Verdun 1916

by J E Kauffman

  As far as Joffre and some of his subordinates were concerned, Verdun, which had been a relatively quiet front during most of 1915, required few preparations. In late 1915, Lieutenant Colonel Émile Driant raised the alarm by going over Joffre’s head and alerting his friends in the government. As a result, Joffre sent Castelnau to check out the position. The inspection revealed that there were indeed deficiencies, which were only partially corrected. However, it was winter and Verdun was not a priority site. Driant and his chasseur battalions were stationed in a number of concrete bunkers in Caures Woods, north of Verdun. They occupied several positions, but did not dig a continuous trench line.5 Driant complained of a shortage of barbed wire, the main anti-personnel obstacle in trench warfare. Other units defending the sector consisted of reserve divisions. French intelligence sources noticed an unusual German build-up in the area, but Joffre brushed off the possibility of a major attack.6

  On the other side of the front, the Germans had been concentrating their forces in the area for weeks. Since the V Reserve Corps held the section of the front designated for the assault, its troops did most of the construction, which included bombproof munitions dumps in sheltered areas such as woods or ravines beyond the sight of prying eyes on the ground and in the air. To protect the assault troops in advanced positions, the pioneers built concrete underground shelters up to 10m below the surface called stollen. The construction of the stollen as well as new plank roads, light railways and other items needed on the front went on at night and in secrecy. Special care was taken to deceive air reconnaissance.7

  The French intelligence service predicted an attack based on interrogations of deserters.8 However, since they knew little about the stollen or the scale of the operation, they underestimated the enemy’s strength. The Germans built enough shelters and new trenches to accommodate 6,000 assault troops in the first line. The stollen occupied positions within a couple hundred metres of the French front line. The largest held 1,000 men, but they had few facilities and no heat. These underground bunkers were prone to flooding, which made life for the troops waiting inside miserable. In February, foul weather delayed the assault for several days so the troops had to trudge back and forth at night and in the snow to spend some time in billets more liveable than the stollen.9 The unsuspecting French defenders, in the meantime, awaited the end of winter in more comfortable quarters.

  After December 1915, the Germans secretly moved munitions and other materials required for the operation to the front line. About 1,300 trains delivered over 2.5 million artillery rounds to feed the 1,300 to 1,500 artillery pieces of all sizes already emplaced in their concealed positions. Earlier in 1915, two 380mm naval coastal defence guns had taken up positions. Now, the Germans added 420mm Big Berthas and new 305mm howitzers. Everything was ready for the big offensive, except Mother Nature. It snowed and rained on 12 February 1916, the scheduled date for the attack. The Crown Prince ordered a 24-hour delay, but more than a week’s postponement resulted from the inclement weather.

  Other Considerations

  The actual data is too flimsy and coloured by post-war interviews to be certain, but Falkenhayn appears to have envisaged a decisive battle for Verdun that would bleed the French army white. For Falkenhayn, the Verdun Salient presented a possible threat to Germany because of its proximity to the Metz–Thionville region. His claims, however, were greatly exaggerated. After the summer of 1915, one minor railway supplied Verdun and the salient was only about 35km (22 miles) wide. West of the salient, the Germans securely held part of the Argonne near Vauquois, and to the east was Éparges and the St Mihiel Salient that stood like a rock until September 1918. The Allies saw no reason or opportunity to concentrate a major offensive in this area until late in the war when they had sufficient forces to penetrate these main centres of German resistance. Therefore, there was no real danger to Germany from that quarter in 1916.

  Creation of the Verdun Salient in September 1914.

  Falkenhayn was convinced that the French would fight for Verdun because its loss could collapse the entire front and for the French it was a matter of national pride due to its historic value. The Verdun Salient was at risk because it could still be isolated. In 1914, even Joffre had considered falling back to a more secure line if necessary and allowing Verdun to become isolated as the situation deteriorated. Its loss, he felt, would not crack the front unless the French army panicked during a withdrawal. The only factor that would motivate the French to fight was a feeling of national pride, as Falkenhayn had predicted. An offensive in the Champagne area or elsewhere – Falkenhayn calculated – might force the French to pull back, in which case he would not have sufficient reserves to exploit the situation. Thus, he concluded, he had to engage the French where they could not afford to retreat voluntarily and where he could inflict maximum casualties upon them. Although most historians say that he considered attacking either Verdun or Belfort, he made it clear in his memoirs that in Belfort he would not achieve his goals.

