German invasion of Belgium (1914)

For the invasion in World War II, see Battle of Belgium.

German invasion of Belgium
Part of World War I
German invasion of Belgium
Date 4 August – 31 October 1914 Location Belgium and Luxembourg Result German victory Territorial changes German occupation of Belgium and Luxembourg
Belligerents
German Empire Supported by: Austria-Hungary	Belgium France United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Karl von Bülow Alexander von Kluck	Albert I Charles de Broqueville Antonin de Selliers de Moranville
Strength
750,000 men	117,000 men
Casualties and losses
20,000	30,000
6,000 civilians killed

The German invasion of Belgium was a military campaign which began on 4 August 1914. Earlier, on 24 July, the Belgian government had announced that if war came it would uphold its historic neutrality. The Belgian government mobilised its armed forces on 31 July and a state of heightened alert ([Kriegsgefahr] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) was proclaimed in Germany. On 2 August the German government sent an ultimatum to Belgium, demanding passage through the country and German forces invaded Luxembourg. Two days later, the Belgian Government refused the demands and the British Government guaranteed military support to Belgium. The German government declared war on Belgium on 4 August and troops crossed the border and attacked the Belgian city of Liège.

German military operations in Belgium were intended to bring the 1st, 2nd and 3rd armies into positions in Belgium, from which they could invade France, which led to sieges of Belgian fortresses along the Meuse river at Namur, after the fall of Liège on 7 August and the surrender of the last forts on 16–17 August. The government abandoned the capital, Brussels, on 17 August and after fighting on the Gete river, the Belgian field army withdrew westwards, to the National Redoubt at Antwerp on 19 August. Brussels was occupied the following day and Namur was besieged on 21 August.

After the battles of Mons and Charleroi, the bulk of the German armies marched south into France, leaving small forces to garrison Brussels and the Belgian railways. The III Reserve Corps advanced to the fortified zone around Antwerp and a division of the IV Reserve Corps took over in Brussels. The Belgian field army made several sorties from Antwerp in late August and September, to harass German communications and to assist the French and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), by keeping German troops in Belgium. German troop withdrawals to reinforce the main armies in France, were postponed to repulse a Belgian sortie from 9–13 September and a corps in transit was retained in Belgium for several days. Belgian resistance and German fear of francs-tireurs, led the Germans to implement a policy of terror ([schrecklichkeit] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) against Belgian civilians soon after the invasion, in which massacres, executions, hostage taking and the burning of towns and villages took place and became known as the Rape of Belgium.

While the French armies and the BEF began the Great Retreat into France (24 August – 28 September), the Belgian army and small detachments of French and British troops fought in Belgium against German cavalry and [Jäger] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) units. On 27 August a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) flew to Ostend, for air reconnaissance sorties between Bruges, Ghent and Ypres. British marines landed in France on 19/20 September and began scouting unoccupied Belgium in motor cars; an RNAS Armoured Car Section was created by fitting vehicles with bullet-proof steel. On 2 October the Marine Brigade of the Royal Naval Division was moved to Antwerp, followed by the rest of the division on 6 October. From 6–7 October the 7th Division and the 3rd Cavalry Division landed at Zeebrugge and naval forces collected at Dover were formed into the Dover Patrol, to operate in the Channel and off the French-Belgian coast. Despite minor British reinforcement, the siege of Antwerp ended when its defensive ring of forts was destroyed by German super-heavy artillery. The city was abandoned on 9 October and Allied forces withdrew to West Flanders.

At the end of the "Race to the Sea" (17 September – 19 October), a period of reciprocal attempts by the Germans and Franco-British to outflank their opponents in the west began, extending the front line northwards from the Aisne, Picardy, Artois and Flanders. Military operations in Belgium also moved westwards as the Belgian army withdrew from Antwerp to the area close to the border with France. The Belgian army fought a defensive battle on the Yser (16–31 October) from Nieuport south to Dixmude, as the 4th Army attacked westwards and French, British and some Belgian troops fought the First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November) against the 4th and 6th armies. By November 1914, most of Belgium was under German occupation and Allied naval blockade. A military administration was established on 26 August 1914, to rule Belgium through the pre-war Belgian administrative system, overseen by a small group of German officers and officials. Belgium was divided into three administrative zones: the General Government, which included Brussels and the hinterland; a second zone, under the 4th Army, including Ghent and Antwerp; and a third zone under the German Navy along the coastline. The German occupation was maintained until late 1918.

Background

Strategic developments

Belgian neutrality

Map of Europe in 1914

The 1839 Treaty of London recognized Belgium as an independent and neutral state. Until 1911, Belgian strategic analysis anticipated that if war came, the Germans would attack France across the Franco-German border and trap the French armies against the Belgian frontier, as they had done in 1870. British and French guarantees of Belgian independence were made before 1914 but the possibility of landings in Antwerp was floated by the British military attaché in 1906 and 1911, which led the Belgians to suspect that the British had come to see Belgian neutrality as a matter of British diplomatic and military advantage, rather than as an end in itself. The Agadir Crisis of 1911 left the Belgian government in little doubt as to the risk of a European war and a likely German invasion of Belgium. In September 1911, a government meeting concluded that Belgium must be prepared to resist a German invasion, to avoid accusations of collusion by the British and French governments. Britain, France and the Netherlands were also to continue to be treated as potential enemies. In 1913 and 1914, the Germans made inquires to the Belgian military attaché in Berlin, about the passage of German military forces through Belgium. If invaded, Belgium would need foreign help but would not treat foreign powers as allies or form objectives beyond the maintenance of Belgian independence. Neutrality forced the Belgian government into a strategy of military independence, based on a rearmament programme begun in 1909, which was expected to be complete in 1926. The Belgian plan was to have three army corps, to reduce the numerical advantage of the German armies over the French, intended to deter a German invasion.

Conscription began in 1909 but with a reduction in the term of service to fifteen months; the Agadir Crisis made the government continue its preparations but until 1913 the size of the army was not fixed as a proportion of the population. The annual conscription of 13,300 recruits was increased to 33,000 so that a field army of 180,000 men could be attained. Older men would continue to serve as garrison troops and by 1926 340,000 men would be available. Implementation of the new scheme had disrupted the old one but had not become effective by 1914. During the crisis over the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, regiments were divided and eight conscription classes were incorporated into the army, to provide 117,000 men for the field army and 200,000 fortress troops. The Belgian army planned all-round defence, rather than concentrating the army against a particular threat. Belgian defences were to be based on a "National Redoubt" at Antwerp, with the field army massed in the centre of the country 60 kilometres (37 mi) from the border, ready to manoeuvre to delay an invasion, while the frontiers were protected by the fortified regions of Liège and Namur. The German invasion of Belgium on 4 August 1914, in violation of Article VII of the Treaty of London, was the reason given by the British government for declaring war on Germany.

War plans

Main articles: Plan XVII and Schlieffen Plan

Belgium

Main article: Belgian Army order of battle (1914)

Headline in Le Soir, 4 August 1914

Belgian military planning was based on the assumption that other powers would eject an invader, but the likelihood of a German invasion did not lead to France and Britain being seen as allies or for the Belgian government intending to do more than protect its independence. The Anglo-French Entente (1904) had led the Belgians to perceive that the British attitude to Belgium had changed and that it was seen as a British protectorate. A General Staff was formed in 1910 but the [Chef d'État-Major Général de l'Armée] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Lieutenant-Général Harry Jungbluth was retired on 30 June 1912 and not replaced until May 1914 by Lieutenant-General Chevalier de Selliers de Moranville who began planning for the concentration of the army and met railway officials on 29 July. Belgian troops were to be massed in central Belgium, in front of the National redoubt of Belgium ready to face any border, while the Fortified Position of Liège and Fortified Position of Namur were left to secure the frontiers. On mobilization, the King became Commander-in-Chief and chose where the army was to concentrate. Amid the disruption of the new rearmament plan the disorganised and poorly trained Belgian soldiers would benefit from a central position to delay contact with an invader but it would also need fortifications for defence, which were on the frontier. A school of thought wanted a return to a frontier deployment in line with French theories of the offensive. Belgian plans became a compromise in which the field army concentrated behind the Gete river with two divisions forward at Liège and Namur.

Schlieffen–Moltke Plan

Main article: German Army order of battle (1914)

German strategy had given priority to offensive operations against France and a defensive posture against Russia since 1891. German planning was determined by numerical inferiority, the speed of mobilisation and concentration and the effect of the vast increase of the power of modern weapons. Frontal attacks were expected to be costly and protracted, leading to limited success, particularly after the French and Russians modernised their fortifications on the frontiers with Germany. Alfred von Schlieffen Chief of the Imperial German General Staff (Oberste Heeresleitung "OHL") from 1891–1906 devised a plan to evade the French frontier fortifications, with an offensive on the northern flank which would have a local numerical superiority and obtain rapidly a decisive victory. By 1898–1899 such a manoeuvre was intended to swiftly pass through Belgium, between Antwerp and Namur and threaten Paris from the north. Helmuth von Moltke the Younger succeeded Schlieffen in 1906 and was less certain that the French would conform to German assumptions. Moltke adapted the deployment and concentration plan, to accommodate an attack in the centre or an enveloping attack from both flanks as variants to the plan, by adding divisions to the left flank opposite the French frontier, from the c. 1,700,000 men expected to be mobilised in the [Westheer] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("western army"). The main German force would still advance through Belgium and attack southwards into France, the French armies would be enveloped on the left and pressed back over the Meuse, Aisne, Somme, Oise, Marne and Seine, unable to withdraw into central France. The French would either be annihilated or the manoeuvre from the north would create conditions for victory in the centre or in Lorraine on the common border.

Plan XVII

Main article: French Army order of battle (1914)

Under Plan XVII the French peacetime army was to form five field armies, with a group of Reserve divisions attached to each army and a group of Reserve divisions on each flank, a military force of c. 2,000,000 men. The armies were to concentrate opposite the German frontier around Épinal, Nancy and Verdun–Mezières, with an army in reserve around Ste. Ménéhould and Commercy. Since 1871, railway building had given the French General staff sixteen lines to the German frontier, against thirteen available to the German army and the French could afford to wait until German intentions were clear. The French deployment was intended to be ready for a German offensive in Lorraine or through Belgium. It was anticipated that the Germans would use reserve troops but also expected that a large German army would be mobilised on the border with Russia, leaving the western army with sufficient troops only to advance through Belgium south of the Meuse and the Sambre rivers. French intelligence had obtained a map exercise of the German general staff of 1905, in which German troops had gone no further north than Namur and assumed that plans to besiege Belgian forts were a defensive measure against the Belgian army.

