by J E Kauffman
32. In February of the previous year, a Big Bertha had bombarded forts Douaumont and Vaux inflicting some damaged. The French claimed their 210mm weapons destroyed or damaged the 420mm Mörser mount.
33. Each of the three attacking German corps had the equivalent of two (the III Corps had three) balloon squadrons with about six ‘kites’ each. They also included an aviation detachment for directing artillery fire. Photo reconnaissance units also helped the Germans map out the French positions before the attack began.
34. The details of these air operations come from the newspaper Le petit parisien, dated 24 February 1916. The details may not be accurate, but they are based on eyewitness reports. In Price of Glory, Alistair Horne indicates that this happened on 20 February instead of 21 February. Some newspapers do not give a date. It was claimed that the Zeppelin was loaded with bombs and was hit by incendiary shells. The British Journal of Nursing of 18 March 1916 included the account of a nurse stationed at Revigny who recalled a morning attack by about fifteen Taubes that were driven off by French guns. Apparently, they returned at 3.00 pm. At about 8.30 the surgeons reported that ‘star shells’ were seen in the sky causing them all to go outside to see a Zeppelin burst into flames. The exact date was not given. Some sources indicate that a second Zeppelin was hit and that there may have been three of the four assigned to 5th Army on the same mission.
35. Most of these small units, often called Sturmtruppen (storm troops), did not come from Sturm Battalion Rohr, which was not given that title until April and was only known as Assault (or Sturm) Detachment. However, the most common order of battle used today shows it listed as a battalion. The same order of battle shows it attached to the 6th Division of III Corps. Apparently, Rohr’s men only formed the storm units for the III Corps. The detachment had trained other troops from December 1915 and they probably formed the storm units of the other corps. According to Bruce Gudmundsson in Stormtroop Tactics, in many cases the infantry battalion commanders did not know how to employ these specialized troops effectively.
36. Rohr’s Sturm battalion was attached to the 6th Division of III Corps. It was the only actual Sturm battalion at the time, but other divisions employed troops in a similar role for the initial wave of the offensive. It performed so well that it set up a training programme for other units that year. Major Herman Reddemann’s 3rd Guard Pioneer Battalion had six companies of flamethrowers (twenty large and eighteen portable units). Each of the flamethrower platoons had four to eight of these weapons and they were assigned to individual detachments of troops that served as storm troopers. The battalion’s Guard Pioneer companies were attached to each of the corps.
37. Only about 120 of Driant’s 1,300 men survived the first 2 days of battle and then managed to break out towards Beaumont. A relief attack by a French infantry regiment failed on the second day.
38. Comments have been made about the undergrowth being swept away, but there may not have been much of it during the winter months and the snow may have covered what did exist. Photos show German troops, late in February, camped in some of these woods that were targets of the first two days of the offensive and it does not appear that they were all turned into ‘matchsticks’ by the bombardment.
39. In his 18 December 1915 letter to the Minister of War, Joffre did not give the same explanation for his actions, but tried to placate him by saying that in October he had instructed his army commanders to prepare the two lines of defence on the entire front and to include passive obstacles, i.e. barbed wire, abattis, etc. This was the letter in which he complained about his subordinates – i.e. Lieutenant Colonel Driant – not going through proper military channels to make complaints to the government.
40. The deployment of the VII Corps seems to have created some confusion. It was identified with its two divisions, the 37th and 48th in the Bar-le-Duc resting area in February 1916. At the same time, it was listed as including the 29th and 67th divisions stationed between Avocourt and the Meuse. The 29th Division was apparently detached from the XV Corps when it left the Argonne in late 1915. The 67th Division detached from the XV Corps in 1915 after serving on the southeastern part of the salient and moved to the north side of the salient on the left bank in February 1916. On 12 February, the VII Corps inherited the defence of the area between the Meuse and Avocourt and took over these two divisions, while its other two divisions were still near Bar-le-Duc. The 37th and 48th divisions were assigned to XX Corps on the right bank on 25 February 1916. The XXX Corps was withdrawn from the right bank on that day. The 15th Division was part of VIII Corps, which held a front on the St Mihiel Salient from 1915–16.