  What remains a question was the objective of Falkenhayn’s offensive. How far did he want to go, and was Verdun just one action or did he expect it to lead to others in the West? Historian Paul Jankowski explores the other possibilities as presented by the general’s contemporaries:*

  1. Count von Schulenburg, a staff officer in the 5th Army, claimed after the war that Falkenhayn, who was a master strategist and planned his every move with care, had calculated that the French would have to weaken the fronts on the Aisne or Champagne. The British, in turn, would have to organize an offensive in Artois. German reserves would then attack the weakened French sector and counter-attack the newly recruited British forces, which would still be inexperienced at the time.

  2. General Wilhelm Groener, in charge of the railways, claimed that Falkenhayn intended to take Verdun so he could launch another attack in either Artois or Champagne.

  3. Colonel von Tappen, chief-of-operations at Oberste Heeresleitung (German Supreme Army Command), believed that Falkenhayn still considered operations against Belfort in December 1915 with about half a dozen divisions to draw the French forces away from another part of the front.10 This would have allowed the Germans to strike at that weakened section of the front making an operation against Verdun or Belfort only a diversion. If von Tappen was correct, Belfort would have been a better choice.

  4. The Kaiser, in exile after the war, recalled that Falkenhayn’s explanation was that the French must attack and a British relief offensive was possible, to which a German counter-attack would be the response. This would bring a decision in the West that year. Verdun was to be the prelude. ‘The hope persisted – added the Kaiser – to break up the English front.’11 Falkenhayn clearly stated that his operations in the West in 1916 were to drive the British from the war, which corroborates the Kaiser’s assertions.

  5. One month before the offensive, Falkenhayn informed Hermann von Kuhl, chief-of-staff of Prince Rupprecht’s 6th Army in the Artois sector, to expect the British to retaliate by attacking on his front. Falkenhayn also warned Karl von Einem, commander of the 3rd Army, soon after contacting Kuhl, to expect a French attack in his area. Both armies had orders not to initiate action, but to hold fast.

  Thus, as Jankowski’s research shows, despite his own post-war account, Falkenhayn initially intended to use Verdun as bait to draw in French and British forces. This would have allowed him to concentrate on directing a more decisive assault elsewhere on the Western Front. According to Jankowski, at a meeting on 11 February 1916, Falkenhayn ordered the chiefs-of-staff for all the armies, except Knobelsdorf of the 5th Army, to meet at his own headquarters in Mézières.12 Of the five men present, three claimed that Falkenhayn explained to them that the war could only be won in the West, but not with a single decisive battle. The Germans had to draw out the French and the British from behind their defensive lines, a move that would spell heavy losses for Allies. After this, the German attack could begin. Jankowski believes that this was why Falkenhayn carefully husbanded
his reserves before and during the Battle of Verdun. Jankowski believes that even if Verdun was the initial target, Falkenhayn expected the reactions along the front to cause massive casualties for the enemy that would have the same effect. If that is indeed the case, the general was counting on the French employing the same methods they had used in 1915 and would draw them into more bloody battles. Therefore, whether Verdun was to be the scene of bloodletting meant to exhaust the enemy or a preliminary operation to ignite other parts of the front, Falkenhayn’s 1916 strategy was to exhaust the Western Allies by inflicting irreparable losses on them.

  In his Christmas Day memorandum to the Kaiser, Falkenhayn wrote that the Germans did not have enough forces to attack on the British front, but that ‘an opportunity of doing so may arrive in a counter-attack’.* He claimed that the French, Russian and Italian armies were Great Britain’s ‘real weapons’. He went on to conclude that the British could be forced out of the war only if the French were eliminated since ‘the strain on France has almost reached the breaking point …’. He ruled out a ‘mass breakthrough’, which ‘in any case [is] beyond our means, [and] is unnecessary’. Behind the French sector of the Western front, ‘there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw in every man they have …’ and if they do, ‘the forces of France will bleed to death – as there can be no question of a voluntary withdrawal – whether we reach our goal or not’. If the French allowed the German to take their objective, ‘the moral effect on France will be enormous’. If this is actually the message he gave the Kaiser, we can assume that Falkenhayn, who also indicated time was short, intended to launch a massive campaign of attrition, be it solely against Verdun or several other points on the Western Front and that he did not believe he had enough forces for a war-ending breakthrough.

