Verdun 1916

by J E Kauffman

  In The French Army and the First World War, Greenhalgh, identifies other important changes that took place in the French army in 1915. When he was on the defensive, Joffre deployed his troops in three lines. About 20–30km behind the first line, he formed a second line where an army group deployed its reserves. Behind that, there was a third line where he positioned his general reserves, all located near railways. The doctrine for 1916 emphasized the slow methodical approach, abandoning the idea of achieving a quick breakthrough. Violent attacks and counter-attacks remained in effect, but now Joffre wanted his commanders to be in closer contact with the front. He demanded additional training with new weapons and tactics for the troops. To implement this policy, Joffre pulled the 2nd Army from the front and placed Pétain in charge of training reserve divisions late in the year.

  As artillery assumed an increasing role on the battlefield, new technology was developed to either aid it or counter it. Each corps acquired technical sections for detecting enemy artillery by sound ranging and flash spotting. Sound ranging required at least one pair of microphones located a couple of kilometres apart and a stopwatch to determine the location of the gun based on the speed of the sound waves. The French often used five microphones for recording and charting the sound, but it was frequently difficult to determine which sound came from the enemy artillery piece. The Germans deemed the system ineffective, but they used a more primitive version of it. Flash spotting required teams of observers equipped with surveying instruments and placed at different locations to spot the flashes from enemy guns, measure angles and triangulate the gun’s position. It was most effective at night. The system was not very successful until 1916 when the French used a high-powered instrument similar to a surveyor’s theodolite. Neither system was of much use without detailed large-scale maps with grids for reference, which were prepared by the map service. Balloons, which had been effective in spotting enemy artillery, also needed the same type of maps to be more accurate. Observers in aircraft required maps as well, but in 1916, their aircraft were equipped with a wireless that allowed them to send information, but not receive messages.

  At the Chantilly Conference, Joffre was confident that he could finally present a winning strategy based on all these changes and the military situation in Europe. Before the meeting, General Mikhail Alexeev, Russian Chief-of-Staff, gave him a general plan of action for the Balkans. It required the French, British and Italians to attack through Serbia and Albania, while the Russians advanced into Galicia and Bukovina in the direction of Budapest where, it was believed, the front was less fortified. There was a possibility the plan might draw Rumania into the war. Joffre rejected the Russian plan because it required almost a million men from the UK, Italy and France. Initially the Allies agreed to Joffre’s plan, but rejected it when it was brought up in December. Among the attendees at the conference were Field Marshal French (soon to be replaced by Haig), Gilinsky, chief of the Russian military mission, General Porro, Assistant Chief of the General Staff of the Italian army and General Wielmans, Chief-of-Staff of the Belgian army. They all agreed that to achieve a decisive result that they must coordinate offensives on all fronts. All must begin at the same time to keep the German and Austrian reserves tied down. However, they could not agree on a starting date since they had to consider weather conditions and other factors. The Russian representative warned them that his army could not be ready before June.68 In the event of a major enemy offensive on one of the three major fronts, they agreed that each would attempt to provide assistance as soon as possible.

  At Chantilly after the conference on 29 December, Joffre met with General Douglas Haig, who officially replaced Field Marshal John French on 19 December.69 Haig agreed to relieve the French 10th Army in the Arras sector and to ready eighteen divisions for the big offensive. On 20 January 1916, Joffre visited Haig’s headquarters at Montreuil to discuss further details of the planned offensive. On 14 February, they agreed to launch a contiguous and simultaneous attack on both banks of the Somme in late June. Haig refused to launch a costly preliminary engagement prior to the big offensive, opting for raids a few weeks before the operation. At the Chantilly Conference in December, they had agreed that if the Germans struck on the Russian front, they would begin their offensive in April. In 1916, General Foch worked out a final arrangement with Haig. Foch would employ 40 divisions in 3 armies with 1,200 guns for this offensive on a front of almost 50km between the Somme and Lassigny. They settled on 1 July for launching the offensive. Pétain’s 2nd Army was in reserve for training behind the 6th Army, which held the front from the Somme to the Oise. To the north in the vicinity of Arras, British divisions gradually began replacing the French 10th Army, which would be free to shift to the south of the Somme. The corps assigned to open the offensive went into reserve for additional training or to rest. The Franco-British forces were to strike along the front of the German salient without repeating the previous attempts to envelop it from the flanks. Thanks to a continuous front, the Allies could shift reserves more quickly and concentrate their artillery instead of distributing it along widely separated points. The main problem was that the Germans had had ample time to build up their defences and install barbed wire entanglements in greater depth than ever before.

