by J E Kauffman
39. Hardaumont Ouvrage was a small position consisting of an abri that could accommodate a company sized unit. It also had two machine guns.
40. Most of the details about the German operations against the fort and the damage it incurred come from Christina Holstein’s Fort Vaux (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011), which like her book Fort Douaumont is one of the best descriptions in the English language.
41. Holstein wrote that the Germans also inspected the turret after the fort surrendered and found they could put it in working order.
42. The 44th Territorial Regiment had troops garrisoning Fort Douaumont when it fell and the town of Brabant.
43. Christina Holstein (Fort Vaux) mentions that Raynal had these replaced with loop-holed barricades of sandbags that completely blocked the tunnel unlike the chicane-type example seen in the forts today.
44. Alistair Horne, in Price of Glory, notes that the 420mm barrels wore out causing both types of 420mm weapons to lose accuracy and efficacy. It is possible, but historian Marc Romanych informed the authors that these weapons had spare barrels so this should not have been a problem.
45. In 42CM ‘Big Bertha’ and German Siege Artillery of World War I (Oxford: Osprey, 2014), Marc Romanych and Martin Rupp explain that the 420mm howitzers suffered from premature detonations in the barrels due to faulty ammunition. On 22 February, such an accident destroyed both weapons of KMK Battery 7 at Verdun. Other such accidents eliminated one of these weapons in KMK Battery 5 and Battery 6 and one Gamma howitzer in KMK Battery 2, Battery 8 and Battery 9. During the spring of 1916, the batteries had to be reorganized. In July, some batteries went to other fronts and by September, only six batteries totalling seven guns remained at Verdun, but they included more 305mm Beta Mortars, which had been used against intermediate fortifications. KMK refers to Kurze Marinekanone, or short-barrelled naval cannons, since Krupp built these weapons for the coastal artillery. It is likely that Alistair Horne (Price of Glory) received faulty information regarding the causes that took these guns out of action. Popular belief attributed the accidents to counter-battery fire before data became readily available in the 1960s.
46. The German attack front had the I Bavarian Corps on the right, X Reserve Corps in the middle and XV Corps on the left.
47. The French converted this coffre into an entrance because of damage to the gorge entrances.
48. The fort also used signal lights to communicate with Fort Souville, but did not receive replies to its messages.
49. See Christina Holstein (Fort Vaux) for details on Raynal’s plans.
50. The Alpine Corps included a division of the same name (Alpinekorps).
51. The Italians had a similar number of casualties.
52. Admiral Scheer replaced Admiral Hugo von Pohl in command of the fleet in January 1916. Pohl, suffering from cancer, died the next month.
53. The battery mounted four 90mm guns in 1914 and was totally destroyed by the time the French recaptured it in October 1916.
54. In August 1916, several rounds hit the turret, including one of 305mm. Although it penetrated the turret’s glacis armour, it caused no damage. Not long after this, a heavy round damaged the turret preventing its full rotation. It could not be repaired until after the battle, in 1917.
55. In 1917, the turret was repaired and the steam engine that operated it was replaced with an electric engine. An observation cloche and a Pamart cloche for machine guns were added, but the threat from the Germans had receded. In addition, an underground gallery was added to link it to the fort in 1917.
56. An estimated 30,000 rounds hit the fort. Some improvements took place in 1917.
57. This refers to the two brigades that made up the division size unit known as the Alpinekorps in 1916.
58. In Price of Glory, Alistair Horne notes that the French army had only 170 vehicles in 1914. He also mentioned that 700 trucks could carry 1,250 tons daily, but that the 2nd Army at Verdun required 2,000 tons a day and an additional 100 tons for each new division. The French Ministry of Defence gives the same figures, but states that the number applies to the period before the war. Soon after hostilities started, it rose to 7,000, reaching 95,000 vehicles in 1918. At Verdun, there were 26 trucks when the war began, 31 in 1915 and 9,000 in 1916.
59. The 7th Reserve Division, which had suffered heavily at Tahure in October 1915 and in January 1916, was sent to the rear. At the end of May 1916, it arrived at Verdun. It took heavy losses (8,200 men) during the X Reserve Corps assaults near Chapitre Woods on 21 June. The division was withdrawn on 1 July since there were few replacements to fill its ranks. The 19th Reserve Division sustained 79 per cent losses among its infantry in attacks made in April, May and July. The 9th Landwehr Division remained in the Argonne sector during 1916.