  * P. Jankowski, Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 35–6.

  * Falkenhayn, General Headquarters.

  Operation Gericht

  There are multiple meanings for the word ‘Gericht’ and no one is sure which Falkenhayn intended. The most common translation is ‘Judgement’ and since Falkenhayn planned this to be the most decisive action of the war it could be the appropriate interpretation. One cannot be certain of the objectives for the Crown Prince’s 5th Army. The Christmas Day memorandum Falkenhayn prepared for the Kaiser does not specifically indicate his intention of ‘bleeding the French army white’. It does emphasize the strategic importance of the city and its role as the cornerstone in the Allied line. Crown Prince Wilhelm and his chief-of-staff, von Knobelsdorf, thought that Verdun was their objective. They planned for operations on both banks of the Meuse, but Falkenhayn informed Knobelsdorf that he could not provide him with the necessary reserves or artillery to conduct an offensive on both banks. Thus, the main effort was focused on the right bank and no supporting operation on the left bank was to take place until later.13 Falkenhayn pointed out that the winter and early spring weather had turned the Woëvre into a marsh and made the Argonne equally difficult to traverse. Thus, he explained, he could not approve of attacks through those sectors. It was better, he reasoned, to attack on a narrow front between the Meuse and the Woëvre.

  From late December to February, on orders from Falkenhayn, each German army on the Western Front initiated small operations to keep the French guessing. In these encounters, neither side used poison gas and flamethrowers because of the weather. Crown Prince Wilhelm took two weeks’ leave in early December. When he returned to Stenay, where he had initially prepared the operation with his staff, he discovered that his troops had been forced to abandon their flooded trenches. At about this point, Falkenhayn explained the situation to him and declared that the time was ripe for a major offensive in the West without, however, mentioning the date and the location for the impending operation. In January, the Crown Prince and his chief-of-staff were issued additional details regarding Falkenhayn’s plans. Preparations were already in train. The Crown Prince recalled:

  I was filled with happy anticipations; yet I could not regard the future with a confidence altogether serene. I was disquieted by the constantly repeated expression used by [Falkenhayn] that the French Army must be ‘bled white’ at Verdun, and by a doubt as to whether the fortress could, after all, be taken by such means. I could only conclude that there lay before us a long and difficult struggle, which must place the utmost strain on the endurance of the troops; indeed, the limitation of the offensive to the right bank of the Meuse seemed to be motivated by a desire to engage as few troops as possible in the first stages, so as to ensure a continuous feeding of the front of attack over a long period of fighting.*

  The Crown Prince’s comments concur with those of other witnesses. However, his recollections may well have been coloured by other people’s accounts after the war, especially when he mentions that Falkenhayn wanted to bleed the French white. He also claimed that he agreed with Falkenhayn that Verdun had to be taken quickly in order to avoid the continuous expenditure of forces and materiel inevitable in a lengthy battle. If it is true that Falkenhayn wanted a strong French reaction to his Verdun Offensive, it is debatable, however, whether he actually wanted the city to fall swiftly. He seemed more interested in taking the heights on the eastern bank where he could establish a killing zone. According to the plan, wrote the Crown Prince, ‘Once the eastern bank is in our hands we can reduce the field works and permanent forts on the western side by flanking fire’.* A surprise attack with superior force covered by massive artillery would achieve this initial objective.