  In February 1916, the Battle of Verdun was engaged. However hard Joffre tried to keep his plans for the big offensive alive, events did not work out as planned. By the end of the spring, he could only contribute eight divisions instead of forty to the offensive so that the 50km of front he had envisaged had to shrink, leaving the British to handle the bulk of the operation. The Battle of Verdun took precedence on the Western Front for all of 1916.

  The Air War in 1916

  The air war on the Western Front was anything but deadly before the summer of 1915. Aircraft remained a novelty until army commanders began using them for reconnaissance and artillery observation. The situation changed again when weapons were mounted on aeroplanes. In 1915, the French assembled their first fighter or pursuit squadron (escadrille de chasse). They selected the Morane-Saulnier H or L single-seater monoplanes as fighters, and fitted the propellers with armour so the Hotchkiss machine gun could fire through it. The Germans copied the French aircraft and named it the Pfalz E-1. The Fokker series of Eindeckers (single-seat monoplane) also appeared in 1915. This aeroplane was more manoeuvrable and included a synchronized machine gun. In early 1916, the Germans used one or two fighters to escort their reconnaissance and bomber aircraft. From the fall of 1915 to early 1916, the German aircraft, usually flying individually, became the ‘Fokker Scourge’ in the sky. In early 1916, both sides started flying in increasingly formidable formations.

  Examples of some of the more common aircraft. The Nieuport XI helped end the ‘Fokker Scourge’ in 1916.

  The French and the British used pusher type aircraft, as opposed to the tractor type with the engine in the front, because this provided a better platform for forward firing machine guns before they developed synchronization. Next, came the Nieuport XI ‘Bébé’, a single-seater biplane more manoeuvrable than the existing monoplanes. On the top wing it mounted a machine gun that fired over the propeller. Of the 675 French aircraft that were operational in February 1916, there were 90 Nieuport XIs and 120 older, two-seater Nieuport Xs.70 For the Verdun Offensive, the Germans had 168 aircraft, which included only 21 Eindeckers (Fokkers and Pfalz) available on the Western Front.

  Main types of German aircraft in the first years of the war.

  The French squadrons (escadrilles) consisted of up to ten aircraft. Each squadron was identified by a letter prefix before the unit number. The letter represented the type of aircraft, for example, C for Caudron, M for Morane-Saulnier, N for Nieuport, etc. The French formed the first escadrille de chasse (fighter squadron), N12, in September 1915. The French as well as the Germans selected their best pilots from bomber and reconnaissance/scout units to fly fighter aircraft. In 1915, the Germans used small flights of about six aircraft. They also built the
Flieger Abteilunger (Flying Detachment) for reconnaissance and artillery liaison. Each German army corps had one.71

