by J E Kauffman
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Pen & Sword Military
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Copyright © J.E. Kaufmann and H.W. Kaufmann 2016
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1 The Road to Verdun
Chapter 2 Fortifications and Positional Warfare
Chapter 3 Verdun Campaign, August 1914–February 1916
Chapter 4 The Battle of Verdun, 1916
Chapter 5 On Ne Passe Pas
Chapter 6 Conclusion
Appendix: Weapons of Trench Warfare
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following people for their help with this project: Bernard Bour and Patrick Corbon on French army tactics; Clayton Donnell for use of photos and loan of books; Christine Holstein for additional details on the battle; Tom Idzikowski for information on the Russian forts; Patrice Lang for information on the French army; Bernard Lowry for use of photos and other items; Marcus Massing for information about Verdun’s fortifications; Frank Philippart for use of photos and information; Marc Romanch for photos from the archives and information on artillery; Lee Unterborn for Internet searches; General David Zabecki for information on artillery. In addition, we thank the members of SiteO who helped us and hopefully have not forgotten anyone. Also, we would like to thank our editor, Rupert Harding, for tolerating the delay with the project and helping with contacts.
Note to Reader
In the text, all German and Austrian units are italicized to avoid confusion. Like most books of this size, the number of illustrations has been limited. It is strongly recommended that the reader use additional maps and plans that may be found in other books such as the volume West Point Atlas of Military History related to the First World War. There are also numerous Internet sites with good campaign and battle maps. The reader can find additional plans and illustrations of the French forts at Verdun and the battlefield in relatively inexpensive books such as Verdun 1916 by William Martin (Osprey), The Fortifications of Verdun 1874–1917 by Clayton Donnell (Osprey) and Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux by Christina Holstein (Pen & Sword). Some older books found in many libraries, including Pétain’s Verdun, include detailed maps.
Preface
‘Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won’
The Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, June 1815
Since the Battle of Verdun, a hundred years ago, an extraordinary number of books has been written on this long and gruesome engagement. The accounts cover many different points of view of the battle, relate individual experiences or present the conflict in a detached way disregarding the terrible experiences the soldiers endured. The last approach was particularly favoured by some of the generals who sat far behind the lines, moving their units like the pieces of a chess game. Although the numbers presented are shocking enough, they alone cannot give the proper perspective on a battle that is best described as hell on earth. To get an accurate picture of how Verdun brought together the horrors of combat, it would be advisable to read individual accounts and even some good historical fiction.
In the present volume, we have chosen to take the more objective approach, without, however, leaving out the horrifying aspects of this engagement. We examine the background, strategy and events of this great battle, although this has already been done. Not all historians will agree or draw the same conclusions. Primary sources, just like secondary ones, whether they come from individual accounts or official documents, must be subject to scrutiny and are not necessarily reliable. The contents of key primary sources such as reports, official documents, individual accounts and especially newspapers are not always dependable since they are often written with the intent of twisting the truth or bending it to the author’s point of view. They may glorify an event, cover up mistakes or be written by someone with a limited view of events. The historian must take these and other sources, including secondary ones, and attempt to recreate the events as best he can. As a result, there are many different versions of a single battle or action.
One of the best examples of the difficulties historians face is the famous Schlieffen Plan, which shaped Germany’s strategy in the First World War. In this case, the problem is that there is no actual and detailed pre-1914 documentation of the plan. After the war, General Wilhelm Gröner shed some light on the plan in his memoirs in which he claimed that Helmuth von Moltke the Younger had modified the plan formulated by Alfred von Schlieffen. In Supplying War, military historian Martin van Creveld points out that, assuming that he and some other prominent figures are correct, the operation would have failed because Schlieffen had not taken into account the logistical needs of a modern army. He seemed to think that twentieth-century armies could still live off the land the way they had done in the age of Napoleon despite the fact that they were far bigger in size. In the autumn of 1914, only an abundant harvest, prosperous Belgian merchants and supplies abandoned by the Belgian army actually kept the German invasion force from starving. Even so, many of the German army dray horses, which had pulled supply the wagons and moved the field artillery, did not survive. This was ‘modern’ warfare and the much-maligned Moltke realized it before 1914. Like his uncle, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the Younger saw the need to develop Germany’s heavy artillery to make it capable of destroying modern forts built after the 1880s. Thus, due to contradictory historical evidence, many historians have been forced to re-evaluate Schlieffen’s genius, and reconsider the alleged short-comings of Moltke the Younger.1 Likewise, General Falkenhayn’s reasoning for launching the Battle of Verdun may seem clear and obvious based mainly on his post-war writings, but it is likely that he was motivated by the need to justify his actions. After all, Erich von Falkenhayn was a rational and skilled general, yet, outwardly at least, his strategy at Verdun appears absurd. The Battle of Verdun and the naval Battle of Jutland were the climax as well as the anticlimax of the First World War and best exemplify the futility of the conflict. Here, when the two main antagonists met in 1916, their armies
had finally reached the point of true modernization from their troops’ equipment to more massive and up-to-date weapons. Both sides also adjusted their tactics as the conflict degenerated into a gigantic battle of the trenches. Forts regained their importance after being considered obsolete after 1914.