A German attack from south-eastern Belgium towards Mézières and a possible offensive from Lorraine towards Verdun, Nancy and St. Dié was anticipated; the plan was an evolution from Plan XVI and made more provision for the possibility of a German offensive from the north through Belgium. The First, Second and Third armies were to concentrate between Épinal and Verdun opposite Alsace and Lorraine, the Fifth Army was to assemble from Montmédy to Sedan and Mézières and the Fourth Army was to be held back west of Verdun, ready to move east to attack the southern flank of a German invasion through Belgium or southwards against the northern flank of an attack through Lorraine. No formal provision was made for combined operations with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) but joint arrangements had been made and in 1911 during the Second Moroccan Crisis, the French had been told that six British divisions could be expected to operate around Maubeuge.

Prelude

Diplomacy, June–August 1914

Main article: July Crisis

Monument to Antoine-Adolphe Fonck, a soldier of the 2nd Lancers killed on 4 August, who was the first Belgian casualty of the war

On 28 June the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and on 5 July the Kaiser promised "the full support of Germany" if Austria-Hungary took action against Serbia. On 23 July the Austro-Hungarian Government sent an ultimatum to Serbia and next day the British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey proposed a conference to avert a war and the Belgian Government issued a declaration that Belgium would defend its neutrality "whatever the consequences". On 25 July the Serbian Government ordered mobilisation and on 26 July, the Austro-Hungarian Government ordered partial mobilisation against Serbia. The French and Italian governments accepted British proposals for a conference on 27 July but the next day Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and the German government rejected the British proposal for a conference and on 29 July the Russian government ordered partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary as hostilities commenced between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The German government made proposals to secure British neutrality; the Admiralty sent a "Warning Telegram" to the Fleets and the War Office ordered the "Precautionary Period" On 30 July the British government rejected German proposals for British neutrality and next day the Austro-Hungarian and Russian governments ordered full mobilisation.

At midnight on 31 July – 1 August the German government sent an ultimatum to Russia and announced a state of "Kriegsgefahr" during the day; the Turkish government ordered mobilisation and the London Stock Exchange closed. On 1 August the British government ordered the mobilisation of the Navy, the German government ordered general mobilisation and declared war on Russia. Hostilities commenced on the Polish frontier, the French government ordered general mobilisation and next day the German government sent an ultimatum to Belgium demanding passage through Belgian territory, as German troops crossed the frontier of Luxembourg. Military operations began on the French frontier, Libau was bombarded by a German cruiser SMS Augsburg and the British government guaranteed naval protection for French coasts. On 3 August the Belgian Government refused German demands and the British Government guaranteed military support to Belgium should Germany invade. Germany declared war on France, the British government ordered general mobilisation and Italy declared neutrality. On 4 August the British government sent an ultimatum to Germany and declared war on Germany at midnight on 4–5 August Central European time. Belgium severed diplomatic relations with Germany and Germany declared war on Belgium. German troops crossed the Belgian frontier and attacked Liège.

Eastern Front

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July and on 1 August military operations began on the Polish border. Libau was bombarded by a German cruiser on 2 August and on 5 August Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary. On 6 August Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia and Serbia declared war on Germany; war began between Montenegro and Germany on 8 August. The Battle of Stallupönen (17 August) caused a minor check to the Russian invasion of East Prussia and on 12 August Britain and France declared war on Austria-Hungary, as Austrian forces crossed the Save and seized Shabatz. Next day Austrian forces crossed the Drina and began the first invasion of Serbia. The Battle of Cer (Battle of the Jadar, 17–21 August) began and the Battle of Gumbinnen in East Prussia took place from 19–20 August. On 21 August Austro-Hungarian forces withdrew from Serbia. The Battle of Tannenberg (26–30 August) began in East Prussia and the in the Battle of Galicia (23 August – 11 September) the First Battle of Kraśnik was fought in Poland from 23–25 August. Shabatz was retaken by Serbian forces and the last Austrian troops retired across the Drina, ending the First Austrian Invasion of Serbia. The First Battle of Lemberg (26–30 August) began in Galicia and the Battle of Komarów (26 August – 2 September) and the Battle of Gnila Lipa (26–30 August) began in Poland. A naval action took place off the Aaland Islands and a German cruiser SMS Magdeburg ran aground and was intercepted by a Russian squadron.

Russian prisoners of war, photographed in December 1914

On 3 September Lemberg was captured by the Russian army and the Battle of Rawa (Battle of Tarnavka 7–9 September) began in Galicia. The First Battle of the Masurian Lakes (7–14 September) began and on 8 September the Austro-Hungarian army commenced the Second Invasion of Serbia, leading to the Battle of Drina (6 September – 4 October). The Second Battle of Lemberg (8–11 September) began and on 11 September, Austrian forces in Galicia retreated. The Battle of the Masurian Lakes ended on 15 September and Czernowitz in Bukovina was taken by the Russian army. On 17 September Serbian forces in Syrmia were withdrawn and Semlin evacuated, as the Battle of the Drina ended. Next day General Paul von Hindenburg was appointed [Oberbefehlshaber der gesamten Deutschen Streitkräfte im Osten] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("Ober Ost", Commander-in-Chief of German Armies in the Eastern Theatre). on 21 September, Jaroslaw in Galicia was taken by the Russian army. On 24 September Przemyśl was isolated by Russian forces, beginning the First Siege as Russian forces conducted the First Invasion of North Hungary (24 September – 8 October). Military operations began on the Niemen (25–29 September) but German attacks were suspended on 29 September. The retreat of Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia ended and Maramaros-Sziget was captured by the Russian army. An Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive began in Galicia on 4 October and Maramaros-Sziget was retaken. On 9 October, the First German offensive against Warsaw began with the battles of Warsaw (9–19 October) and Ivangorod (9–20 October).

Battles

Battle of Liège, 4–16 August

Main article: Battle of Liège

Fortified Position of Liège

The Battle of Liège was the first engagement in the German invasion of Belgium and the first battle of World War I. The attack on the city began on 5 August 1914 and lasted until 16 August, when the last fort was surrendered. The German invasion of Belgium led the British to declare war and the length of the siege may have delayed the German invasion of France by 4–5 days. Railways needed by the German armies in eastern Belgium were closed during the early part of the siege and by the morning of 17 August, the German First, Second and Third Armies were free to resume their advance to the French frontier but German troops did not appear in strength before Namur until 20 August. The Belgian field army withdrew from the Gete towards Antwerp from 18–20 August and Brussels was captured unopposed on 20 August. The siege of Liège lasted for eleven days, rather than the two days anticipated by the Germans. For 18 days, Belgian military operations in the east of the country had delayed German operations, which some writers claimed had been advantageous to the Franco-British forces in northern France and in Belgium. Wolfgang Förster wrote that the German time-table of deployment had required its armies to reach a line from Thionville to Sedan and Mons by the 22nd day of mobilisation (23 August), which was achieved ahead of schedule. In Bulletin Belge des Sciences Militaires, a four-day delay was claimed. John Buchan wrote that "The triumph was moral – an advertisement to the world that the ancient faiths of country and duty could still nerve the arm for battle, and that the German idol, for all its splendour, had feet of clay".

Battle of Halen, 12 August 1914

Main article: Battle of Halen

The Battle of Haelen was fought by mounted and dismounted cavalry and other forces on 12 August 1914 between German forces, led by Georg von der Marwitz and Belgian forces, led by Léon de Witte. To block a German advance towards Hasselt and Diest, the Cavalry Division commanded by Lieutenant-General Léon de Witte, was sent to guard the bridge over the river Gete at Haelen. During an evening meeting, the Belgian general staff directed de Witte to fight a dismounted action in an attempt to nullify the German numerical advantage. From communication intercepts, the Belgian Headquarters discovered that the Germans were heading in force towards de Witte and sent the 4th Infantry Brigade to reinforce the Cavalry Division. The battle began around 8:00 a.m. when a German scouting party advancing from Herk-de-Stad was engaged with small-arms fire by Belgian troops. About 200 Belgian soldiers attempted to set up a fortified position in the old brewery in Haelen but were driven out of the building when the Germans brought up field artillery.

Contemporary Belgian depiction of the Battle of Halen

Belgian engineers had blown the bridge over the Gete but the structure only partly collapsed, which left the Germans an opportunity to send c. 1,000 troops into the centre of Haelen. The main Belgian defence line was to the west of Haelen, on terrain which was partially overlooked by the Germans. The relatively easy capture of Haelen made the Germans confident and led to several ill-conceived attempts to capture the Belgian position with sabre and lance attacks. Towards the end of the day the Germans were forced to retire towards their main columns east of Haelen. The battle was a victory for the Belgian army but was strategically indecisive. The Germans went on to besiege the fortified cities of Namur, Liège and Antwerp, which had formed the basis of the Belgian defensive system, intended to delay an invader until foreign troops could intervene, according to the Treaty of London. The Germans suffered casualties of 150 dead, 600 wounded, 200–300 prisoners and c. 400 horses. Belgian casualties were 160 dead and 320 wounded.

Siege of Namur, 20–24 August

Main article: Siege of Namur (1914)

Namur fortifications, 1914

Namur was defended by a ring of modern fortresses, known as the Fortified Position of Namur and guarded by the Belgian 4th Division. When the siege began on 20 August, the Germans reversed the tactics used at Liège, by waiting until the siege train arrived from Liège and bombard the forts before attacking with infantry. French troops sent to relieve the city were defeated at the Battle of Charleroi and only a few managed to participate in the fighting for Namur. The forts were destroyed in the bombardment and much of the Belgian 4th Division withdrew to the south and the Belgian fortress troops were forced to surrender on 24 August. The Belgian fortress troops held the German advance for several days longer than the Germans had anticipated, which allowed Belgium and France more time to mobilize. The Belgian army had c. 15,000 casualties of whom c. 10,000 were from the 4th Division, which was moved to Le Havre and then by sea to Ostend on 27 August, from where it re-joined the field army at Antwerp. The authors of Der Weltkrieg, the German Official History recorded the taking of 6,700 Belgian and French prisoners, the capture of twelve field guns and a loss of 900 German casualties, of whom c. 300 were killed.

Battles of Charleroi and Mons, 21–23 August

Main articles: Battle of Charleroi and Battle of Mons

Battle of Charleroi

The Battle of Charleroi was fought on 21 August 1914, between French and German forces and was part of the Battle of the Frontiers. The French were planning an attack across the river Sambre, when the Germans attacked and the French Fifth army was forced into a retreat, which prevented the German army from enveloping and destroying the French. After another defensive action in the Battle of St. Quentin, the French were pushed to within miles of Paris. The British attempted to hold the line of the Mons–Condé Canal on the left flank of the French Fifth army against the German 1st Army and inflicted disproportionate casualties, before retreating when some units were overrun and the French Fifth Army on the right flank withdrew in the aftermath of the battle further east at Charleroi. Both sides had tactical success at Mons, the British had withstood the German First Army for 48 hours, prevented the French Fifth Army from being outflanked and then retired in good order. For the Germans the battle had been a tactical defeat and a strategic success. The First Army had been delayed and suffered many casualties but had forced the crossing of the Mons–Condé Canal and begun to advance into France.