60. Gallwitz was sent to the Somme to command the 1st and 2nd armies.
61. The 6th Bavarian Division came from III Bavarian Corps, which was replaced by I Bavarian Corps (5th and 6th Bavarian divisions) and sent to the Somme, minus the 6th Bavarian Division. Höhn, a Bavarian artillery officer, commanded the 2nd Guards Division before he was assigned to the 6th Bavarian Division. In mid-October 1916, he took command of XV Reserve Corps, designated as a Bavarian formation at the time. The 21st Reserve and Guard Ersatz divisions replaced the depleted 1st and 103rd divisions. Their own engagements of 23 June and 11 July resulted in massive casualties.
62. The next day, Italy declared war on Germany, which made little difference to the conflict.
63. The Alpine Corps was soon on its way to Siebenburg (Transylvania) for the Rumanian Campaign. Many changes took place including sending three of Mudra’s divisions to XVIII Corps for a short time to hold the front between Douaumont and Vaux. All these divisions needed rest.
64. The 54th was a special corps formed under General Kühne in September 1916. It was one of several non-traditional corps-type units and designated as General Command (Generalkommando). They formed without organic divisions, but were designed to command from two to six divisions.
65. The Tavannes railway tunnel had been converted into a shelter, headquarters, equipment, ammunition storage area and medical facility. Sanitation was lacking and the place was a health hazard. On 4 September, an accident sparked a fire that lasted for 2 days and killed about 500 men including the commander and staff of the 146th Brigade (73rd Division). Troops from four regiments, regular and territorial, were in the tunnel when the fire broke out. The tunnel continued to serve as a refuge after the fire.
66. The 38th was a sister division to the 37th with similar troops from North Africa.
67. The 400mm howitzers were 14km away at Baleycourt.
68. The remains of the gun turret block were turned into a machine-gun bunker and observation position in 1917.
Chapter 6
1. Hindenburg’s orders called for a minimum garrison at the front line and only a few deep dugouts. He prescribed one squad-size dugout every 50m or two dugouts every 100m for two squads each, but nothing larger in the front-line trench. Dugouts were to be no deeper than the required 7m of earth cover and should be built of concrete and steel to achieve minimum depth.
2. Operations continued in the Verdun area, especially in the Argonne where American forces became involved in 1918, but these operations were not part of another battle for Verdun. As the Franco-American forces advanced, at least one of the German Feste of Metz fired off a few rounds. If the Allies had been able to engage any of the German Feste before the war ended, they would have faced the strongest forts built before and during the First World War. The Maginot Line incorporated some of the features of these Feste.
Appendix
1. During the Napoleonic era, this was considered an effective way to employ a massive citizen army with little time to train it in marksmanship. In the twentieth century, there was more time for instruction. However, the French did not think that exchanging rifle fire with the enemy was as effective as facing him with cold steel.
2. Some Lewis guns were
mounted on vehicles in 1914.
3. According to most sources, after studying the Russo-Japanese War, the Germans had concluded that grenades would play an important role in any future conflict.
4. The Germans developed flamethrowers before the war and had three specialized battalions for them in 1911.
5. Société de Construction de Batignolles, a civil engineering company in Paris, began producing weapons during the war.
6. In The World War One Source Book (London: Arms and Amour Press, 1993), Philip Haythornthwaite gives a weight of 2,080lb, firing a 192lb projectile a maximum of about 1,000m. The projectile created a crater about 10m wide and almost 3m deep.
Bibliography
Publications
Adkin, Mark. Western Front Companion. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2013.
Army War College. Instructions on Wiring (Wire Obstacles). Washington, DC: January 1918.
Barnett, Correlli. The Swordbearers. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975.
Barton, Peter. The Somme. London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011.
The Battle of Verdun 1914–1918. Clermont-Ferrand (France): Michelin & Cie, 1920.
Bérenger, Henri. ‘The Iron Key to War and Peace’, Current History, No. 4 (July 1916), in The New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol. VIII (July–September 1916).