41. The 44th Territorial Regiment is only listed on the Nafzinger order of battle and other sources. It appears as a single battalion.
42. According to Alistair Horne (Price of Glory, p. 103), he had been ordered by Chrétien to move his headquarters forward to Vacherauville on 21 February. He did, but found the facilities inadequate and was allowed to return to Bras. Arriving there the next day, he found his old headquarters already put to another use. This did not help his command ability, but neither did the loss of almost all telephone communications on 21 February which forced even Chrétien to rely on runners.
43. The 37th Division formed in Algeria and consisted of native and colonial regiments formed in that region. It was a first-class division.
44. See Alistair Horne, Price of Glory, for more information. Not all sources agree with some of his details, but his work is the best in English and even his critics seem to repeat much of his information.
45. In Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005), p. 271, Robert Doughty mentions that Briand reached Joffre’s headquarters on the night of 24 February, and fearing the fall of the government, made it clear to the general that Verdun must be held. While he was waiting to see Joffre, the marshal’s staff lectured the prime minister on the advantages of letting Verdun fall and taking up a more defensible position along the river. As Joffre was walking through the door, he heard Briand’s angry outburst. He hastily reassured Briand that he would not give up the east bank. According to Doughty, Joffre never told Poincaré that he considered abandoning Verdun.
46. Although it has been questioned whether Joffre was initially ready to give up the east bank, it makes little difference. He gave no indication that he would have approved such a move, nor does he mention the demands made on him by the government to hold Verdun. In Pyrrhic Victory, p. 270, Doughty explains that de Langle told Herr to hold at all costs on 22 February and that on 24 February de Langle informed Joffre he had ordered the troops in the Woëvre to withdraw since he was afraid that the two territorial brigades would panic. Joffre approved the move. Doughty also points out that after giving Pétain command Joffre warned him that if he had to withdraw to the west bank, he must prevent the enemy from crossing the Meuse. Thus, Doughty concludes, Joffre never ordered Castelnau or Pétain to hold the right bank at all costs.
47. These three generals were the first ‘Limoges’ at Verdun, but that was preferable to court martial. Castelnau wanted to court martial Bonneval. Herr remained under Pétain for a while before he followed the other three generals into exile.
48. Considering the importance of the first week of the battle, these comments in a few paragraphs are all the general had to say in his book General Headquarters 1914–1916 (repr. Nashville, TN: Battery Press, 2000) and in an article, Count Charles de Souza, ‘The First Assault on Verdun’, in Charles F. Horne (ed.), Source Records of the Great War, 7 vols (New York: National Alumni, 1923), Vol. 4.
Chapter 5
1. The 11th Bavarian Division was also attached to the corps and took up positions next to the 2nd Landwehr Division on the right wing. Both the 11th Bavarian and 22nd Reserve divisions were part of the X Reserve Corps according to the Crown Prince, although each operated on a different flank of the VI Reserve Corps.
2. Corbeaux Wood was located on the southern side of the Côte
de l’Oie. Adjacent to it on the southern slope was Cumières Wood, seldom marked on most maps.
3. Although most sources identify Mort Homme as a hill, it is actually a ridge or butte consisting of Hill 265 and Hill 295. In French, it is referred to as a ‘butte’ which can be translated in several ways, but in English it also translates as butte.
4. The 25th Division entered the battle on 7 March 1916.
5. According to Paul Jankowski, author of Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), reports showed that morale was low in the 29th Division and troops began deserting or surrendering in droves. Alistair Horne, in The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (New York: Penguin, 1978), states that an entire brigade of the division became surrounded and surrendered. It was unlikely the brigade and all the regimental commanders were captured with most of the troops because the remaining two regiments, also having taken losses, rallied to fill the breach as Pétain claimed. Michael Cox and Graham Watson, authors of Pour la France: A Guide to the Formations and Units of the Land Forces of France 1914–18 (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2012), note that days before the German attack, two regiments from the shattered 72nd Division replaced two of the division’s regiments.
