Verdun 1916

by J E Kauffman

  18. Some sources state the roof was constructed from 320cm-thick mild nickel steel and had 125cm-thick sides.

  19. He was promoted to the rank of general in 1872 and in June, he held a position on the Defence Committee that studied the problems of security on the eastern border during the war.

  20. Although the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871, the Germans did not remove their troops from the last occupied sections of France until September 1873 when all reparations had been paid in accordance with the Treaty of Frankfurt of February 1871.

  21. Séré de Rivières had responsibility for the defence of other locations in addition to those along the Franco-German frontier. Some of these other fortified sites closely related to the Eastern Front including Reims and the fortified locations on the Belgian frontier.

  22. This does not include coastal fortresses or those on the Alpine Frontier with Italy since they remained important.

  23. Forts like those between Maubeuge and Verdun, and Fort Manonviller are forts d’arrêt since they are isolated and there are no nearby forts to support them.

  24. War Plan I was formulated in 1880, but at that time, Séré de Rivières had been forced to retire after government officials decided that he had gone well over budget on his fortifications.

  25. Of the three types tested, béton spécial used the least aggregate to achieve the greatest strength. Plain cement (no aggregate added) was much weaker than cement mixed with aggregate (concrete).

  26. A traverse abri was built into a traverse. The traverse was usually an earthen position built between gun positions on the ramparts to protect the gunners from explosions on the adjacent positions.

  27. More information, including plans of all the forts and ouvrages, can be found on Cédric and Julie Vaubourg’s Internet site l’association Séré de Rivières at http://www.fortiffsere.fr/.

  28. See Philippe Truttmann’s La Barrière der Fer (Luxembourg: Gerard Klopp, 2000). for more details on these modifications.

  29. Casemates were not entirely eliminated. Fort Liouville, built on the Meuse Heights in the 1870s, had two gun casemates (two guns each) and two special casemates for mortars that faced to the rear. During the same period, Fort Giromagny at Belfort was provided with several indirect-fire casemates located below the level of the ramparts. There were other forts – mostly mountain forts like Fort Écrouves at Toul and Fort Camp des Romains on the Meuse Heights – where the casemates were still effective and remained in use after the 1870s. In the early 1900s, most casemates in these main-line forts, especially those for mortars, were disarmed.

  30. In the mid-1870s, Captain Henri L.P. Mougin served on the Armour Commission, created by the Defence Committee, and was able to develop and test his ideas on armoured casemates and turrets.

  31. Each fort had one of the one-gun casemates. See Marco Frijns, Luc Malchair, Jean-Jacques Moulins and Jean Puelinckx, Index de la Fortification Française 1874–1914 (Welkenraedt: Autoédition, 2008) or the Internet site http://www.fortiff.be/iff/index.

  32. In the early 1900s, disappearing guns, which had no overhead protection, became vulnerable to armed aircraft. Some countries, nonetheless, maintained them until the Second World War, especially for coastal defences.

  33. In the early 1890s, Galopin was a captain in army engineers specializing in military railroads until he was assigned to the commission on armour. He was promoted to commandant (major) in the early 1890s. Unlike other army engineers, he did not retire and join an armaments company, but remained in the army. He attained the rank of general during the First World War.

  34. There is some confusion regarding the model year for each of these three types. This selection comes from Frijns et al., Index de la Fortification Française 1874–1914.

  35. This method was used on some early Renaissance era forts.

  36. Metal and concrete reservoirs replaced masonry cisterns, which could not withstand the effects of the vibrations set off during heavy bombardments.

  37. The Germans developed a new type of fortification known as the Feste in the 1890s. The first of this type was Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II near Strasbourg. By the early 1900s, the Germans completed two rings of Festen around Metz and Thionville to block a French invasion. Each Feste consisted of well-dispersed positions that often included one or more batteries of turret artillery, casernes, power plants and infantry positions. Many were still under construction early in the war. The French inherited them after the war. They did not see combat until the Second World War and proved extremely formidable in 1944.