Siege of Antwerp, 28 September – 10 October

Main article: Siege of Antwerp (1914)

Defences of Antwerp, 1914

The siege around the fortified city of Antwerp during World War I. German troops besieged a garrison of Belgian fortress troops, the Belgian field army and the British Royal Naval Division, after the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914. The city was ringed by forts known as the National redoubt and was invested to the south and east by German forces, which began a bombardment of the Belgian fortifications with heavy and super-heavy artillery on 28 September. The Belgian garrison had no hope of victory without relief and despite the arrival of the Royal Naval Division beginning on 3 October, the Germans penetrated the outer ring of forts. When the German advance began to compress a corridor from the west of the city along the Dutch border to the coast, through which the Belgians at Antwerp had maintained contact with the rest of unoccupied Belgium, the Belgian field army commenced a withdrawal westwards towards the coast. On 9 October, the remaining garrison surrendered, the Germans occupied the city and some British and Belgian troops escaped north to the Netherlands and were interned for the duration of the war. A large amount of ammunition and many of the 2,500 guns at Antwerp, were captured intact by the German army. The c. 80,000 surviving men of the Belgian field army escaped westwards, with most of the Royal Naval Division. British casualties were 57 killed, 138 wounded, 1,479 interned and 936 taken prisoner. The operations to save Antwerp failed but detained German troops, when they were needed for operations against Ypres and the coast. Ostend and Zeebrugge were captured by the Germans unopposed and the troops from Antwerp took post along the Yser river and fought in the Battle of the Yser, which thwarted the final German attempt to turn the Allied northern flank.

Peripheral operations, August–October

Main article: Siege of Maubeuge

Maubeuge fortress zone, 1914

Belgian resistance and German fear of Francs-tireurs, led the Germans to implement a policy of schrecklichkeit ("frightfulness") against Belgian civilians soon after the invasion, in which massacres, executions, hostage taking and the burning of towns and villages took place and became known as the Rape of Belgium. After the Battle of the Sambre the French Fifth Army and the BEF retreated and on 25 August, General Fournier was ordered to defend the fortress, which was surrounded on 27 August by the VII Reserve Corps, which had two divisions and eventually received some of the German super-heavy artillery, brought from the sieges in Belgium. Maubeuge was defended by fourteen forts, with a garrison of 30,000 French Territorials and c. 10,000 French, British and Belgian stragglers and blocked the main Cologne–Paris rail line. Only the line from Trier to Liege, Brussels, Valenciennes and Cambrai was open and had to carry supplies southward to the armies on the Aisne and transport troops of the 6th Army northwards.

On 29 August the Germans began a bombardment of the forts around Maubeuge. On 5 September, four of the forts were stormed by German infantry, creating a gap in the defences. On 7 September the garrison surrendered. The Germans took 40,000 prisoners and captured 377 guns. After the capture of Maubeuge the line from Cologne–Paris line was of limited use between Diedenhofen and Luxembourg, until the bridge at Namur was repaired. The Battle of the Marne began as the Maubeuge forts were stormed and during the Battle of the Aisne one of the VII Reserve Corps divisions arrived in time to join the German 7th Army, which closed a dangerous gap in the German line. While the BEF and the French armies conducted the Great Retreat into France (24 August – 28 September), small detachments of the Belgian, French and British armies conducted operations against German cavalry and Jäger.

Franco-Belgian littoral, 1914

On 27 August, a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) had flown to Ostend, for air reconnaissance sorties between Bruges, Ghent and Ypres. British marines landed at Dunkirk on the night of 19/20 September and on 28 September a battalion occupied Lille. The rest of the brigade occupied Cassel on 30 September and scouted the country in motor cars; an RNAS Armoured Car Section was created, by fitting vehicles with bullet-proof steel. On 2 October, the Marine Brigade was moved to Antwerp, followed by the rest of the Naval Division on 6 October, having landed at Dunkirk on the night of 4/5 October. From 6–7 October, the 7th Division and the 3rd Cavalry Division landed at Zeebrugge. Naval forces collected at Dover were formed into a separate unit, which became the Dover Patrol, to operate in the Channel and off the French-Belgian coast.

Race to the Sea, 17 September – 19 October

Main article: Race to the Sea

Franco-German flanking moves, 15 September – 8 October 1914

The Race to the Sea took place from about 17 September – 19 October 1914, after the Battle of the Frontiers (7 August–13 September) and the German advance into France, which had been stopped at the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September) and was followed by the First Battle of the Aisne (13 September – 28 September), a Franco-British counter-offensive. The term described reciprocal attempts by the Franco-British and German armies, to envelop the northern flank of the opposing army through Picardy, Artois and Flanders, rather than an attempt to advance northwards to the sea. Troops were moved from the French-German border by both sides, to the western flank to prevent opposing outflanking moves and then to counter-outflank the opponent. At the battles of Picardy and Albert in late September, the French Second and German 6th armies fought meeting engagements from the Oise north to the Somme but neither was able to envelop the northern flank of the opponent.

French and German armies were moved from the east for further outflanking attempts to the north and the BEF made a camouflaged move from the Aisne front on the night of 1/2 October, with no movement by day, which with rainy weather grounding aircraft, deceived the Germans. On 8–9 October the BEF began to assemble around Abbeville, ready to begin an offensive around the German northern flank, towards the Belgian and Allied troops in Flanders. French and German efforts to outflank each other were frustrated, during the Battle of Arras in early October and the battles of La Bassée, Armentières and Messines. The "race" ended on the North Sea coast of Belgium around 19 October, when the last open area from Dixmude to the North Sea was occupied by Belgian troops, who had been withdrawn from the siege of Antwerp (28 September – 10 October). The British held a line from La Bassée to Passchendaele, the French from Passchendaele to Dixmude and the Belgian army from Dixmude to Nieuport. The outflanking attempts had resulted in a number of encounter battles but neither side was able to gain a decisive victory.

Battle of the Yser, 16 October – 2 November

Main article: Battle of the Yser

Yser front, 1914

The Battle of the Yser took place in October 1914 along a 35-kilometre (22 mi) long stretch of the Yser river and Yperlee canal in Belgium. On 15 October c. 50,000 Belgian troops ended their retreat from Antwerp and took post between Nieuport and French Fusiliers Marins at Dixmude, which marked the end of the "Race to the Sea". Both sides conducted offensives and when the attacks by the Tenth Army and the BEF to Lille was defeated in early October, more French troops were sent to the north and formed the [Détachement d'Armée de Belgique] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("Army Detachment of Belgium") under the command of General Victor d'Urbal. Falkenhayn assembled a new 4th Army from the III Reserve Corps, available since the fall of Antwerp and four new reserve corps, which had been raised in Germany in August and were deficient in training, weapons, equipment and leadership. The 4th Army offensive along the coast to St. Omer, began with operations against the Belgians, to drive them back from the Yser.

On 16 October King Albert ordered that retreating soldiers were to be shot and officers who shirked would be court-martialled. The Belgian army was exhausted, water was so close to the land surface that trenches could only be dug 1–2 feet (0.30–0.61 m) deep and the field artillery was short of ammunition and had worn guns. A German offensive began on 18 October and by 22 October had gained a foothold across the Yser at Tervaete. By the end of 23 October the Belgians had been driven back from the river bank and next day the Germans had a bridgehead 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) wide. The French 42nd Division was used to reinforce the Belgians who had fallen back to a railway embankment from Dixmude to Nieuport which was 1–2 metres (3.3–6.6 ft) above sea level. By 26 October the position of the Belgian army had deteriorated to the point that another withdrawal was contemplated. King Albert rejected withdrawal and next day sluice gates at Nieuport were opened to begin the flooding of the coastal plain. A German attack on 30 October crossed the embankment at Ramscappelle but was forced back during a counter-attack late on 31 October and on 2 November Dixmude was captured.

First Battle of Ypres, 19 October – 22 November

Main article: First Battle of Ypres

Opposing forces at Ypres, October 1914

The First Battle of Ypres (part of the First Battle of Flanders) began on 19 October with attacks by the German 6th and 4th armies at the same time that the BEF attacked towards Menin and Roulers. On 21 October, attacks by the 4th Army reserve corps were repulsed in a costly battle and on 23–24 October German attacks were conducted to the north, on the Yser by the 4th Army and to the south by the 6th Army. French attacks by the new Eighth Army were made towards Roulers and Thourout, which diverted German troops from British and Belgian positions. A new German attack was planned in which the 4th and 6th armies would pin Allied troops while a new formation, [Armeegruppe von Fabeck] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) with six new divisions and more than 250 heavy guns took over the boundary of the two German armies, to attack north-west between Messines and Gheluvelt. The British I Corps was dug in astride the Menin road, with dismounted British cavalry further south. German attacks took ground on the Menin road on 29 October and drove back the British cavalry next day, from Zandvoorde and Hollebeke to a line 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from Ypres. Three French battalions released from the Yser front, by the inundation of the ground around the Yser, were sent south and on 31 October the British defence of Gheluvelt began to collapse until a battalion counter-attacked and drove back the German troops from the crossroads.

German attacks south of the Menin road took small areas but Messines ridge had been consolidated by the British garrison and was not captured. By 1 November, the BEF was close to exhaustion and 75 of 84 infantry battalions had fewer than 300 men left; 1⁄3 of their establishment. The French XIV Corps was moved north from the Tenth Army and the French IX Corps attacked southwards towards Becelaere, which relieved the pressure on both British flanks. German attacks began to diminish on 3 November, by when [Armeegruppe von Fabeck] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) had lost 17,250 casualties. A French offensive was planned for 6 November towards Langemarck and Messines, to widen the Ypres salient but German attacks began again on 5 November in the same area until 8 November, then again on 10–11 November. The main attack on 10 November was made by the 4th Army between Langemarck and Dixmude, in which Dixmude was lost by the Franco-Belgian garrison. Next day to the south, the British were subjected to an unprecedented bombardment between Messines and Polygon Wood and then an attack by Prussian Guard, which broke into British positions along the Menin road, before being forced back by counter-attacks. From mid-October to early November the German Fourth Army lost 52,000 and the Sixth Army lost 28,000 casualties.

Aftermath

Analysis

German occupation of Belgium, 1914–1916

The offensive strategies of France and Germany had failed by November 1914, leaving most of Belgium under German occupation and Allied blockade.The German General Governorate of Belgium ([Kaiserliches Deutsches Generalgouvernement Belgien] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), was established on 26 August 1914 under Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz as Military Governor. Goltz was succeeded by General Moritz von Bissing on 27 November 1914. Soon after Bissing's appointment, OHL divided Belgium into three zones. The largest of the zones was the General Governorate, which included the capital Brussels and the hinterland. The second zone, under the 4th Army, included Ghent and Antwerp. The third zone was under the German Navy and included the Belgian coast. The German occupation authorities ruled Belgium under the pre-war Belgian administrative system, overseen by a small group of German officers and officials.