6. Max von Gallwitz was brought from the Balkan front to take command on 29 March. He was an artillery officer, who had commanded an army on the Russian front and captured a couple of major fortifications in 1915. Later, he had led the 11th Army in the Serbian Campaign.
7. Days after the 11th Bavarian Division routed the 29th Division, the 11th Reserve Division took enemy positions near Malancourt and cleared the entire village by 31 March.
8. This group was created days before the Western Attack Group.
9. The 19th Reserve Division had been part of the original X Reserve Corps in 1915 until the corps was broken up. The division transferred to Verdun in mid-March 1916 and rejoined the corps. The 58th Division, which formed in March 1915, joined it at the same time to reform the X Reserve Corps. That division fought on the Western Front before it was sent to Russia during the summer and returned in October. The 113th Division, also created in March 1915 near Sedan, served in the Woëvre area during the year and rested near Conflans in February 1916. In late February, the division was sent to the Verdun area.
10. The 113th Division had already lost about 2,000 men in attacks near Douaumont on 8 and 9 March and by April it was badly in need of rest and replacements. It was sent to the quiet sector of the 7th Army. The 58th Division was not in much better condition than the 113th Division when it moved to Rethel to rest until it was involved in the Battle of the Somme.
11. Strangely, in his memoirs, with Margaret MacVeagh (trans.), Verdun (Toronto: Dial Press, 1930), Pétain makes no mention of this French offensive in early April. This was what the Crown Prince identified it as, but it may have comprised only counter-attacks. Pétain does not correct the Crown Prince’s account, although he often refers to it in his own writing. It is not really clear what happened on the east bank for much of April other than it involved heavy casualties for both sides.
12. Von Lochnow had commanded the Brandenburg III Corps since the war began. This unit first served on the Western Front under 1st Army and then in October 1915 von Lochnow took it east to join the Serbian Campaign. He then brought the corps back to France as part of 5th Army. This corps captured Fort Douaumont and took over 6,000 prisoners during February.
13. The 192nd Brigade, formed in June 1915, reorganized as the 192nd Division in June 1916. As a brigade it consisted of the 192nd, 193rd and 25th Bavarian regiments in 1915 and 1916.
14. The 11th and 12th Reserve divisions were relieved and sent to rest near Thionville. The 11th Reserve Division was relieved by the 54th Division.
15. Supposedly, the heavy bombardments reduced Hill 310 by 7m to 12m (depending on the source) in height.
16. The Germans actually targeted some bridges with their heavy long-range guns such as the 380mm, but their aim was not accurate enough to knock out the bridges.
17. Joffre claimed this was his only fresh corps.
18. According to Joffre’s memoirs, Joseph Joffre, Colonel T. Bentley Mott (trans.) and Colonel S.J. Lowe (trans.), The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, 2 vols (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1932), when he sent Castelnau to Souilly in April to ask Pétain when he wanted to assume command, he learned of the general’s displeasure at losing command of 2nd Army. On 3 May, Joffre met with him at Bar-le-Duc and they both went to visit the command posts of 2nd Army. During this trip, Pétain appeared to be very pessimistic so Joffre told him to write about his views and plans. On 7 May, Pétain submitted a long letter stating that the ‘German system of making their attacks with a small amount of infantry and a large number of guns, we were slowly but surely becoming used up, and … if the Allies did not soon intervene we would finish by being beaten’. He felt at Verdun in 1916 that France had fulfilled its duty to its allies and that they should make no further demands. He was not advocating France’s withdrawal from the war, but wanted the British to take on a greater share of the burden. If Joffre correctly recorded the content of this letter, it might give a clue into Pétain’s thinking in 1940.
19. At this point, the 2nd Army no longer came directly under Joffre in the chain of command, but went through Pétain, so this did not actually remove the general from the operations at Verdun. It is curious that if Joffre wanted Pétain removed from operations at Verdun, he placed 2nd Army back under Army Group Centre’s command.