  38. At Verdun, the artillery park was located at Jardin Fontaine near the Citadel.

  39. In the Franco-Prussian War the Germans found it better to disperse their troops in the attack to reduce casualties, but the Prussian Guard infantry still had success with massed formations. As a result, between wars most generals wanted to avoid mass attack formations, but early in the war the older method prevailed until heavy casualties brought change.

  40. The term ‘Poilu’, meaning the ‘hairy one’, had been associated with the French infantryman since the Napoleonic era, the same way the term ‘Tommies’ has referred to British troops since the eighteenth century.

  41. The Germans began the war with more machine guns in their battalions than the French did. The French had tried to replace artillery with the mitrailleuse in the 1860s and they kept these weapons secret. However, they developed no tactical role for them. As a result, they had a negative experience with machine guns in the 1870 war.

  42. During the American Civil War, trench warfare was fought according to similar principles followed in other parts of the world in the nineteenth century. It did not trigger a major change in battlefield tactics since the assaulting troops continued to advance in dense battle formations. The main weapons were still the rifle and the cannon, which, unlike the machine gun, were not as devastating to infantry.

  43. In some cases, only plain wire was available, but by 1915 barbed wire was widely used, especially for low entanglements and higher fences. Concertina wire appeared later. The troops usually emplaced the wire at night and used various stealthy methods so as not to alert the enemy. Before barbed wire became readily available, the troops fashioned crude caltrops, which they placed in front of their trench lines along with broken glass and anything else that might impede the enemy including abbatis.

  44. Various sources disagree about the Germans. According to a reliable source, they had eight balloon companies when the war began whereas a less reliable source claims they had only nine balloons on the Western Front in February 1914. Both may be correct, although the Germans probably did not begin using them for artillery observation until 1915.

  45. Due to its unusual shape, the British also called it the ‘Testicule’.

  46. According to some historians, the Germans had successfully used balloons and aircraft in 1914 and 1915 for artillery observation.

  47. Parachutes were attached to the balloonists’ baskets. Aeroplane pilots normally did not have parachutes. Some did not consider it honourable. In 1916, during the Battle of Verdun, the French equipped Nieuport XI aircraft with Le Prieur rockets to be used against airships. When the rockets tore a hole into the balloon, the escaping hydrogen was ignited by the flame from the projectile.

  48. Based on the numbers of aircraft and type of weapons listed, it appears that the article was referring to August 1916 and not 1915. During that period in 1915, there was little action around Verdun.

  49. A second and third belt of trenches served as a backup in case the first belt was lost, but they were often only partially complete.

  50. Later in the war most infantrymen could handle grenades and grenadiers or bombardiers were not needed for that role.

  51. The French and Germans began work on counter-mines in some of their forts before there was a threat.

  52. General Oskar Hutier successfully used these tactics in September 1917 at Riga on the Eastern Front. In 1916, the shock troops in the first wave brought th
eir own heavy weapons and tackled the strongpoints.

  53. Single-engine pusher aircraft had the engine on the rear of the fuselage while tractor aircraft had it on the front.

  54. Saps were trenches that extended forward from the trench line and allowed soldiers to begin the construction of a new trench line closer to the enemy. They could also be used as positions from which to launch an assault. The troops often dug them while under enemy fire. The sappers also used various types of protections such as gabions (usually an earth-filled cylinder made of brush and wired or roped together) or some type of screen they pushed in front of them as they dug.

  55. Few armies had an adequate supply of modern mortars and howitzers. The German army was the exception, but it had to borrow some heavy artillery from Austria.

  56. In The Rocky Road to the Great War (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013), Nicholas Murray notes that overhead protection was provided mainly for ammunition before the First World War. He also details the developments in trench warfare during the nineteenth century and up to 1912.

  57. Colonel Gustav J. Fiebeger was a military expert at the turn of the century and an instructor at the US military academy from 1896 until 1922.