  The best German pilots joined the Kampfeinsitzer Kommand (KEK) or single-seater fighter command, which consisted of two to four Fokker or Pfalz Eindeckers. When the battle for Verdun began, these KEK were sent to patrol the front and prevent French aircraft from penetrating German lines. However, the French scouts often slipped across before they could be intercepted. The few French pilots who got through on the first day spotted so many batteries that they were unable to judge how or where to direct their own artillery. The German ace Oswald Boelcke brought a change in tactics. Instead of sending the German fighters on patrol to intercept interlopers, he staked out observers at the front who notified his KEK by telephone when enemy aircraft approached. That way a pair of his aircraft could take off and head directly toward the enemy. His KEK operated from Sivry, about 11km from the front. Other fighter aerodromes were located at Cunel, on the west bank, and Avillers near Spincourt. From the first days of the battle, Pétain was concerned that his artillery would be blind without air support. On 28 February 1916, he ordered Charles Baron de Tricornot, Marquis de Rose to clear the sky. De Rose assigned escadrilles to the aerodromes at Lemmes, Vadelaincourt, Ste Ménehould and Béhonne from where they could effectively intercept German bomber missions and engage the enemy anywhere along the salient and behind the lines.

  In March and April, the Germans lost control of the air to the French Nieuport XI and XVI pursuit aircraft. They had a similar problem facing the British DH-2 and SPADs on other parts of the Western Front. When the dominance of the Eindecker aircraft ended, the Germans had to find new models to regain control of the air, but it was already too late to change the situation at Verdun.

  German bombing missions against the Sacred Way, rail yards and bridges were mostly fruitless. The most important contribution of aircraft during the battle was artillery spotting and aerial photography. Fighter aircraft became the best weapons against these activities.

  * William, Crown Prince of Germany, My War Experience (London: Hurst and Blackett Ltd, 1922).

  * William, My War Experiences, p. 104.

  ** William, My War Experiences, p. 107.

  * William, My War Experiences, p. 144.

  * Falkenhayn, General Headquarters, pp. 209–18.

  * Paul Strong and Sanders Marble, Artillery in the Great War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011), p. 63.

  * André Laffargue, ‘The Attack in Trench Warfare’, Infantry Journal (Washington, DC: The US Infantry Association, 1916), p. 5.

  * Elizabeth Greenhalgh, The French Army and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 125.

  Chapter Four

  The Battle of Verdun, 1916

  ‘Victory must be ours …’

  From a letter by a young German soldier who died only a few weeks after the war began

  Happy New Year

  Like two exhausted boxers, the Germans and the French armies rested to recuperate from their wounds and prepare for another round at the end of 1915. This time, both formulated actions for 1916 with every intention of delivering a knockout blow. The optimum time to begin a campaign is in the spring, after the thaw and the rains. Winter weather is the least desirable time for an offensive, especially when it involves trench warfare. General Joffre planned for concentric operations with his allies, which required him to wait until the summer for the Russians to be ready. However, he was prepared to go into action as early as April if the Russians were attacked. Since the Germans had remained on the defensive in the West throughout 1915, Joffre assumed that they would repeat this strategy in 1916. General Falkenhayn, however, had no intention of waiting for the spring since he believed that time was running out for Germany to achieve a decisive victory.

  Joffre could not afford a repeat of 1915. The morale of the French troops improved, especially when generals like Pétain took steps to improve conditions on the front, gave them leave and provided them with postal services. Ordinary citizens, except those in the occupied lands, had not suffered too much. The Poilu’s equipment and gear had improved. Despite the loss of valuable resources at Briey and Lille, French industry managed to increase production and the USA, which remained neutral, supplemented France’s needs. Above all, the French fought on their soil against an invader and patriotism still ran strong. However, losses like those incurred in 1915 could spell disaster for the war effort. Joffre’s plan for a great Somme offensive, if it were successful, offered the prospect of driving the Germans out of northern France, which would boost French spirits despite heavy casualties. It would also stretch Germany’s resources to its limits, especially if the Russians had any success.