20. Léonce Lebrun replaced Nivelle at III Corps, when the latter became commander of the 2nd Army. Lebrun remained in command of the III Corps until the end of the war.
21. Pétain noted that the Germans had to mobilize their class of 1916 before the French did.
22. According to Pétain, the Germans used up III and XVIII corps so quickly in the spring that both corps had to be temporarily withdrawn and rebuilt.
23. See Christina Holstein’s Fort Douaumont, Verdun (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2002) for additional details. In Verdun, Pétain claimed that the division that served as a reserve included a single brigade of infantry.
24. In July 1916, Joffre reassigned Colonel Estienne to General Headquarters to work on organizing armoured units. According to Alistair Horne (Price of Glory), the commander of Fort Moulainville warned him that the 370mm weapons would be inadequate against Fort Douaumont since the German 420mm howitzers had done little damage to his own fort.
25. With many bodies torn asunder and some buried in the rubble, there was no way to get an accurate count, but the number was higher than estimates. Many believe there were more than the official 679 identified bodies. Holstein mentioned there was a problem with disposal of the bodies so some were interned in shelters on the Rue de Rampart, but many lie within the fort.
26. The Germans used the 75mm gun turret for sending light signals through the gun tubes.
27. Those regiments thrown together to hold the right wing came from several divisions: 44th Regiment of 14th Division, 208th Regiment of 51st Division, 95th Regiment of 16th Division, 414th Regiment of 153rd Division.
28. Adjutant is a rank sometimes compared to that of warrant officer or senior NCO, but it is not an exact match to American or English ranks. An American warrant officer is considered an officer, but this French rank is like an American master sergeant. A warrant officer in the British army is the highest NCO ranking, so the British consider it in a similar way. Thus, American writers refer to it as a sergeant and the British as a warrant officer.
29. Despite all the accounts written of the fall of the fort, none include the name Kunze.
30. According to Alistair Horne (Price of Glory), Brandis manned one of the machine-gun turrets firing into Douaumont during the fighting for that village the next day.
31. The casualty ratio varied during the battle, but probably never amounted to more than three Frenchmen for every two Germans lost which was not enough to cripple the French army without having
the same effect on the German army.
32. Some sources report six of eight balloons.
33. Liebgrenadier has no English equivalent. Some authors equate it to a life guard or body guard grenadier unit, but this is not correct.
34. The 10th Brigade on the right with 75th and 274th Infantry regiments advanced against the rear and eastern flank of the fort where a German machine-gun position, stood on an incomplete observation position for an unfinished exterior 75mm turret site, held them up. The 9th Brigade with 36th and 129th Infantry regiments faced the left flank of the fort.
35. The ammunition for the 155mm gun was removed after the accident of 8 May. It is not clear why the Germans only aimed signal lights through the 75mm gun barrels instead of firing the guns. It is possible that they had no other means of communication since the bombardment had destroyed the small radio stations on the superstructure and it was more important for them to maintain contact than to fire the guns.
36. According to Christina Holstein (personal communication with the authors), the Germans used the fort’s 75mm gun turret in early March and possibly in June and the turret’s magazine had a good supply of ammunition. There was a gun crew available at all times.
37. While Mangin began his offensive against Fort Douaumont on the east bank, the Germans renewed their efforts to push the French out of the Mort Homme–Cumières line on the west bank. Thus, the Crown Prince and Nivelle both had to divide their attention between two major actions on opposite banks of the Meuse.
38. Details of the fighting and damage to the fort come from British historian Christina Holstein’s Fort Douaumont, probably the best English title containing details on this fort during the campaign. She describes the German efforts to clean up the fort after this battle when the German commander received orders to fortify it. The fort was no longer to be merely a shelter for German troops. The Germans removed the debris, decomposing bodies and even the French 155mm rounds to prevent another accident like the one of 8 May. The German pioneers improved the other defences, made repairs to damaged facilities and turrets, and created new positions. They even installed an engine for electric power, but that took months.