Bishop, Chris (ed.). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War I. London: Amber Books, 2014.
Bruce, Anthony. An Illustrated Companion to the First World War. London: Penguin, 1989.
Bruce, Robert B. Pétain: Verdun to Vichy. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2008.
Bull, Stephen. Trench: World War I Trench Warfare 1914–1916. Oxford: Osprey, 2002.
——. Aspects of War: Trench Warfare. London: PRC Publishing Ltd, 2003.
——. A History of Trench Warfare on the Western Front. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.
Castner, J. ‘The Development of Recoil and Counter-recoil Apparatus for Long Recoil Field Guns’, Journal of the United States Field Artillery, Vol. XXI, 1904, 40–65.
Chasseaud, Peter. Mapping The First World War. Glasgow: Harper Collins, 2013.
Chorzepa, Jaroslaw and Antol Wap (eds). Twiedrze I Dzialania Wojenne na Ziemiach Polskich W Czasie I Wojny Swiatowej (Fortresses and Military Operations on Polish Lands During World War I). Bialystok-Przansnysz: Ministry of Culture and Art, 2000.
Cox, Michael and Graham Watson. Pour la France: A Guide to the Formations and Units of the Land Forces of France 1914–18. Solihull: Helion & Company, 2012.
Creveld, Martin van. Supplying War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
——. The Changing Face of War. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.
Crivelli, Lieutenant. ‘Observation Balloons’, Field Artillery Journal (January–March 1918), Vol. VIII, 342–8.
Cron, Hermann. Imperial German Army 1914–18. repr. Solihull: Helion & Co., 2006.
Delvert, Charles Laurent and Joseph F. Bouchor. Verdun. Paris: L. Fournier, 1920.
Donnell, Clayton. The Fortifications of Verdun 1874–1917. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.
——. Breaking the Fortress Line 1914. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2013.
Doughty, Robert A. ‘French Strategy in 1914: Joffre’s Own’, Journal of Military History, Vol. 67, No. 2 (April 2003), 427–54.
——. Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005.
Drury, Ian. German Stormtrooper 1914–1918. London: Osprey, 1995.
Falkenhayn, General Erich von. General Headquarters 1914–1916. Repr. Nashville, TN: Battery Press, 2000.
Farmer, Gene (ed.) et al. The First World War. Chicago, IL: Time Inc., 1965.
Fleischer, Wolfgang. Deutsche Artillerie 1914–1918. Germany: Motorbuch Verlag, 2013.
Fitzsimons, Bernard (ed.). Tanks & Weapons of World War I. London: Phoebus, 1973.
Foley, Robert T. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
François, Guy, Pierre Touzin and François Vauvillier. Les Canons de la Victoire 1914–1918, 3 vols. Paris: Histoire & Collections, 2006–10.
Frijns, Marco, Luc Malchair, Jean-Jacques Moulins and Jean Puelinckx. Index de la Fortification Française 1874–1914. Welkenraedt: Auto-édition, 2008.
Gaber, Stéphane. La Lorraine fortifiée: 1870–1940. Metz: Editons Serpoenoise, 1979.
General Staff, War Office. Handbook of the French Army, 1914. Repr. Nashville, TN: Battery Press, 1995.
Gilbert, Martin. Atlas of the First World War. New York: Dorset Press, 1984.
von der Goltz, Colmar. The Nation in Arms. London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1887; English translation of Goltz’s 1883 Das Volk in Waffen.
Grand Quartier Général, 3rd Bureau (Operations Section of General HQ). Manuel du Chef de Section d’Infanterie (Edition de Janvier 1918). Paris: Imprimerie National, 1918.
Gray, Randal. Chronicle of the First World War: Vol. 1, 1914–1916. New York: Facts on File, 1990.
Greenhalgh, Elizabeth. The French Army and the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Griffiths, William R. The Great War: Strategies & Tactics of the First World War. New York: Square One Publishers, 2003.
Gruszecki, Andrzej (ed.). Fortyfikacja (Tome IV): Fortyfikacja Rosyjska na Zeimiach Polskich (Russian Fortifications on Polish Territory). Warsaw: Ministerstwo Kultury i Sztuki, 1996.
Gudmundsson, Bruce I. Stormtroop Tactics. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1989.