  Time was running out for Falkenhayn. He could not afford a repeat of 1915 either. On the Eastern Front, his armies led by Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Mackensen battered the Russian army and occupied Russian Poland. As Falkenhayn had predicted, the Russians traded space for time and these losses would not force their surrender. He had successfully parried all British and French offensives on the Western Front, but that left the German front approximately where it had been at the end of 1914. Thus, he concluded, the war would not end if he concentrated on the Eastern Front once more, where deeper advances into Russia ran the risk of repeating Napoleon’s experiences of a century earlier. In addition, Germany was already suffering economically as much-needed imports decreased as a result of the British naval blockade. Neutral countries like Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands could not provide too much since they also relied on imports. Food shortages were felt in some parts of Germany where rationing of bread and other items was implemented. However, the problem was still negligible compared with the impending crisis of 1916. A U-boat campaign against Allied merchant ships in 1915 had limited success until the sinking of the British liner Lusitania in May provoked a reaction from the USA. The campaign to blockade Britain with twenty U-boats also had lacklustre success. When a U-boat sank the liner Arabic in August, the German government put an end to the submarine campaign against commerce.1 In 1916, Falkenhayn wanted to renew the U-boat war against commerce and Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz agreed, but the government leaders forbade it.

  On Christmas Day 1915, Falkenhayn penned a letter to the Kaiser explaining his view.2 France had been weakened militarily and economically to the limits of its endurance. Now – he wrote – the British were Germany’s main enemy. ‘John Bull’ intended to bring Germany to her knees and would not negotiate or give up. Since the German navy could not transport an invasion force to the island, the army could strike at the British on the Continent by reaching the Channel and attacking them in northern France, while, at the same time, pushing the French back towards the Somme. However, Falkenhayn was not optimistic about this option. In his post-war account, he wrote that he would have been able to concentrate about twenty-five divisions for an offensive on the Western Front, which means that he would not have had enough men for a breakthrough attack. Reducing the strength of the units at the front, he noted, was not possible because they already averaged one man per metre of front.3 He identified Verdun or Belfort as points where the Germans could expect a decisive victory because the French would feel obliged to stand and fight there for political and historical reasons. He made no mention of ‘bleeding them to death’. His preference was Verdun because the front was only about 20km from the German railway system and because the site held great strategic significance. Taking Verdun, he claimed, would require a relatively small effort on the part of the Germans, and success would make the entire front untenable. Breaking the French would drive the British from the Continent, especially if the navy could launch a new campaign of unrestricted U-boat warfare to strangle the British economically. Even if the Americans were drawn into the war, he reasoned, they would not have the time to muster a military force adequate to intervene successfully before the Germans won the war.

  If Joffre had been able to launch his Somme Offensi
ve before Falkenhayn moved against Verdun, it is doubtful the Allies would have been any more successful than they had been in July. The Germans would have diverted several divisions, which they actually did when the offensive eventually materialized, to contain the threat. However, they may have prevented the Verdun Offensive and maintained a deadlock in the West throughout 1916. The offensive against Verdun offered a glimmer of hope for defeating France, whereas a purely defensive stance in the West would have prolonged the stalemate as shortages of food and materials increased in Germany. The likelihood of Joffre launching a major operation during the winter months was slim to none. Thus, Falkenhayn’s decision to attack in February gave him the advantage of being the first to strike.

  Joffre had changed Verdun’s status from a ‘Fortress’ to a ‘Fortified Region’ in 1915. The decision to strip the forts of their armaments in August 1915 may not have been a mistake. The artillery that was actually removed from the forts consisted mostly of older pieces, many of which had occupied positions on exposed ramparts in the older forts, and 75mm guns mounted in casemates. The older pieces, like the 120mm guns, gave Joffre a temporary increase in heavy artillery. However, many of these cannons from the 1870s and 1880s lacked important features found in guns of the twentieth century, which limited their range, accuracy and rate of fire. Most of these weapons did not contribute greatly to the firepower of the forts, unlike the 75mm and 155mm turret guns that actually remained in position. If the forts had to be rearmed, it would not have been very difficult to reinstall 75mm casemate guns and other smaller defensive weapons.4 Days after the battle began in February 1916, General Herr, the military governor of Verdun, made the gravest mistake regarding the forts when he had them prepared for demolition.