  58. Change came slowly in the French army. Thus, while the artillerists put all their faith in the 75mm gun, they absolutely refused to support the development of howitzers and other indirect-fire weapons. Before the war, when the Parliament tried to replace the soldiers’ blue and red uniform with a more serviceable one, it encountered stiff opposition.

  Chapter 3

  1. The 5th Army included the V Corps and V Reserve Corps.

  2. Côtes de Meuse (Meuse Heights) is a hilly and wooded plateau that begins north of Verdun and runs to Commercy. Most historians refer to the forts located between Fortress Verdun and Fortress Toul as the forts of the Côtes de Meuse, even though the fortifications at Verdun are on the same heights. Few French troops defended this area since General Sarrail diverted several divisions to the Battle of the Marne in the Argonne sector.

  3. Joffre lacked confidence in Sarrail and was concerned that the 3rd Army had a front on the Meuse to the east and another to its northwest where the Germans might emerge from the Argonne. He considered the latter front of greater importance. If the 3rd Army became separated from the 4th on its left, it ran the risk of getting completely cut off along with Verdun and the 1st Army. Joffre had already begun transferring corps and divisions from the forces in the East. In September, the remaining divisions of the 2nd Army along the Meuse were assigned to the 1st and 3rd armies. The 2nd Army headquarters took command of several units sent to the north.

  4. The 9th Division was on its right, in the vicinity of St Rémy, and took part of the heights.

  5. The French removed the remaining artillery, but held the fort for the rest of the war.

  6. The French did not consider their reserve divisions adequate to participate in major operations, especially in offensives. This unit, which came from the Avignon region, was first sent to the Alpine Front and next, on 22 August, to Étain where it engaged the Germans. It was driven back from the Woëvre towards Verdun. Between 7 and 9 September, it took part in the battles of Revigny and Souilly. It remained in the vicinity of St Mihiel until it was disbanded in November 1914.

  7. Fort Paroches did not fall to the Germans. It was used as a position from which to observe the Germans at Fort Camp des Romains and at St Mihiel for the remainder of the war.

  8. The Bavarian III Corps attacked Fort Paroches, St Mihiel (Fort Camp des Romains) and Fort Liouville.

  9. The Germans turned Fort Camp des Romains into an observatory and added a new entrance.

  10. Fort Liouville served as an observation post after the battle. In 1916, the badly damaged Mougin turret was turned into a concrete observation post. The 75mm gun turret was repaired in 1916 or 1917 and the machine-gun turret removed to be installed in the Verdun citadel. Much of the data on these forts comes from Cédric and Julie Vaubourg’s Internet site http://www.fortiffsere.fr/. Most written sources are in disagreement on the details, but the research on this Internet site appears to be the most accurate.

  11. The heights of Crépion are located over 10km north of Verdun.

  12. The German army mobilized ten pioneer regiments for siege operations in August 1914.

  13. Army Detachment Strantz was formed by the commander of V Corps, Hermann Christian Wilhelm von Strantz, on 18 September to act as an autonomous part of 5th Army. Army Detachment Falkenhausen and Gaede formed at about the same time as Army Detachment Strantz from units of 6th and 7th armies when General Headquarters moved those armies from Lorraine and Alsace to the right wing.

  14. According to Crown Prince Wilhelm, three army groups were formed in November 1914, but he seems to have confused the year with 1916.

  15. Italian volunteers formed the 4th Régiment de Marche/1st Regiment Foreign Legion. Giuseppe Garibaldi II, grandson of the Italian patriot, and his four brothers created this unit of over 2,000 men at the start of the war. Garibaldi II was put in command in November. The first engagement was in the Argonne the day after Christmas in 1914. One of the brothers was killed in a successful assault near the Bolante Woods. Another died in the next engagement at Four-de-Paris on 5 January. In March 1915, the Legion was dissolved and the troops, minus 300 dead, returned to Italy to fight the Austrians.