Most of the weapons commonly associated with the First World War, except the tank, appeared on the battlefield at Verdun. Air warfare came of age over the skies of Verdun. Some of the best and worst generals on the Western Front got involved there as well. The battle in terms of win and loss devolved into a giant stalemate in which neither side achieved a major success but in which thousands of men were slaughtered. The Battle of Verdun did not dramatically change the course of the war, which continued to drag on in the West for over a year. Both sides would have been better off without the events that took place in 1916 on the Western Front.
According to some historians and pseudo-historians, this great battle began in 1914 and ended in 1918 simply based on events that took place between those four years. However, the Battle of Verdun did not last the entire war, but was rather one action or campaign among many in the four-year conflict. Generally, when fighting ceases for weeks or months a battle is considered to be over, unless it is a siege where little action may occur for extended periods. Verdun was not a siege and nor was it a long battle that lasted for most of the war except in the eyes of people trying to rewrite history. The ten-month Battle of Verdun essentially was one of the longest and most horrific battles of the war, but compared to some of the other battles it produced fewer casualties.
The Germans gained some ground in the opening weeks of the battle. However, when it was concluded at the end of the year, they were pushed back almost to their starting point. The French boasted that they had prevented the Germans from breaking their line and saved their central front. That would have been a significant triumph if the German commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, had actually intended to take Verdun. The evidence indicates that he gave no orders with regard to breaking through the French line and taking Verdun. According to popular belief, he had planned a battle of attrition and his aim had been to create a killing ground. His only stated objectives consisted of taking and holding the Meuse Heights on the right bank of the river. By late 1916, as the battle wound down, many soldiers lay dead, but the French army had not been ‘Bled White’ and neither side could legitimately claim it had won a great victory.
Prologue
In the morning of 21 February 1916, the Poilus glumly huddled over their breakfasts, trying to get warm before they started their daily chores in the muddy trenches of the Verdun sector. It was miserably cold and it had snowed overnight; the leaden clouds overhead promised more snow in the near future. Most of the soldiers expected little action that day. During the last year, this sector of the front had been relatively quiet after all.
Suddenly, at about 7.15 am, an unearthly roar rent the air and shells started raining on the hapless French soldiers from the direction of the German lines. The entire Verdun sector was engulfed in fire, smoke and dust. As shells of various calibres ploughed into the ground, great plumes of mud and rocks spewed into the air. Trees were reduced to matchsticks. In some places, the soggy earth revetments gave way, sliding into trenches and dugouts and burying the soldiers alive. In other places, the shells smashed men and trenches to pieces sending bits of human flesh, splintered logs and shattered guns and equipment flying through the air to land pell-mell in the deep craters left by other exploding shells. Telephone wires were destroyed, cutting off the units in the field from their commanders. The ferocious shelling went on for hours. The shock waves were so intense that they were felt as far as Lac Noir, 160km away in the Vosges, where General Passaga remarked in his journal, ‘I clearly perceive across the floor of my shelter an incessant drumroll punctuated by rapid box-like hits.’
The only positive aspect for the French on that fateful day was the performance of the fortifications they had erected around Verdun. Of the eleven fortified positions that were actually targeted that day, not one was crippled and put out of action. The worst their crews could complain of was the noise, the shaking, the plaster and dust falling from the ceilings, one or two pierced walls in peripheral positions, a busted parapet or minor damage to the surface superstructure. If Fort Douaumont fell into German hands a few days later, it was because, like most of its sister forts in the Verdun Fortress, it had been stripped of its artillery and its garrison had been reduced to a skeleton crew. In addition, Douaumont and most of its sister forts had been readied for demolition because the French High Command had little faith in their ability to withstand an attack.