——. On Artillery. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.
Guttman, John. Nieuport 11/16 Bébé vs. Fokker Eindecker. Oxford: Osprey, 2014.
Harper’s Pictorial Library of the World War, 12 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1920.
Haythornthwaite, Philip J. The World War One Source Book. London: Arms and Amour Press, 1993.
Herbert, William V. The Defence of Plevna 1877. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1895.
Herr, Frederick. ‘Field Artillery: Past, Present and Future’, Field Artillery Journal, Vol. XVII, No. 3 and No. 4 (1927).
Herwig, Holger H. The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914–1918. New York: Arnold, 1997.
——. The Marne: 1914. New York: Random House, 2009.
Hindenburg, Paul von. The Great War. London: Greenhill Books, 2006; abridged edn of Out of My Life, ed. Charles Messenger, London: Cassell, 1920.
Hogg, Ian V. Allied Artillery of World War One. Ramsbury: Crowood Press, 1998.
Hohnadel, Alain and Philippe Bestetti. La Bataille des Forts (Metz et Verdun de 1865 to 1918). Bayeux: Editions Heimdal, 1995.
Holstein, Christina. Fort Douaumont, Verdun. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2002.
——. Fort Vaux. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011.
Horne, Alistair. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. New York: Penguin, 1978.
Horne, Charles F. (ed.). Source Records of the Great War, 7 vols. New York: National Alumni, 1923.
Illustrated Michelin Guides to the Battle-Fields (1914–1918). Verdun: and the Battles for its Possession. Repr. Lexington (KY): Michelin Tyre Co. Ltd, 2011.
Idzikowski, Tomasz. Forty Twierdzy Przemysl. Przemyśl: Regionalny Osrodek Kultury, Edukacji I Nauki w Przemyślu, 2001.
Jäger, Herbert. German Artillery of World War One. Ramsbury: Crowood Press, 2001.
Jankowski, Paul. Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Joffre, Joseph, Colonel T. Bentley Mott (trans.) and Colonel S.J. Lowe (trans.). The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, 2 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1932.
Johnson, Douglas Wilson. Topography and Strategy in the War. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1917.
Johnson, Hubert C. Breakthrough! Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994.
Jollivet, Gaston. L’epopée de Verdun, 1916. Paris: Hachette et Cie, 1917.
Jones, Simon. World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment. Oxford: Osprey, 1994.
Jung, Peter. The Austro-Hungarian Forces in World
War I, 2 vols. Oxford: Osprey, 2005.
La Gorce, Paul-Marie de. The French Army: A Military-Political History. New York: George Braziller, Inc. 1963.
Laffargue, André. ‘The Attack in Trench Warfare’, Infantry Journal, Washington, DC: The US Infantry Association, 1916.
Lawson, Eric and Jane. The First Air Campaign. Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1996.
Lazard, Lieutenant Colonel. Cours de fortification. 2me partie. Fortification permanente. 3me section, la fortification permanente pendant la guerre 1914–1918. France: Ecole Militaire et d’application du Genie, 1931.
Legrand-Girarde, General E. and Colonel H. Plessix. Manuel Complet de Fortification. A L’Ecole Superieure de Guerre. Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1909.
Le Hallé, Guy. Verdun: Les Forts de la Victoire. Paris: Citédis, 1998.
——. Le Systèm Séré de Rivières. Louviers: Ysec Editions, 2001.
von Ludendorff, Erich. ‘The Verdun Counter-Attack’, in Horne (ed.), Source Records of the Great War, 7 vols. New York: National Alumni, 1923, Vol. 4.
McMurray, Frank M. The Geography of the Great War. New York: MacMillan Co., 1919.
McNab, Chris. Verdun 1916: Battle Story. Stroud: The History Press, 2013.
Madelin, Louis. Verdun. Paris: Libraire Felix Alcan, 1920.
Martin, William. Verdun 1916: They Shall Not Pass. Oxford: Osprey, 2001.
Mosier, John. Verdun: The Lost History. New York: Penguin, 2013.
Moyer, Laurence V. Victory Must Be Ours. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1995.
Murray, Nicholas. The Rocky Road to the Great War. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013.
Neiberg, Michael. The Military Atlas of World War I. London: Amber Books, 2014.