  16. This was one of four major French assaults against Vauquois between the end of October 1914 and 1 March 1915.

  17. According to Elizabeth Greenhalgh, author of The French Army and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), the Germans drove the XXXII Corps from these 7km of trenches and inflicted over 10,000 casualties in four days. Joffre ordered an immediate counter-attack and sent sufficient heavy artillery and two additional divisions. He blamed General Sarrail, the commander of the 3rd Army, for failing to prepare his two corps in the Argonne speedily enough. The Germans launched another attack delaying the French counter-attack, which followed eventually. In less than a month the 3rd Army lost over 33,000 men.

  18. In 1915, General Dubail took command of the new Army Group East and General Pierre Roques replaced him as commander of the 1st Army. Much of the 2nd Army shifted to the northern front leaving several divisions under the command of the 1st Army, which became the army on 3rd Army’s right flank. In June 1915, General Pétain replaced Édouard de Castelnau at the 2nd Army.

  19. The French called it the Battle of Éparges and the Germans, the Battle of Combres. The butte is located between both villages. The fighting took place around the Éparges Crest as opposed to the Combres Crest.

  20. Abel Ferry, a deputy in parliament and an infantry officer who wrote a report on losses for 1914 and 1915, claimed that the three-month operation against Éparges cost 20,000 to 25,000 French lives. Point X did not fall until 1918, by which time about 300 mines had been detonated.

  21. Tranchée de Calonne was actually an almost straight road that cut through the rough wooded terrain. The Germans incorporated its ditches into their defences.

  22. The Crown Prince claims probably overestimate the actual size of the French force.

  23. The Germans already had anti-aircraft weapons that were designated as anti-balloon cannon since that was their original purpose.

  24. This does not include almost 30,000 casualties in other theatres of war outside France.

  25. These statistics come from Greenhalgh’s The French Army. During the entire war the army had mobilized 8.4 million soldiers or about 2 million each year. Of this total 1.4 million died or were missing and 4.22 million wounded. Over 900,000 of the war’s total dead or missing were on the casualty list by the end of December 1915.

  26. Greenhalgh puts the French army at 93 infantry, 11 territorial and 10 cavalry divisions in January 1916 with no distinction remaining between active and reserve with the call of veterans recovered from their wounds and older classes.

  27. The French had lost a number of 75mm guns from ba
rrels destroyed by faulty ammunition. The poor quality ammunition resulted from the rush to produce more shells.

  28. The Eastern Front was like a funnel with the west end being the narrowest part. The further east the Germans advanced, the wider the front became while at the same time the roads and railways became further apart. For the Russians moving west it was the opposite.

  29. The Germans had already reorganized the Turkish army before the war with Liman von Sanders, and others would follow, including Falkenhayn in 1917 who joined Sanders to guide it.

  30. One of the possible origins of the phrase ‘To the green fields beyond’ comes from an unofficial motto of the British Royal Tank Regiment formed in 1917. It was ‘From mud, through blood, to the green fields beyond’, describing the goal of breaking through the devastated area created from the bombardment of the trench lines and into open country.

  31. Italicized sections are by authors.

  32. The complete text (English version) of this document can be found in Falkenhayn’s General Headquarters 1914–1916 (rpr. Nashville, TN: Battery Press, 2000).

  33. If anything, Joffre was pragmatic and not one to try anything new and not proven. He believed he must take the offensive not only to win, but also to take pressure off Russia. Verdun was threatened on both flanks and if the Germans threatened to isolate the salient, Joffre was prepared to pull back to a more defensible position. He had no plans in December 1915 for his own offensive towards the Metz–Thionville Stellung.

  34. This initially took the Allies by surprise and was the only German offensive on the Western Front that year, supposedly to cover the transfer of troops to the East.

  35. Some may question this method of testing a new weapon and giving the enemy time to prepare for it. This was just what the British did by committing a small number of tanks in 1916. The Germans found that phosgene gas alone would not be enough to break the Allied lines.

  36. Supposedly designed by a French sergeant of the same name.

  37. The Germans first used phosgene in October 1915 when it was mixed with chlorine. They created a gas cloud be releasing it from 14,000 cylinders near Reims. The French did not detect the presence of phosgene and assumed their casualties came from improper use of gas masks.