The bombardment finally ceased in the late afternoon and an eerie silence descended over the battlefield. The surviving French infantrymen and chasseurs rallied as best they could and braced themselves for the assault they knew was coming. Many of their officers and comrades lay dead; others were so shell-shocked they lay on the ground in a stupor, unable to move a muscle.
The shock troops were the first German soldiers to cross no-man’s-land to the obliterated French trenches that afternoon. In addition to their usual array of weapons, some of them carried a terrifying new weapon, the flamethrower, to spew jets of fire on any enemy soldiers hiding in the last points of resistance – not that they expected to encounter much opposition. After all, their artillery had done its job thoroughly – they thought – if the churned ground and charred remains of the woods were anything to go by. To their surprise, they did not get very far into enemy territory before they ran into lively resistance in some places, especially in Caures Woods where Major Driant’s chasseurs had been preparing for such an event for weeks. The unrelenting fighting went on until dusk when both sides hunkered down for the night. The Germans had made some headway, but failed to gain a resounding victory. The occasional snow flurries that had hampered the combatants during the late afternoon intensified, dusting the charred, wounded land, the dead and the dying. Thus ended the first day of battle at Verdun, a presage of worse things to come. This book examines the war aims, the strategy and the tactics that led up to this, the start of the longest battle of the First World War, and reconsiders the months of intense fighting around the French fortifications that followed.
Map showing the major rail lines and fortified areas in France, 1907.
Chapter One
The Road to Verdun
‘The First World War had causes but no objectives’
Correlli Barnett, The Swordbearers (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975)
‘Victory will come to the side that outlasts the other’
General Ferdinand Foch’s order issued during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914
Beginning of War and Mobilization
Proclaimed as the war to end all wars, the First World War failed to achieve that goal. The main players had no objectives other than to crush the enemy, take their capital and end the war in short order. German pre-war planning proved just as bad as that of the French in bringing victory. The Prussian-dominated General Staff had produced a single strategic plan formulated by General Alfred von Schlieffen who assumed that France must be part of any major conflict. By 1905, this plan called for the mobilization of the bulk of the German army on the Western Front. Schlieffen based his strategy on the premise that the army must knock out France quickly before concentrating on the lumbering Russian bear.1 France, on the other hand, had only one major antagonist, which allowed it to concentrate its forces in the northeast. In July 1914, Austria-Hungary went to war with Serbia, which caused Russia to mobilize to protect its Slavic brothers. The Germans, in turn, considering Russian mobilization an act of war, began massing its troops. The German single war plan – beat the French – drew France into the conflict even though that nation had nothing to do with what should have been a localized problem in the Balkans.
Germany faced a dilemma. The terms of the Entente required France to join a war if another member of
the alliance was attacked; however, in this case Russia was initiating hostilities. Unfortunately, Schlieffen’s plan created a rigid mobilization and war plan difficult to change. Once the forces began to assemble, Moltke the Younger, commander of the German army in 1914, would need weeks to redeploy the bulk of the army to the Eastern Front if France remained neutral. The Germans were not greatly concerned about a Russian attack because they had failed to notice the improvements the Tsar had instituted after the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, which had exposed many weaknesses not only within the armed forces but also in the country’s infrastructure. Instead, the Germans were afraid that if they moved their army to the East, the French, who were still seething after their humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, might seize the opportunity for a retaliatory strike. The German diplomats strove to dissuade the French from joining the Russians. On Friday, 31 July 1914 at 7.00 pm, Baron von Schoen, the German ambassador in Paris, received a dispatch from the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, instructing him as follows:
Russia has ordered mobilisation of her entire army and fleet … in spite of our still pending mediation, and although we ourselves have taken no measures of mobilisation. We have therefore declared the threatening state of war, which is bound to be followed by mobilisation, unless Russia stops within 12 hours all measures of war against us and Austria. Mobilisation inevitably implies war. Please ask French Government whether it intends to remain neutral in a Russo-German war. Reply must follow within 18 hours. Wire at once time when question was put. Utmost speed necessary.
If contrary to expectation, French Government declares that it will remain neutral, Your Excellency will please declare to the French Government that we must demand as a guarantee of neutrality the handing over of the fortresses of Toul and Verdun, which we should occupy and hand back on the conclusion of the war with Russia.