The Germans had used Belgium to invade northern France, which had led to the Franco-British defeats of Charleroi and Mons, followed by a rapid retreat to the Marne, where the German offensive was defeated. Attempts by both sides to envelop the opponent's northern flank had then brought the main armies back to the north, where sieges and small operations had been conducted by detachments from the main the German armies against Belgian, British and French troops. The siege of Antwerp ended as operations resumed on the western border with the battles of the Yser and Ypres which were costly and indecisive. Falkenhayn attempted to gain a limited success, after the failure of the October offensive and aimed to capture Ypres and Mt. Kemmel but even this proved beyond the capacity of the 4th and 6th armies. On 10 November Falkenhayn told the Kaiser that no great success could be expected on the Western Front. German troops were tired and there was little heavy artillery ammunition left. The [Westheer] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) was ordered to dig in and defend its conquests, while the situation on the Eastern Front was retrieved.

Atrocities

Main article: The Rape of Belgium

The library of the Catholic University of Louvain, burnt by the invading forces

After the defeat of the Imperial forces of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), c. 58,000 irregular troops known as [francs tireurs] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("free shooters") were established by the French Government of National Defence, which killed c. 1,000 German troops and diverted c. 120,000 troops from field operations to the guarding of lines of communication. The status of neutral countries was established by the Fifth Convention of the Hague Peace Conference (1907) and signed by Germany. The Belgian government did not forbid resistance, because belligerents were not allowed to move troops or supplies through neutral territory; Article 5 required neutrals to prevent such acts and Article 10 provided that resistance by a neutral could not be considered to be hostile. At Hervé during the night of 4 August, firing broke out and a few days later, a German reporter wrote that only nineteen of 500 houses were still standing. The speed by which allegations of [franc tireur] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) warfare reached Germany, led to suspicions of orchestration, since newspapers reported atrocities against German soldiers on 5 August and on 8 August, troops marching towards the German-Belgian frontier bought newspapers containing lurid details of Belgian civilians marauding, ambushing German troops, desecrating corpses and poisoning wells.

To avoid delays and minimise the detachments of garrisons to guard lines of communication, the German army resorted to [schrecklichkeit] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("frightfulness"), quickly to terrorise civilians into submission. On some occasions the atrocities were committed by front-line troops in the heat of the moment but other crimes were calculated and took place days after the fighting had moved elsewhere. Andenne near Namur, was burnt down on 20 August and a German proclamation claimed that 110 people had been shot, with a Belgian account claiming 211 dead. At Seilles, fifty people were killed and at Tamines 384 civilians were shot. Dutch civilians heard gunfire on the night of 23 August, from Visé over the border and in the morning 4,000 refugees crossed the frontier, describing killings and the abduction of 700 men and boys for forced labour in Germany. Ten hostages were taken from every street in Namur and in other places one from every house. At Dinant the French fell back on 22 August and blew the bridge; German troops repairing the crossing were ostensibly obstructed by civilians, which was allegedly witnessed by General von Hausen, the 3rd Army commander. Hundreds of hostages were taken and in the evening, were lined up in the town square and shot, 612 men, women and children being killed, after which the town centre was looted and burned. Horne and Kramer calculated that 670 civilians were killed in the town.

Depiction of the execution of civilians in Blégny by Évariste Carpentier

The German First Army passed through Leuven (Louvain) on 19 August and was followed by the IX Reserve Corps. On 25 August, a Belgian sortie from Antwerp drove back German outposts and caused confusion behind the front line. A horse entered Leuven during the night and caused a stampede, which panicked German sentries, after which General von Luttwitz, the Military Governor of Brussels ordered reprisals. Burning and shooting by German troops took place for five days, during which 248 residents were killed, the surviving population of 10,000 people were expelled and over 2,000 buildings were burnt down. At the University library, 300,000 medieval books and manuscripts were destroyed. Large amounts of strategic materials, foodstuffs and modern industrial equipment were looted and transferred to Germany. From 5 August – 21 October, German troops burned homes and killed civilians throughout eastern and central Belgium, including crimes at Aarschot (156 dead), Malines, Termonde and from Berneau in the Province of Liège to Esen in the province of West Flanders.

In 2007, Zuber called writing on German atrocities by Schmitz and Niewland (1924), Horne and Kramer (2001) and Zuckerman (2004) apologia and wrote that on 5 August, the Belgian government armed 100,000 civilians as "inactive Garde Civique", who joined the 46,000 members of the Garde Civique. Zuber called the inactive members untrained, non-uniformed and the active members little better. Zuber wrote that no records exist, there is no evidence that the Garde Civique was trained, had officers or a chain of command and that it was a guerilla army at best. Zuber wrote that on 18 August, the Belgian government disbanded the Garde but Horne and Kramer had failed to explain the disposal of 146,000 firearms and claimed that none of the former Garde fired them at German soldiers. Zuber quoted a folk tradition, which had it that a civilian killed a German officer at Bellefontaine and wrote that the Germans shot Belgian civilians in reprisal for franc-tireur attacks and that "franc-tireur attacks" had taken place, both being war crimes. Zuber also wrote that there were no German reprisals in the Flemish areas of Belgium or the interior of France, where there were no franc-tireur attacks.

References

Books

• Albertini, L. (1952). The Origins of the War of 1914. Vol. III (2005 ed.). New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 1-929631-33-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Baldwin, H. (1963). World War I: An Outline History. London: Hutchinson. OCLC 464551794.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Barton, P.; Doyle, P; Vandewalle, J. (2005). Beneath Flanders Fields: the Tunnellers' War, 1914–1918. Staplehurst: Spellmount. ISBN 0-7735-2949-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Buchan, J. (1921). A History of the Great War. Edinburgh: Nelson. OCLC 4083249.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Clayton, A. (2003). Paths of Glory: The French Army 1914–18. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-35949-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Corbett, J. S. (1920). Naval Operations (PDF). History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I (2nd 1938 N & M Press 2009 ed.). London: Longman. ISBN 1-84342-489-4. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
• Der Herbst-Feldzug 1914: Im Westen bis zum Stellungskrieg, im Osten bis zum Rückzug. Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 Die militärischen Operationen zu Lande. Vol. I (Die Digitale Landesbibliothek Oberösterreich 2012 ed.). Berlin: Mittler & Sohn. 1929. OCLC 838299944. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
• Die Grenzschlachten im Westen. Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 Die militärischen Operationen zu Lande. Vol. I (Die digitale Landesbibliothek Oberösterreich 2011 ed.). Berlin: Mittler. 1925. OCLC 163368678. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
• Donnell, C. (2007). The Forts of the Meuse in World War I. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84603-114-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Doughty, R. A. (2005). Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN 0-67401-880-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Edmonds, J. E. (1926). Military Operations France and Belgium, 1914: Mons, the Retreat to the Seine, the Marne and the Aisne August–October 1914. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC 58962523.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Edmonds, J. E. (1925). Military Operations France and Belgium, 1914: Antwerp, La Bassée, Armentières, Messines and Ypres October–November 1914. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. II (1st ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC 220044986.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

This article is about the Battle of Verdun 1916. For the battle during the French Revolution, see Battle of Verdun (1792).

Battle of Verdun
Part of the Western Front of the First World War
Map: Battle of Verdun 1916
Date 21 February – 20 December 1916 (9 months, 3 weeks and 6 days) Location Région Fortifiée de Verdun (RFV) Verdun-sur-Meuse, France 49°12′29″N 5°25′19″E Result French victory
Belligerents
France	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Joseph Joffre Noël de Castelnau Fernand de Langle de Cary Frédéric-Georges Herr Philippe Pétain Robert Nivelle Adolphe Guillaumat Auguste Hirschauer Charles Mangin	Erich von Falkenhayn Crown Prince Wilhelm Schmidt von Knobelsdorf Ewald von Lochow Max von Gallwitz Georg von der Marwitz
Strength
1,140,000 soldiers in from 75–85 divisions	1,250,000 soldiers in c. 50 divisions
Casualties and losses
315,000–542,000 (156,000–162,000 killed) February–December 1916	281,000–434,000 (c. 143,000 killed) February–December 1916

The Battle of Verdun ([Bataille de Verdun,] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) IPA: [bataj də vɛʁdœ̃], [Schlacht um Verdun,] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) IPA: [ʃlaxt ˀʊm ˈvɛɐdœŋ]), fought from 21 February – 18 December 1916, was one of the largest battles of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. The battle took place on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France. The German 5th Army attacked the defences of the [Région Fortifiée de Verdun] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (RFV) and those of the Second Army garrisons on the right bank of the Meuse, intending to rapidly capture the [Côtes de Meuse] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Meuse Heights), from which Verdun could be overlooked and bombarded with observed artillery fire. The German strategy aimed to provoke the French to attack to drive the Germans off the heights. The Germans made important gains early in the battle but the French quickly contained the German advance and were able to recapture much of the lost territory towards the end of the year, despite the demands of the Battle of the Somme (1 July – 18 November) in Picardy to the north-west.

The German strategy assumed that the French would attempt to hold on to the east bank of the Meuse and then commit the French strategic reserve to recapture it. The French would suffer catastrophic losses from German artillery-fire, while the German infantry held positions that were easy to defend and suffer fewer losses. The German plan was based on the experience of the Second Battle of Champagne ([Herbstschlacht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) from September and October 1915), when after early success, the French offensive was defeated with far more French than German casualties. Poor weather delayed the beginning of the German Verdun offensive ([Unternehmen Gericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)/Operation Judgement) until 21 February; French construction of defensive lines and the arrival of reinforcements before the opening attack, delayed the German advance despite many French losses. By 6 March, 20+1⁄2 French divisions were in the RFV and a more extensive defence in depth had been constructed. Pétain ordered that no withdrawals were to be made and that counter-attacks were to be conducted, despite exposing French infantry to fire from the German artillery. By 29 March, French artillery on the west bank had begun a constant bombardment of German positions on the east bank, that caused many German infantry casualties.

In March, the German offensive was extended to the left (west) bank, to gain observation of the ground from which French artillery had been firing over the river, into the flank of the German infantry on the east bank. The German troops were able to make substantial advances but French reinforcements contained the attacks short of their objectives. In early May, the Germans changed tactics and made local attacks and counter-attacks, which gave the French an opportunity to begin an attack against Fort Douaumont. Part of the fort was occupied, until a German counter-attack recaptured the fort and took numerous prisoners. The Germans changed tactics again, alternating their attacks on both banks of the Meuse and in June captured Fort Vaux. The Germans continued the offensive beyond Vaux, towards the last geographical objectives of the original plan, at Fleury-devant-Douaumont and Fort Souville. German attacks drove a salient into the French defences, captured Fleury and came within 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) of the Verdun citadel.

