On 21 February-18 December 1916, the Battle of Verdun was fought between the Germans under Erich von Falkenhayn against the French under Henri-Philippe Petain during the First World War.
Why did it happen?
In 1915, the French town of Verdun was lightly held because most of its heavy artillery had been sent to the Battle of Champagne. Guarded by a ring of forts, the French high command saw no need to maintain a strong defensive position because they believed that the Germans would not attack Verdun. However, at the beginning of 1916, German generals who had been occupied by the fighting on the Eastern Front switched their attention to the Western Front. General Erich von Falkenhayn began preparing for a major assault on Verdun, which was designed to “bleed the French army white.” The battle was supposed to begin on 12 February, but heavy snow and rain delayed the preparations and prevented accurate artillery fire, forcing the German army to wait eight days for the weather to clear.
Who was involved?
The German army at Verdun numbered 1,000,000 infantry, 1,200 artillery and 150 aircraft. The German Fifth Army was divided into six groups: Fourth Reserve Corps, First Landwehr Corps, Seventh Corps, Eighteenth Corps, Third Corps and Fifteenth Corps. The German plan at Verdun was to fight an attritional battle with their artillery slaughtering the French infantry until the point came when their losses became so unsustainable as to make them sue for peace. The French army at Verdun numbered 600,000 infantry, 350 artillery and 60 aircraft. The French Second Army was positioned over a 40km-wide area and was centred around six forts: Belrupt, Douaumont, Marre, Souville, Tavannes, and Vaux. Initially, the French plan at Verdun was to hold the line whatever the cost and retake any lost ground. However, when General Henri-Philippe Petain took command on 26 February, he proposed a different strategy: “Rather than have units stay at the front until they were destroyed, he used a rotation system so that they could recover behind the lines while fresh replacements took their turn in the trenches” (Westwell, 2012, p.128).
What happened?
On 21 February, after a nine-hour artillery bombardment, the German offensive began with the capture of Bois d’Haumont and Fort Douaumont, leading the French to abandon Woevre Plain on 25 February. After meeting greater resistance than anticipated, the Germans shifted their attacks to the west bank of the Meuse on 6 March and captured the Le Mort Homme and Cote 304 on 9 April and 6 May, respectively. On 1 June, the Germans renewed their attacks against the French on the east bank before taking Fort Vaux and Thiaumont on 9 June. On 23 June, the Germans reached the ridge line near Verdun and Fort Souville, only to be turned back by French counterattacks on 10 July. On 19 October, the French concentrated their artillery fire against the Germans before counterattacking and retaking Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux on 24 October and 2 November, respectively. On 15 December, a final French offensive retook Louvemont and Bezonvaux before both sides closed the battle on 18 December. During those ten months of fighting, the Germans suffered 355,000 casualties, while French losses numbered 400,000 killed or wounded.
What changed as a result?
The Battle of Verdun was a French victory. It was the longest single battle of the First World War and was the only major German offensive on the Western Front between November 1914 and March 1918. Although the battle brought France perilously close to defeat and depleted its human resources, the high casualty rate did not push them towards seeking peace with Germany. Nevertheless, the large number of unexploded artillery shells on the battlefield created problems for years to come, with bomb-clearing units removing 40 tons of explosives annually while the surrounding countryside and villages were devastated. After the war, the villages were memorialized as having “died for France” and continued to be administrated by mayors, while the remains of 150,000 unknown French and German dead were commemorated at the Douaumont Ossuary in 1932.
Bibliography
Bidou, Henri. “Battle of Verdun.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Accessed July 28, 2023. www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Verdun
Grant, R.G. Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat. London, Dorling Kindersley, 2005.
Hubscher, Thierry. “Aviation at Verdun.” Memorial de Verdun - Champ de bataille. Accessed July 27, 2023. www.memorial-verdun.fr/en/museumcollections/visiting-the-museum/collections-discovery/aviation
Westwell, Ian. The Complete Illustrated History of World War I. Wigston, Hermes House, 2012.
Willmott, H.P. World War I. New York, Dorling Kindersley, 2007.