warfare in the Western World: Military Operations Since 1871 (Volume II) by Robert A. Doughty and Ira D. Gruber et al. Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1996.
- http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-troops-capture-fort-douaumont-verdun
- http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/verdun/douaumont.html
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