The German offensive was reduced to provide artillery and infantry reinforcements for the Somme front, where the Anglo-French relief offensive began on 1 July. During local operations, the village of Fleury changed hands sixteen times from 23 June to 17 August. A German attempt to capture Fort Souville in early July was repulsed by artillery and small-arms fire. To supply reinforcements for the Somme front, the German offensive was reduced further, along with attempts to deceive the French into expecting more attacks, to keep French reinforcements away from the Somme. In August and December, French counter-offensives recaptured much of the ground lost on the east bank and recovered Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux. An estimate in 2000, found a total of 714,231 casualties, 377,231 French and 337,000 German, an average of 70,000 casualties for each month of the battle; other recent estimates increase the number of casualties to 976,000, with 1,250,000 suffered at Verdun from 1914 to 1918. The Battle of Verdun lasted for 303 days and became the longest and one of the most costly battles in human history.

Background

Strategic developments

Main articles: Brusilov Offensive and Battle of the Somme

French commemorative medal for the battle

After the German invasion of France had been halted at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, the war of movement ended at the Battle of the Yser and the First Battle of Ypres. The Germans built field fortifications to hold the ground captured in 1914 and the French began siege warfare to break through the German defences and recover the lost territory. In late 1914 and in 1915, offensives on the Western Front had failed to gain much ground and been extremely costly in casualties. According to his memoirs written after the war, the Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, believed that although victory might no longer be achieved by a decisive battle, the French army could still be defeated if it suffered a sufficient number of casualties. Falkenhayn offered five corps from the strategic reserve for an offensive at Verdun at the beginning of February 1916 but only for an attack on the east bank of the Meuse. Falkenhayn considered it unlikely the French would be complacent about Verdun; he thought that they might send all their reserves there and begin a counter-offensive elsewhere or fight to hold Verdun while the British launched a relief offensive. After the war, the Kaiser and Colonel Tappen, the Operations Officer at Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL: General Headquarters), wrote that Falkenhayn believed the last possibility was most likely.

By seizing or threatening to capture Verdun, the Germans anticipated that the French would send all their reserves, which would have to attack secure German defensive positions, which were supported by a powerful artillery reserve and be destroyed. In the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive (1 May – 19 September 1915), the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies attacked Russian defences frontally, after pulverising them with large amounts of heavy artillery. During the Second Battle of Champagne ([Herbstschlacht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "autumn battle") of 25 September – 6 November 1915, the French suffered "extraordinary casualties" from the German heavy artillery, which Falkenhayn considered offered a way out of the dilemma of material inferiority and the growing strength of the Allies. In the north, a British relief offensive would wear down British reserves, to no decisive effect but create the conditions for a German counter-offensive near Arras.

Hints about Falkenhayn's thinking were picked up by Dutch military intelligence and passed on to the British in December. The German strategy was to create a favourable operational situation without a mass attack, which had been costly and ineffective when it had been tried by the Franco-British, by relying on the power of heavy artillery to inflict mass losses. A limited offensive at Verdun, would lead to the destruction of the French strategic reserve in fruitless counter-attacks and the defeat of British reserves in a futile relief offensive, leading to the French accepting a separate peace. If the French refused to negotiate, the second phase of the strategy would begin in which the German armies would attack terminally weakened Franco-British armies, mop up the remains of the French armies and expel the British from Europe. To fulfil this strategy, Falkenhayn needed to hold back enough of the strategic reserve for the Anglo-French relief offensives and then conduct a counter-offensive, which limited the number of divisions which could be sent to the 5th Army at Verdun, for [Unternehmen Gericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Operation Judgement).

The Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV) lay in a salient formed during the German invasion of 1914. The Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, General Joseph Joffre, had concluded from the swift capture of the Belgian fortresses at the Battle of Liège and at the Siege of Namur in 1914 that fixed defences had been made obsolete by German siege guns. In a directive of the General Staff of 5 August 1915, the RFV was to be stripped of 54 artillery batteries and 128,000 rounds of ammunition. Plans to demolish forts Douaumont and Vaux to deny them to the Germans were made and 5,000 kilograms (11,000 lb) of explosives had been laid by the time of the German offensive on 21 February. The 18 large forts and other batteries around Verdun were left with fewer than 300 guns and a small reserve of ammunition while their garrisons had been reduced to small maintenance crews. The railway line from the south into Verdun had been cut during the Battle of Flirey in 1914, with the loss of Saint-Mihiel; the line west from Verdun to Paris was cut at Aubréville in mid-July 1915 by the German Third Army, which had attacked southwards through the Argonne Forest for most of the year.

Région Fortifiée de Verdun

Map of the battlefield

For centuries, Verdun had played an important role in the defence of the hinterland from the strategic location of the city on the Meuse river. Attila the Hun failed to seize the town in the fifth century; when the empire of Charlemagne was divided under the Treaty of Verdun of 843, the town became part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, awarded Verdun to France. The heart of the city of Verdun was a citadel built by Vauban in the 17th century. A double ring of 28 forts and smaller works ([ouvrages] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) had been built around Verdun on commanding ground, at least 150 metres (490 ft) above the river valley, 2.5–8 kilometres (1.6–5.0 mi) from the citadel at Verdun. The programme had been devised by Séré de Rivières in the 1870s to build two lines of fortresses from Belfort to Épinal and from Verdun to Toul as defensive screens and to enclose towns intended to be the bases for counter-attacks. Many of the Verdun forts had been modernised and made more resistant to artillery, with a reconstruction programme begun at Douaumont in the 1880s. A sand cushion and thick, steel-reinforced concrete tops up to 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) thick, buried under 1–4 metres (3.3–13.1 ft) of earth, were added. The forts and [ouvrages] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) had been sited to overlook each other for mutual support and the outer ring had a circumference of 45 kilometres (28 mi). The outer forts had 79 guns in shell-proof turrets and more than 200 light guns and machine-guns to protect the ditches around the forts. Six forts had 155mm guns in retractable turrets and fourteen had retractable twin 75mm turrets.

Long Max mounted on its combined railway and firing platform.

In 1903, Douaumont was equipped with a new concrete bunker ([Casemate de Bourges] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), containing two 75mm field guns to cover the southwestern approach and the defensive works along the ridge to [Ouvrage de Froidterre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). More guns were added from 1903–1913, in four retractable steel turrets. The guns could rotate for all-round defence and two smaller versions, at the north-eastern and north-western corners of the fort, housed twin Hotchkiss machine-guns. On the east side of the fort, an armoured turret with a 155mm short-barrelled gun faced north and north-east and another housed twin 75mm guns at the north end, to cover the intervals between forts. The fort at Douaumont formed part of a complex of the village, fort, six [ouvrages] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), five shelters, six concrete batteries, an underground infantry shelter, two ammunition depots and several concrete infantry trenches. The Verdun forts had a network of concrete infantry shelters, armoured observation posts, batteries, concrete trenches, command posts and underground shelters between the forts. The artillery comprised c. 1,000 guns, with 250 in reserve and the forts and [ouvrages] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) were linked by telephone and telegraph, a narrow-gauge railway system and a road network; on mobilisation, the RFV had a garrison of 66,000 men and rations for six months.

Prelude

German offensive preparations

Map of Verdun and the vicinity (commune FR insee code 55545)

Verdun was isolated on three sides and railway communications to the French rear had been cut except for a light railway; German-controlled railways lay only 24 km (15 mi) to the north of the front line. A corps was moved to the 5th Army to provide labour for the preparation of the offensive. Areas were emptied of French civilians and buildings requisitioned, thousands of kilometres of telephone cable were laid, thousands of tons of ammunition and rations were stored under cover with hundreds of guns installed and camouflaged. Ten new rail lines with twenty stations were built and vast underground shelters ([Stollen] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) were dug 4.5–14 metres (15–46 ft) deep, each to accommodate up to 1,200 German infantry. The III Corps, VII Reserve Corps and XVIII Corps were transferred to the 5th Army, each corps being reinforced by 2,400 experienced troops and 2,000 trained recruits. V Corps was placed behind the front line, ready to advance if necessary when the assault divisions were moving up and the XV Corps, with two divisions, was in the 5th Army reserve, ready to advance to mop up as soon as the French defence collapsed.

Special arrangements were made to maintain a high rate of artillery-fire during the offensive, 33+1⁄2 munitions trains per day were to deliver ammunition sufficient for 2,000,000 rounds to be fired in the first six days and another 2,000,000 shells in the next twelve. Five repair shops were built close to the front to reduce delays for maintenance; factories in Germany were made ready, rapidly to refurbish artillery needing more extensive repairs. A redeployment plan for the artillery was devised, for field guns and mobile heavy artillery to be moved forward, under the covering fire of mortars and the super-heavy artillery. A total of 1,201 guns were massed on the Verdun front, two thirds of which were heavy and super-heavy artillery, which had been obtained by stripping the modern German artillery from the rest of the Western Front and substituting it with older types and captured Russian guns. The German artillery could fire into the Verdun salient from three directions, yet remain dispersed.

German plan of attack

The 5th Army divided the attack front into areas, A occupied by the VII Reserve Corps, B by the XVIII Corps, C by the III Corps and D on the Woëvre plain by the XV Corps. The preliminary artillery bombardment was to begin in the morning of 12 February. At 5:00 p.m., the infantry in areas A to C would advance in open order, supported by grenade and flame-thrower detachments. Wherever possible, the French advanced trenches were to be occupied and the second position reconnoitred, for the artillery fire on the second day. Great emphasis was placed on limiting German infantry casualties, by sending them to follow up destructive bombardments by the artillery, which was to carry the burden of the offensive in a series of large "attacks with limited objectives", to maintain a relentless pressure on the French. The initial objectives were the Meuse Heights, on a line from Froide Terre to Fort Souville and Fort Tavannes, which would provide a secure defensive position from which to repel French counter-attacks. Relentless pressure was a term added by the 5th Army staff and created ambiguity about the purpose of the offensive. Falkenhayn wanted land to be captured, from which artillery could dominate the battlefield and the 5th Army wanted a quick capture of Verdun. The confusion caused by the ambiguity was left to the corps headquarters to sort out.