  Crown Prince Wilhelm was given only one mission for 1916: the Verdun Campaign. To focus the Crown Prince’s staff on the task, Falkenhayn detached the 3rd Army from his command and replaced it with army detachments Strantz, Falkenhausen and Gaed. On 6 January, the Crown Prince and Knobelsdorf issued the ‘Plan for the Artillery Attack’ and on 27 January, they sent out orders to the commanders of the assaulting corps. They estimated that it would take five army corps to clear the east bank. Of these, three would attack from the north and a reinforced corps was to advance across the Woëvre northwest of Étain after the fall of the first French positions on the Meuse Heights. The V Corps was to coordinate an advance southeast of Étain with Army Detachment Strantz, but not during the initial attack. The artillery of the VI Reserve Corps with two divisions and 2nd Landwehr Division, located west of the Meuse, would use flanking fire to neutralize French batteries. The VII Reserve Corps had secretly transferred from Valenciennes and joined the 5th Army on 27 December 1915. It deployed behind the V Reserve Corps, which held sectors that formed the narrow assault front with its two reserve divisions. The assaulting corps would move past its divisions, which would remain in support. The 33rd Reserve and 5th Landwehr divisions occupied positions on the Woëvre Front from the vicinity of Fromezey southwards along the Orne.14 In addition, the VII Corps was joined by the XVIII, III and XV Corps. According to Falkenhayn, these corps included nine trained and rested divisions. Each assault division was assigned to a front of less than 2½km. Later, three ‘picked’ divisions would move up to the front in preparation for an assault on the left bank when the opportunity arose. However, Falkenhayn would not allow any flanking attacks until he thought the time was right, insisting that there were not enough forces for a simultaneous attack on both banks.

  The Germans managed to maintain secrecy on the 5th Army front, despite deserters, and Falkenhayn directed each army to conduct aggressive operations on their fronts from January to February to keep the French guessing. Army Detachment Gaed in Alsace was to launch major divisionary operations in the Vosges region in an attempt to convince the French that an attack on Belfort was imminent. Army Detachment Gaed had an early start on these operations since the French captured a couple of positions in the Vosges not far from Mulhouse between 28 and 30 December 1915 eliciting a response. Gaed troops counter-attacked and retook one position, but not the other. Both sides sustained
heavy losses in an unsuccessful German attack on 8 January 1916. The 3rd and 7th armies launched trench raids on 4 January. The 3rd Army penetrated the French line at several points near Butte de Massiges on 9 January. Although he was secretly preparing for the main assault and despite the cold weather, the Crown Prince allowed his VI Corps to launch a gas attack on 12 January in the Forges sector. Apparently, this action was meant to deflect French suspicions regarding the lack of activity on the 5th Army front. On 23 January, the 6th Army detonated twenty-five mines and launched a violent assault against the British in the Arras sector. The next day, the 4th Army bombarded Nieuport on the coast. On 27 January, the 6th Army attacked at Loos and Neuville while the 5th Army kept its front active engaging in more mining operations against the French in the Argonne.15 On 29 January, the 2nd Army finally opened its own divisionary operations with an attack, including gas, near Lihons, south of the Somme. On 8 February, fighting in Artois heated up with over 700m of French trench line temporarily occupied. On 12 February, the 4th Army and the 3rd Army launched additional divisionary assaults in Flanders and Champagne respectively. The 3rd Army made some gains, only to forfeit them to a French counter-attack on the following day. Meanwhile, Army Detachment Gaede captured several French positions in the Vosges. Falkenhayn wanted the Gaede operations to threaten the Belfort sector and to be on a larger scale than those of other armies. In February, the 4th Army captured about 600m of enemy trenches along the Ypres Canal. The 7th Army bombarded an area between Soissons and Reims on 14 February and launched a gas attack followed by an infantry assault north of Soissons on 16 February. The 4th Army made three attempts to cross the Yser Canal on 20 February. Finally, on 21 February, the day the big offensive against Verdun was launched, the 6th Army attacked near Béthune. As far as Falkenhayn was concerned, these diversionary attacks were successful as the French took heavy casualties and the Germans did not. In fact, his perception of the outcomes was rather rosy, since the Germans actually incurred significant losses, like the French. Nonetheless, when the Verdun Offensive began, Joffre was unable to ascertain if this was merely another minor action on the Western Front or something more serious. As a result, he did not send in his reserves in a timely fashion. In this respect, Falkenhayn had achieved one critical element he needed for the success of the operation: surprise. Thus, he had an advantage of a day or two before Joffre adequately reacted to the situation.