By the end of 1915, it was clear to the German General Staff that there was a growing discrepancy in the number of troops on the Western Front. The Entente forces were growing in size and Germany needed to keep pace. Germany sought to mitigate the growing strength of the Entente, and the Chief of General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, decided to act.
The result was a battle of attrition that characterized the misery of the First World War. This was the Battle of Verdun, fought throughout almost the entirety of 1916.
Before the Battle of Verdun
On the Western Front, French attempts to break through the German lines at the end of 1914 and through 1915 had been dismal failures. The French had consistently underestimated the value of German soldiery and blundered with wildly inaccurate beliefs of how the war would be fought. In the upper echelons of France’s military societies, it was believed that modern weaponry would not make the slightest difference and that victory lay in being able to hold forts. In reality, buildings such as these ended up being easily overcome by German artillery.
Nevertheless, around the town of Verdun, the French occupied a well-fortified salient that was perilously close to the German city of Metz. Von Falkenhayn decided that this was to be the direction of the German attack. Breaking through here, he hoped, would collapse the entire front line and open the way to Paris.
According to his writings, Von Falkenhayn had planned on winning the battle through attrition. However, the veracity of this claim has been called into question. Historian Gerd Krumeich claimed that a document known as the “Christmas Memorandum,” supposedly written by Von Falkenhayn at the end of 1915 that outlines his attempt at victory through attrition, was fabricated after Falkenhayn’s initial failure to secure a quick victory.
Nevertheless, the plan was to either capture or threaten to capture Verdun with minimal infantry usage and use artillery to inflict massive casualties on French counterattacks. Von Falkenhayn hoped to eliminate the threat of the French before the British could respond in full. In so doing, he also hoped the French would continue to send troops into a hopeless situation where the Germans could inflict heavy casualties.
The Germans’ ultimate hope was that if the French were significantly defeated, they would withdraw from the war, thus removing their 96 divisions and leaving the Entente unable to continue with any hope of victory.
On February 11, 1916, the French noticed the buildup of German forces on the east bank of the Meuse near Verdun. Alarmed and almost taken by surprise, the French hastily began reinforcing defenses in the area.
Poor weather hampered German preparations and forced the offensive to be delayed, thus giving the French valuable time to reinforce their positions around Verdun.
The Fighting Begins
On February 21 at 4 a.m., the Battle of Verdun began with the German offensive named “Operation Judgement.” The thunder of German artillery filled the air, and the French took cover, waiting for the shelling to end. German troops probed the line, looking for weak spots and testing the French defenses.
After five days, the German 5th Army achieved its first victory of the battle and captured Fort Douaumont. This defensive position was the largest and highest of the 19 defensive forts surrounding Verdun. In the days that followed, the Germans advanced five miles from their starting point, but the offensive slowed as the French were able to rally their defenses.
Fearing that France’s national morale would not survive the loss of the city, the Commander-in-Chief of the French forces, General Joseph Joffre, decided that Verdun was to be held at all costs, and put General Philippe Pétain, commanding the French 2nd Army, in charge of its defense. For the French, it was critical to stop the Germans from gaining all the high ground on the east bank of the Meuse.
The French rushed towards the front lines, moving past long lines of civilians evacuating in the opposite direction, and were able to halt the German offense.
This was accomplished with the help of snow and muddy ground, which hampered German efforts. Much of the frontline had moved beyond the range of German artillery, and so German troops were out of range of covering fire.
Pétain was a highly competent leader who believed in the effectiveness of proper defense. Under his command, trenches and fortifications were linked to form a defensive line that could easily withstand German efforts to break through.
Deadlock
With the Germans’ advance suddenly halted, the French were able to capitalize on German failures. The Germans did not control all the high ground to the east, and had not attacked in the west, leaving the area free for the deployment and use of French artillery.
To mitigate this, the Germans launched their attack in the west on March 6 but were stopped by a dogged French defense and rain that turned the ground into mud. With the Germans held back, the French were able to establish logistical lines and defense-in-depth to counter any further German attempts to advance.
As the fighting raged on, Pétain kept the front line well supplied with fresh troops by rotating troops out, while the Germans had the habit of keeping troops at the front line until they were completely exhausted or destroyed. The effect this had on morale was significant, helped by the arrival of more French artillery to the front.