Control of the artillery was centralised by an "Order for the Activities of the Artillery and Mortars", which stipulated that the corps Generals of Foot Artillery were responsible for local target selection, while co-ordination of flanking fire by neighbouring corps and the fire of certain batteries, was determined by the 5th Army headquarters. French fortifications were to be engaged by the heaviest howitzers and enfilade fire. The heavy artillery was to maintain long-range bombardment of French supply routes and assembly areas; counter-battery fire was reserved for specialist batteries firing gas shells. Co-operation between the artillery and infantry was stressed, with accuracy of the artillery being given priority over rate of fire. The opening bombardment was to build up slowly and [Trommelfeuer] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (a rate of fire so rapid that the sound of shell-explosions merged into a rumble) would not begin until the last hour. As the infantry advanced, the artillery would increase the range of the bombardment to destroy the French second position. Artillery observers were to advance with the infantry and communicate with the guns by field telephones, flares and coloured balloons. When the offensive began, the French were to be bombarded continuously, harassing fire being maintained at night.

French defensive preparations

East bank of the Meuse, February–March 1916

In 1915, 237 guns and 647 long tons (657 t) of ammunition in the forts of the RFV had been removed, leaving only the heavy guns in retractable turrets. The conversion of the RFV to a conventional linear defence, with trenches and barbed wire began but proceeded slowly, after resources were sent west from Verdun for the Second Battle of Champagne (25 September – 6 November 1915). In October 1915, building began on trench lines known as the first, second and third positions and in January 1916, an inspection by General Noël de Castelnau, Chief of Staff at French General Headquarters (GQG), reported that the new defences were satisfactory, except for small deficiencies in three areas. The fortress garrisons had been reduced to small maintenance crews and some of the forts had been readied for demolition. The maintenance garrisons were responsible to the central military bureaucracy in Paris and when the XXX Corps commander, General Chrétien, attempted to inspect Fort Douaumont in January 1916, he was refused entry.

Douaumont was the largest fort in the RFV and by February 1916, the only artillery left in the fort were the 75mm and 155 mm turret guns and light guns covering the ditch. The fort was used as a barracks by 68 technicians under the command of Warrant-Officer Chenot, the [Gardien de Batterie] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). One of the rotating 155 mm (6.1 in) turrets was partially manned and the other was left empty. The Hotchkiss machine-guns were stored in boxes and four 75mm guns in the casemates had already been removed. The drawbridge had been jammed in the down position by a German shell and had not been repaired. The [coffres] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (wall bunkers) with Hotchkiss revolver-cannons protecting the moats, were unmanned and over 5,000 kilograms (11,000 lb) of explosive charges had been placed in the fort to demolish it.

West bank of the Meuse, 1916.

In late January 1916, French intelligence had obtained an accurate assessment of German military capacity and intentions at Verdun but Joffre considered that an attack would be a diversion, because of the lack of an obvious strategic objective. By the time of the German offensive, Joffre expected a bigger attack elsewhere but ordered the VII Corps to Verdun on 23 January, to hold the north face of the west bank. XXX Corps held the salient east of the Meuse to the north and north-east and II Corps held the eastern face of the Meuse Heights; Herr had 8+1⁄2 divisions in the front line, with 2+1⁄2 divisions in close reserve. [Groupe d'armées du centre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (GAC, General De Langle de Cary) had the I and XX corps with two divisions each in reserve, plus most of the 19th Division; Joffre had 25 divisions in the strategic reserve. French artillery reinforcements had brought the total at Verdun to 388 field guns and 244 heavy guns, against 1,201 German guns, two thirds of which were heavy and super heavy, including 14 in (360 mm) and 202 mortars, some being 16 in (410 mm). Eight specialist flame-thrower companies were also sent to the 5th Army.

The Woëvre region of Lorraine (in green)

Castelnau met De Langle de Cary on 25 February, who doubted the east bank could be held. Castelnau disagreed and ordered General Frédéric-Georges Herr the corps commander ,to hold the right (east) bank of the Meuse at all costs. Herr sent a division from the west bank and ordered XXX Corps to hold a line from Bras to Douaumont, Vaux and Eix. Pétain took over command of the defence of the RFV at 11:00 p.m., with Colonel Maurice de Barescut as chief of staff and Colonel Bernard Serrigny as head of operations, only to hear that Fort Douaumont had fallen. Pétain ordered for the remaining Verdun forts to be re-garrisoned. Four groups were established, under the command of generals Guillaumat, Balfourier and Duchêne on the right bank and Bazelaire on the left bank. A "line of resistance" was established on the east bank from Souville to Thiaumont, around Fort Douaumont to Fort Vaux, Moulainville and along the ridge of the Woëvre. On the west bank, the line ran from Cumières to Mort Homme, Côte 304 and Avocourt. A "line of panic" was planned in secret as a final line of defence north of Verdun, through forts Belleville, St. Michel and Moulainville. I Corps and XX Corps arrived from 24–26 February, increasing the number of divisions in the RFV to 14+1⁄2. By 6 March, the arrival of the XIII, XXI, XIV and XXXIII corps had increased the total to 20+1⁄2 divisions.

Battle

First phase, 21 February – 1 March

Main article: Fort Douaumont

21–26 February

Fort Douaumont before the battle (German aerial photograph)

[Unternehmen Gericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Operation Judgement) was due to begin on 12 February but fog, heavy rain and high winds delayed the offensive until 7:15 a.m. on 21 February, when a 10-hour artillery bombardment by 808 guns began. The German artillery fired c. 1,000,000 shells along a front about 30 km (19 mi) long by 5 km (3.1 mi) wide. The main concentration of fire was on the right (east) bank of the Meuse river. Twenty-six super-heavy, long-range guns, up to 420 mm (16.5 in), fired on the forts and the city of Verdun; a rumble could be heard 160 km (99 mi) away. The bombardment was paused at midday, as a ruse to prompt French survivors to reveal themselves and German artillery-observation aircraft were able to fly over the battlefield unmolested by French aircraft. The 3rd, 7th and 18th corps attacked at 4:00 p.m.; the Germans used flamethrowers for the first time and storm troops followed closely with rifles slung, to use hand grenades to kill the remaining defenders. This tactic had been developed by Captain Willy Rohr and [Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which battalion conducted the attack. French survivors engaged the attackers, yet the Germans suffered only c. 600 casualties.

Douaumont fortress after the battle

By 22 February, German troops had advanced 5 km (3.1 mi) and captured [Bois des Caures] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), at the edge of the village of Flabas. Two French battalions led by Colonel Émile Driant had held the bois (wood) for two days but were forced back to Samogneux, Beaumont and Ornes. Driant was killed, fighting with the 56th and 59th [Bataillons de chasseurs à pied] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and only 118 of the Chasseurs managed to escape. Poor communications meant that only then did the French High Command realise the seriousness of the attack. The Germans managed to take the village of Haumont but French forces repulsed a German attack on the village of [Bois de l'Herbebois] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). On 23 February, a French counter-attack at [Bois des Caures] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) was repulsed. Fighting for [Bois de l'Herbebois] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) continued until the Germans outflanked the French defenders from [Bois de Wavrille] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). The German attackers had many casualties during their attack on [Bois de Fosses] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and the French held on Samogneux. German attacks continued on 24 February and the French XXX Corps was forced out of the second line of defence; XX Corps under General Balfourier arrived at the last minute and was rushed forward. That evening Castelnau advised Joffre that the French Second Army, under General Pétain, should be sent to the RFV. The Germans had captured Beaumont, [Bois des Fosses] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [Bois des Caurières] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and were moving up [ravin Hassoule] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) which led to Fort Douaumont.

At 3:00 p.m. on 25 February, infantry of Brandenburg Regiment 24 advanced with the II and III battalions side-by-side, each formed into two waves composed of two companies each. A delay in the arrival of orders to the regiments on the flanks, led to the III Battalion advancing without support on that flank. The Germans rushed French positions in the woods and on Côte 347, with the support of machine-gun fire from the edge of [Bois Hermitage] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and took many prisoners, as the French on Côte 347 were outflanked on the right and withdrew to Douaumont village. The German infantry had reached their objectives in fewer than twenty minutes and pursued the French, until fired on by a machine-gun in Douaumont church. Some German troops took cover in woods and a ravine which led to the fort, when German artillery began to bombard the area, the gunners having refused to believe claims sent by field telephone, that the German infantry were within a few hundred metres of the fort. Several German parties were forced to advance to find cover from the German shelling and two parties independently made for the fort. They did not know that the French garrison was made up of only a small maintenance crew led by a warrant officer, since most of the Verdun forts had been partly disarmed, after the demolition of Belgian forts in 1914, by the German super-heavy Krupp 420 mm mortars.

Verdun, east bank of the Meuse, 21–26 February 1916

The German party of c. 100 soldiers tried to signal to the artillery with flares but twilight and falling snow obscured them from view. Some of the party began to cut through the wire around the fort, while French machine-gun fire from Douaumont village ceased. The French had seen the German flares and took the Germans on the fort to be Zouaves retreating from Côte 378. The Germans were able to reach the north-east end of the fort, before the French resumed firing. The German party found a way through the railings on top of the ditch and climbed down without being fired on, since the machine-gun bunkers [(coffres de contrescarpe)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) at each corner of the ditch, had been left unmanned. The German parties continued and found a way inside the fort, through one of the unoccupied ditch bunkers and then reached the central [Rue de Rempart] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). After quietly moving inside, the Germans heard voices and persuaded a French prisoner captured in an observation post, to lead them to the lower floor, where they found Warrant Officer Chenot and about 25 French troops, most of the skeleton garrison of the fort and took them prisoner. On 26 February, the Germans had advanced 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) on a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) front; French losses were 24,000 men and German losses were c. 25,000 men. A French counter-attack on Fort Douaumont failed and Pétain ordered that no more attempts were be made; existing lines were to be consolidated and other forts were to be occupied, rearmed and supplied to withstand a siege if surrounded.

27–29 February

The German advance gained little ground on 27 February, after a thaw turned the ground into a swamp and the arrival of French reinforcements increased the effectiveness of the defence. Some German artillery became unserviceable and other batteries became stranded in the mud. German infantry began to suffer from exhaustion and unexpectedly high losses, 500 casualties being suffered in the fighting around Douaumont village. On 29 February, the German advance was contained at Douaumont by a heavy snowfall and the defence of French 33rd Infantry Regiment. Delays gave the French time to bring up 90,000 men and 23,000 short tons (21,000 t) of ammunition from the railhead at Bar-le-Duc to Verdun. The swift German advance had gone beyond the range of artillery covering fire and the muddy conditions made it very difficult to move the artillery forward as planned. The German advance southwards, brought it into range of French artillery west of the Meuse, whose fire caused more German infantry casualties than in the earlier fighting, when French infantry on the east bank had fewer guns in support.

