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Description: | The Battle of Verdun, February to July 1916.
In January 1916 the Germans prepared a new offensive against Verdun, the principal fortress of the French eastern defences; its ring of forts, with Douaumont the strongest, was thought to be impregnable. In December 1915 von Falkenhayn, the German commander, had decided that it was not necessary to break through the French lines, only to attack a point from which they would not retreat and bleed the French Army to death. Crown Prince Wilhelm, commanding Fifth Army (which would make the attack) nevertheless believed he could capture Verdun. The Germans assembled 140,000 men for the attack, 1,200 guns and 2,500,000 shells. On the French side General Gallieni, the Minister of War, warned General Joffre of the weakness of Verdun but Joffre was confident it would hold. The Germans, with 168 aircraft, had complete air superiority over Verdun - the first significant use of air power in the war. After a postponement through bad weather the Germans attacked on 21st February with a massive bombardment, using flamethrowers with their troops for the first time. In four days they broke through the French outer lines, taking 10,000 prisoners. The Kaiser came to watch. On 25th February German troops stumbled into Fort Douaumont and found it virtually undefended - French forts had been stripped of their heavy guns for field use earlier in the war. General de Castelnau, defending the region, persuaded General Joffre to appoint General Philippe Pétain to command Verdun; he kept up the defence while reinforcements arrived. The rail links were inadequate and most supplies came by truck - 190,000 men and 25,000 tons of supplies in a week - along a single road, La Voie Sacrée. In March the Germans attacked on the west bank of the Meuse at Mort-Homme, but by then the battle had run beyond the control of either side, and for each to even hold their front lines took a major effort, "the only real enemy now was the battle itself". The horror of the battle had a permanent effect on every German or Frenchman who fought there. By the end of April the Germans had lost about 130,000 and the French 133,000 men; over two-thirds of the French Army had passed through Verdun and Pétain was asking for more troops. Joffre promoted Pétain and replaced him with General Robert Nivelle, with General Charles Mangin as his deputy. By now the French had regained air superiority over Verdun, knocking out the German artillery observation balloons. The French started to counter-attack and losses on both sides increased. Meanwhile, although wages and prices were both up since 1915, metropolitan France carried on as in peacetime, which soldiers, feeling themselves strangers in their own country, resented. Crown Prince Wilhelm no longer believed Verdun could be taken, but Falkenhayn ordered one more attack for 1st June. French morale wavered, and by 23rd June the Germans were two and a half miles from the city, but Nivelle held the line. Three divisions had already been taken from the Crown Prince to help Austria-Hungary against the new Russian offensive, while on 24th June the British bombardment on the Somme began - the combined Allied offensive planned at Chantilly in December 1915 was beginning. Under this pressure the German attack on Verdun died away, with final losses of 337,000 Germans and 362,000 Frenchmen. It was the limit of French achievement and effort.
16mm | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | 01/3(4-15).58 [1916 Mort-Homme] 01/3(4-15).51 | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Shaw, Sebastian | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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