Still, the Germans held their ground and committed themselves to continuing the battle. Intelligence showed that the Entente was planning to launch a major offensive along the Somme to the west, and the Germans wanted to keep the battle going at Verdun to disrupt the Entente’s plan for operations in the Picardy region where their offensive was planned.
French propaganda spoke of “courage” and the will to resist, while German propaganda, initially declaring that a quick victory was inevitable, switched to focusing on French losses. In truth, the losses were huge on both sides. In the thick morass of mud and craters, decomposing corpses littered the ground. Desperation was everywhere. Soldiers thirsted, searching for potable water, while the wounded fended for themselves on a battlefield where medical assistance was virtually non-existent.
The battle reached a point of deadlock, and through April and May, the front lines shifted little as the Germans and the French jostled for more ground.
Pétain was promoted, and his former command was split. On the east bank of the Meuse, French forces were commanded by Robert-Georges Nivelle, while on the left bank, they were under the command of Henri Berthelot. The Germans also saw the pragmatism of splitting command of their forces. General Bruno von Mudra was in command on the east bank, while General Max von Gallwitz commanded troops on the west bank. Gallwitz was replaced with General Hermann von François in July.
Falkenhayn was not blind to what was happening on a strategic level and toyed with the idea of ceasing operations. He informed Kaiser Wilhelm II that the battle was deadlocked with no victory in sight for either side. Falkenhayn was, however, informed by optimism and a good deal of faulty intelligence.
There was a failure to correctly interpret the French rotation system, and to the Germans, it looked as if fresh troops were replacing destroyed divisions instead of relieving them. As such, reports of French casualties were greatly inflated. In reality, French casualties were only slightly higher than those of the Germans.
The French Seize the Initiative
In May and June, the Germans had made incremental gains but were unable to turn their minor successes into victories. French counterattacks limited the effect of the German successes.
Nevertheless, these gains had sowed much doubt in the mind of Pétain, who considered giving up the east bank, but he was ordered to hold his ground at all costs. Meanwhile, the Somme offensive began on June 24 after days of constant artillery barrages. The British began their assault and suffered 60,000 casualties on the first day alone, with a third of them dead.
Meanwhile, in Verdun, the back-and-forth continued until September 3, with the final German attack failing to achieve anything of significant value. By this time, the French had already decided to take the initiative and launch major attacks of their own. In August, the French made significant progress in taking the fort of Thiaumont and the village of Fleury in what was a bitterly contested struggle. The Germans finally managed to regain Thiaumont, but Fleury would remain in French hands.
In October, preparations were underway for the French to launch a large counteroffensive. Under the Command of General Charles Mangin, three divisions advanced on October 24 under the cover of a creeping barrage from hundreds of the newest French artillery pieces. In a stunning blow to the Germans, by the evening of the 24th, Douaumont was once again in French hands, along with 6,000 German prisoners.
With the help of constant artillery barrages and control over the skies throughout November and into December, the French pushed forward, edging closer to the lines they had been forced to abandon at the beginning of the battle.
By December 18, the battle was over with a resounding French victory, but the cost had been horrendous for both sides.
The Cost
As the Battle of the Somme developed to the northwest, the focus of the Western Front shifted. While the French made headway at Verdun, the Germans were forced to accept defeat and redeploy vast amounts of resources to the Picardy region in an attempt to defeat the Entente there.
The Battle of Verdun was one of the costliest battles of the First World War. The Germans took around 350,000 casualties, with 143,000 killed, while the French casualties were as high as 400,000, with a claim of 163,000 dead.
The Germans had expected a battle of attrition but did not expect it to drag out as long as it did, nor did they expect a near-par ratio of casualties.
Unsurprisingly, the effect the battle had on national morale was significant. The French were bolstered by their victory but were well aware that the misery of war was set to continue. For the Germans, the defeat was humiliating and served to increase the need for victory elsewhere on the Western Front. The Austro-Hungarians had also suffered a terrible defeat in the East during the time of Verdun, and it became clear that if the war were to be won, it would be Germany that had to carry victory for the Central Powers. The loss at Verdun made this outcome even harder to achieve.
Today, Verdun is remembered as an example of the misery and horrors of World War I while simultaneously representing a patriotic symbol for the French. In exchange for the massive cost of human life, valuable lessons were learned as the effectiveness of troop rotation, air superiority, and mechanized logistics were significant factors that led to the French triumph.