Second phase, 6 March – 15 April

6–11 March

Mort Homme and Côte 304

Before the offensive, Falkenhayn had expected that French artillery on the west bank would be suppressed by counter-battery fire but this had failed. The Germans set up an artillery task-force, to counter French artillery-fire from the west bank but this also failed to reduce German infantry casualties. The 5th Army asked for more troops in late February but Falkenhayn refused, due to the rapid advance already achieved on the east bank and because he needed the rest of the OHL reserve for an offensive elsewhere, once the attack at Verdun had attracted and consumed French reserves. The pause in the German advance on 27 February led Falkenhayn to have second thoughts to decide between terminating the offensive or reinforcing it. On 29 February, Knobelsdorf, the 5th Army Chief of Staff, prised two divisions from the OHL reserve, with the assurance that once the heights on the west bank had been occupied, the offensive on the east bank could be completed. The VI Reserve Corps was reinforced with the X Reserve Corps, to capture a line from the south of Avocourt to Côte 304 north of Esnes, Mort-Homme, Bois des Cumières and Côte 205, from which the French artillery on the west bank could be destroyed.

The artillery of the two-corps assault group on the west bank was reinforced by 25 heavy artillery batteries, artillery command was centralised under one officer and arrangements were made for the artillery on the east bank to fire in support. The attack was planned by General Heinrich von Gossler in two parts, on Mort-Homme and Côte 265 on 6 March, followed by attacks on Avocourt and Côte 304 on 9 March. The German bombardment reduced the top of Côte 304 from a height of 304 metres (997 ft) to 300 metres (980 ft); Mort-Homme sheltered batteries of French field guns, which hindered German progress towards Verdun on the right bank; the hills also provided commanding views of the left bank. After storming the [Bois des Corbeaux] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and then losing it to a French counter-attack, the Germans launched another assault on Mort-Homme on 9 March, from the direction of Béthincourt to the north-west. [Bois des Corbeaux] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) was captured again at great cost in casualties, before the Germans took parts of Mort-Homme, Côte 304, Cumières and Chattancourt on 14 March.

11 March – 9 April

German dispositions, Verdun, 31 March 1916

After a week, the German attack had reached the first-day objectives and then found that French guns behind Côte de Marre and Bois Borrous were still operational and continued to inflict many casualties on the east bank. German artillery moved to Côte 265, was subjected to systematic artillery-fire by the French, which left the Germans needing to implement the second part of the west bank offensive, to protect the gains of the first phase. German attacks changed from large operations on broad fronts, to narrow-front attacks with limited objectives. On 14 March a German attack captured Côte 265 at west end of Mort-Homme but the French 75th Infantry Brigade managed to hold Côte 295 at the east end. On 20 March, after a bombardment by 13,000 trench mortar rounds, the 11th Bavarian and 11th Reserve divisions attacked [Bois d'Avocourt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [Bois de Malancourt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and reached their initial objectives easily. Gossler then paused the attack, to consolidate the captured ground and to prepare another big bombardment for the next day. On 22 March, two divisions attacked "Termite Hill" near Côte 304 but were met by a mass of artillery-fire, which also fell on assembly points and the German lines of communication, ending the German advance.

The limited German success had been costly and French artillery inflicted more casualties as the German infantry tried to dig in. By 30 March, Gossler had captured [Bois de Malancourt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) but had lost 20,000 casualties and the Germans were still short of Côte 304. On 30 March, the XXII Reserve Corps arrived as reinforcements and General Max von Gallwitz took command of a new [Angriffsgruppe West] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). Malancourt village was captured on 31 March, Haucourt fell on 5 April and Béthincourt on 8 April. On the east bank, German attacks near Vaux reached [Bois Caillette] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and the Vaux–Fleury railway but were then driven back by the French 5th Division. An attack was made on a wider front along both banks by the Germans at noon on 9 April, with five divisions on the left bank but this was repulsed except at Mort-Homme, where the French 42nd Division was forced back from the north-east face. On the right bank an attack on [Côte-du-Poivre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) failed.

In March the German attacks had no advantage of surprise and faced a determined and well-supplied adversary in superior defensive positions. German artillery could still devastate French defensive positions but could not prevent French artillery-fire from inflicting many casualties on German infantry and isolating them from their supplies. Massed artillery fire could enable German infantry to make small advances but massed French artillery-fire could do the same for French infantry when they counter-attacked, which often repulsed the German infantry and subjected them to constant losses, even when captured ground was held. The German effort on the west bank also showed that capturing a vital point was not sufficient, because it would be found to be overlooked by another terrain feature, which had to be captured to ensure the defence of the original point, which made it impossible for the Germans to terminate their attacks, unless they were willing to retire to the original front line of February 1916.

By the end of March the offensive had cost the Germans 81,607 casualties and Falkenhayn began to think of ending the offensive, lest it become another costly and indecisive engagement similar to the First Battle of Ypres in late 1914. The 5th Army staff requested more reinforcements from Falkenhayn on 31 March with an optimistic report claiming that the French were close to exhaustion and incapable of a big offensive. The 5th Army command wanted to continue the east bank offensive until a line from Ouvrage de Thiaumont, to Fleury, Fort Souville and Fort de Tavannes had been reached, while on the west bank the French would be destroyed by their own counter-attacks. On 4 April, Falkenhayn replied that the French had retained a considerable reserve and that German resources were limited and not sufficient to replace continuously men and munitions. If the resumed offensive on the east bank failed to reach the Meuse Heights, Falkenhayn was willing to accept that the offensive had failed and end it.

Third phase, 16 April – 1 July

April

Death works "Verdun the World-blood-pump", German propaganda medal, 1916

The failure of German attacks in early April by [Angriffsgruppe Ost] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), led Knobelsdorf to obtain reports from the 5th Army corps commanders, who unanimously wanted to continue. The German infantry were exposed to continuous artillery-fire from the flanks and behind, communications from the rear and reserve positions were equally vulnerable, which caused a constant drain of casualties. Defensive positions were difficult to build, because existing positions were on ground which had been swept clear by German bombardments early in the offensive, leaving German infantry with very little cover. The XV Corps commander, General Berthold von Deimling also wrote that French heavy artillery and gas bombardments. were undermining the morale of the German infantry, it was necessary to keep going to reach safer defensive positions. Knobelsdorf reported these findings to Falkenhayn on 20 April, adding that if the Germans did not go forward, they must go back to the start line of 21 February.

Knobelsdorf rejected the policy of limited piecemeal attacks tried by Mudra, while in command of [Angriffsgruppe Ost] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and advocated a return to wide-front attacks with unlimited objectives, swiftly to reach the line from Ouvrage de Thiaumont to Fleury, Fort Souville and Fort de Tavannes. Falkenhayn was persuaded to agree to the change and by the end of April, 21 divisions, most of the OHL reserve, had been sent to Verdun and troops had also been transferred from the Eastern Front. The resort to large, unlimited attacks was costly for both sides but the German advance proceeded only slowly. Rather than causing devastating French casualties by heavy artillery, with the infantry in secure defensive positions, which the French were compelled to attack, the Germans inflicted casualties by attacks which provoked French counter-attacks and assumed that the process inflicted five French casualties for two German losses.

In mid-March, Falkenhayn had reminded the 5th Army to use tactics intended to conserve infantry, after the corps commanders had been allowed discretion to choose between the cautious step-by-step tactics desired by Falkenhayn and maximum efforts, intended to obtain quick results. On the third day of the offensive, the 6th Division of the III Corps (General Ewald von Lochow), had ordered that Herbebois be taken regardless of loss and the 5th Division had attacked Wavrille to the accompaniment of its band. Falkenhayn urged the 5th Army to use [Stoßtruppen] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (storm units) composed of two infantry squads and one of engineers, armed with automatic weapons, hand grenades, trench mortars and flame-throwers, to advance in front of the main infantry body. The [Stoßtruppen] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) would conceal their advance by shrewd use of terrain and capture any strong-points which remained after the artillery preparation. Strong-points which could not be taken, were to be by-passed and captured by follow-up troops. Falkenhayn ordered that the command of field and heavy artillery units was to be combined, with a commander at each corps headquarters. Common observers and communication systems would ensure that batteries in different places, could bring targets under converging fire, which would be allotted systematically to support divisions.

In mid-April, Falkenhayn ordered that infantry should advance close to the barrage, to exploit the neutralising effect of the shell-fire on surviving defenders, because fresh troops at Verdun had not been trained in these methods. Knobelsdorf persisted with attempts to maintain momentum, which was incompatible with the methods of casualty conservation, which could be implemented only with limited attacks, with pauses to consolidate and prepare. Mudra and other commanders who disagreed were sacked. Falkenhayn also intervened to change German defensive tactics, advocating a dispersed defence with the second line to be held as a main line of resistance and jumping-off point for counter-attacks. Machine-guns were to be set up with overlapping fields of fire and infantry given specific areas to defend. When French infantry attacked, they were to be isolated by [Sperrfeuer] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (barrage-fire) on their former front line, to increase French infantry casualties. The changes desired by Falkenhayn had little effect, because the main cause of German casualties was artillery-fire, just as it was for the French.

4–24 May

From 10 May German operations were limited to local attacks, either in reply to French counter-attacks on 11 April between Douaumont and Vaux and on 17 April between the Meuse and Douaumont, or local attempts to take points of tactical value. At the beginning of May, General Pétain was promoted to the command of [Groupe d'armées du centre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (GAC) and General Robert Nivelle took over the Second Army at Verdun. From 4–24 May, German attacks were made on the west bank around Mort-Homme and on 4 May, the north slope of Côte 304 was captured; French counter-attacks from 5–6 May were repulsed. The French defenders on the crest of Côte 304 were forced back on 7 May but German infantry were unable to occupy the ridge, because of the intensity of French artillery-fire. Cumieres and Caurettes fell on 24 May as a French counter-attack began at Fort Douaumont.

22–24 May

Front line at Mort-Homme, May 1916

In May General Nivelle who had taken over the Second Army, ordered General Charles Mangin, commander of the 5th Division to plan a counter-attack on Fort Douaumont. The initial plan was for an attack on a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) front but several minor German attacks captured [Fausse-Côte] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [Couleuvre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ravines on the south-eastern and western sides of the fort. A further attack took the ridge south of the [ravin de Couleuvre] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which gave the Germans better routes for counter-attacks and observation over the French lines to the south and south-west. Mangin proposed a preliminary attack to retake the area of the ravines, to obstruct the routes by which a German counter-attack on the fort could be made. More divisions were necessary but these were refused, to preserve the troops needed for the forthcoming offensive on the Somme; Mangin was limited to one division for the attack with one in reserve. Nivelle reduced the attack to an assault on Morchée Trench, Bonnet-d'Evèque, Fontaine Trench, Fort Douaumont, a machine-gun turret and Hongrois Trench, which would require an advance of 500 metres (550 yd) on a 1,150 metres (1,260 yd) front.

III Corps was to command the attack by the 5th Division and the 71st Brigade, with support from three balloon companies for artillery-observation and a fighter group. The main effort was to be conducted by two battalions of the 129th Infantry Regiment, each with a pioneer company and a machine-gun company attached. The 2nd Battalion was to attack from the south and the 1st Battalion was to move along the west side of the fort to the north end, taking Fontaine Trench and linking with the 6th Company. Two battalions of the 74th Infantry Regiment were to advance along the east and south-east sides of the fort and take a machine-gun turret on a ridge to the east. Flank support was arranged with neighbouring regiments and diversions were planned near Fort Vaux and the [ravin de Dame] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). Preparations for the attack included the digging of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) of trenches and the building of large numbers of depots and stores but little progress was made due to a shortage of pioneers. French troops captured on 13 May, disclosed the plan to the Germans, who responded by subjecting the area to more artillery harassing fire, which also slowed French preparations.

370 mm French Filloux mortar firing

The French preliminary bombardment by four 370 mm mortars and 300 heavy guns, began on 17 May and by 21 May, the French artillery commander claimed that the fort had been severely damaged. During the bombardment the German garrison in the fort experienced great strain, as French heavy shells smashed holes in the walls and concrete dust, exhaust fumes from an electricity generator and gas from disinterred corpses polluted the air. Water ran short but until 20 May, the fort remained operational, reports being passed back and reinforcements moving forward until the afternoon, when the Bourges Casemate was isolated and the wireless station in the north-western machine-gun turret burnt down. Conditions for the German infantry in the vicinity of the fort were far worse and by 18 May, the French destructive bombardment had obliterated many defensive positions, the survivors taking post in shell-holes and dips on the ground. Communication with the rear was severed and food and water ran out by the time of the French attack on 22 May. The troops of Infantry Regiment 52 in front of Fort Douaumont had been reduced to 37 men near Thiaumont Farm and German counter-barrages inflicted similar losses on French troops. French aircraft attacked eight observation balloons and the 5th Army headquarters at Stenay on 22 May. Six balloons were shot down but the German artillery fire increased and twenty minutes before zero hour, a German bombardment began, which reduced the 129th Infantry Regiment companies to about 45 men each.

French long gun battery (155 L or 120 L) overrun by German forces, possibly the 34 Infantry Division at Verdun.

The assault began at 11:50 a. m. on 22 May on a 1-kilometre (0.62 mi) front. On the left flank the 36th Infantry Regiment attack quickly captured Morchée Trench and Bonnet-d'Evèque but was costly and the regiment could advance no further. The flank guard on the right was pinned down, except for one company which disappeared and in [Bois Caillette] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), a battalion of the 74th Infantry Regiment was unable to leave its trenches; the other battalion managed to reach its objectives at an ammunition depot, shelter DV1 at the edge of [Bois Caillette] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and the machine-gun turret east of the fort, where the battalion found its flanks unsupported. Despite German small-arms fire, the 129th Infantry Regiment reached the fort in a few minutes and managed to get in through the west and south sides. By nightfall, about half of the fort had been recaptured and next day, the 34th Division was sent to reinforce the fort. The reinforcements were repulsed and German reserves managed to cut off the French troops in the fort and force them to surrender, 1,000 French prisoners being taken. After three days, the French had lost 5,640 casualties from the 12,000 men in the attack and German casualties in Infantry Regiment 52, Grenadier Regiment 12 and Leib-Grenadier Regiment 8 were 4,500 men.

30 May – 7 June

• 
  Verdun battlefield from Fort de la Chaume, looking north–east, 1917

Later in May 1916, the German attacks shifted from the left bank at Mort-Homme and Côte 304 and returned to the right bank, south of Fort Douaumont. A German offensive began to reach Fleury Ridge, the last French defensive line and take [Ouvrage de Thiaumont] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Fleury, Fort Souville and Fort Vaux at the north-east extremity of the French line, which had been bombarded by c. 8,000 shells a day since the beginning of the offensive. After a final assault on 1 June, by c. 10,000 German troops, the top of the fort was occupied on 2 June . Fighting went on underground until the garrison ran out of water and surrendered on 7 June. In five days the German attack had advanced 65 metres (71 yd) for a loss of 2,700 killed against 20 French casualties. When news of the loss of Fort Vaux reached Verdun, the Line of Panic was occupied and trenches were dug on the edge of the city. On the left bank, the German advanced from the line Côte 304, Mort-Homme and Cumières and threatened Chattancourt and Avocourt. Heavy rains slowed the German advance towards Fort Souville, where both sides attacked and counter-attacked for the next two months.

22–25 June

Ground captured by the German 5th Army, Verdun, February to June 1916

On 22 June, German artillery fired over 116,000 Diphosgene (Green Cross) gas shells at French artillery positions, which caused over 1,600 casualties and silenced much of the French artillery. Next day the German attack on a 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) front at 5:00 a.m., drove a 3-by-2-kilometre (1.9 mi × 1.2 mi) salient into the French defences unopposed until 9:00 a.m., when some French troops were able to fight a rearguard action. The Ouvrage de Thiaumont and the Ouvrage de Froidterre at the south end of the plateau were captured and the village of Fleury and Chapelle Sainte-Fine were overrun. The attack came close to Fort Souville, which since April had been hit by c. 38,000 shells, and brought the Germans to within 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) of the Verdun citadel. Chapelle Sainte-Fine was quickly recaptured by a French counter-attack and the German advance was halted. The supply of water to the German infantry broke down, the salient was vulnerable to fire from three sides and the attack could not go on without Diphosgene ammunition. Chapelle Sainte-Fine became the furthest point reached by the German Verdun offensive and on 24 June, the Anglo-French preliminary bombardment began on the Somme. Fleury changed hands sixteen times from 23 June – 17 August. Four French divisions were diverted to Verdun from the Somme and the French artillery recovered sufficiently on 24 June, to cut off the German front line from the rear. By 25 June both sides were exhausted and Knobelsdorf suspended the attack.

Fourth phase 1 July – 17 December

By the end of May French casualties at Verdun had risen to c. 185,000 and in June German losses had reached c. 200,000 men. The opening of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July, forced the Germans to withdraw some of their artillery from Verdun, which was the first strategic success of the Anglo-French offensive.

9–15 July

French troops attacking under artillery fire, at the Fleury ravine

Fort Souville dominated a crest 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) south-east of Fleury and its capture would give the Germans control of the heights overlooking Verdun. The German preparatory bombardment began on 9 July, with an attempt to suppress French artillery with over 60,000 gas shells which had little effect, since the French had been equipped with an improved M2 gas mask. Fort Souville and its approaches were bombarded with more than 300,000 shells, including about 500 14 in (360 mm) shells on the fort. An attack by three German divisions began on 11 July, in which German infantry bunched on the path leading to Fort Souville and came under bombardment from French artillery. The surviving troops were fired on by sixty French machine-gunners who emerged from the fort and took positions on the superstructure. Thirty soldiers of Infantry Regiment 140 managed to reach the top of the fort on 12 July, from where the Germans could see the roofs of Verdun and the spire of the cathedral. After a small French counter-attack, the survivors retreated to their start lines or surrendered. On the evening of 11 July, Crown Prince Wilhelm was ordered by Falkenhayn to go onto the defensive and on 15 July, the French conducted a larger counter-attack which gained no ground; for the rest of the month the French made only small attacks.

1 August – 17 September

On 1 August a German surprise-attack advanced 800–900 metres (870–980 yd) towards Fort Souville, which prompted French counter-attacks for two weeks, which were only able to retake a small amount of the captured ground. On 18 August, Fleury was recaptured and by September, French counter-attacks had recovered much of the ground lost in July and August. On 29 August Falkenhayn was replaced as Chief of the General Staff by Paul von Hindenburg and First Quartermaster-General Erich Ludendorff. On 3 September, an attack on both flanks at Fleury advanced the French line several hundred metres, against which German counter-attacks from 4–5 September failed. The French attacked again on 9, 13 and from 15–17 September. Losses were light except at the Tavannes railway tunnel, where 474 French troops died in a fire which began on 4 September.

20 October – 2 November

French counter-offensive, 24 October 1916

In October 1916 the French began the [1ère Bataille Offensive de Verdun] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (First Offensive Battle of Verdun), to recapture Fort Douaumont, an advance of more than 2 kilometres (1.2 mi). Seven of the 22 divisions at Verdun were replaced by mid-October and French infantry platoons were reorganised to contain riflemen, grenadiers and machine-gunners. In a six-day preliminary bombardment, the French artillery fired 855,264 shells, including 532,926 × 75mm field-gun shells, 100,000 × 155mm medium shells and 373 × 370mm and 400mm super-heavy shells, from more than 700 guns and howitzers. Two French Saint-Chamond railway guns, 13 km (8.1 mi) to the south-west at Baleycourt, fired 400 mm (16 in) shells, each weighing 1 short ton (0.91 t). At least 20 super-heavy shells hit Fort Douaumont, the sixth penetrating the lowest level and exploding in a pioneer depot, starting a fire next to 7,000 hand-grenades.

French infantry recapturing Douaumont

The 38th, 133rd and 74th divisions attacked at 11:40 a.m., 50 metres (55 yd) behind a creeping field-artillery barrage, moving at a rate of 50 metres (55 yd) in two minutes, beyond which a heavy artillery barrage moved in 500–1,000 metres (550–1,090 yd) lifts, as the field artillery barrage came within 150 metres (160 yd), to force the German infantry and machine-gunners to stay under cover. The Germans had partly evacuated Douaumont, which was recaptured on 24 October, by French marines and colonial infantry; more than 6,000 prisoners and fifteen guns were captured by 25 October but an attempt on Fort Vaux failed. The Haudromont quarries, Ouvrage de Thiaumont and Thiaumont Farm, Douaumont village, the northern end of Caillette Wood, Vaux pond, the eastern fringe of Bois Fumin and the Damloup battery were captured. The heaviest French artillery bombarded Fort Vaux for the next week and on 2 November, the Germans evacuated the fort after a huge explosion caused by a 220mm shell. French eavesdroppers overheard a German wireless message announcing the departure and a French infantry company entered the fort without firing a shot; on 5 November, the French reached the front line of 24 February; operations ceased until December.

15–17 December 1916

French offensive, 15 December 1916

An offensive by four divisions, with four more in reserve, planned by Nivelle and executed by Mangin, began at 10:00 a.m. on 15 December, after a six-day bombardment by 1,169,000 shells, fired from 827 guns. The final French bombardment was directed by observation aircraft crews and fell on trenches, dug-out entrances and observation posts. Five German divisions supported by 533 guns held the defensive position, which was 2,300 m (2,500 yd) deep, with 2⁄3 of the infantry in the battle zone and the remaining 1⁄3 in reserve 10–16 km (6.2–9.9 mi) back; two of the German divisions were understrength with only c. 3,000 infantry, instead of their normal establishment of c. 7,000. The infantry attack was preceded by a double creeping barrage, shrapnel-fire from field artillery 64 m (70 yd) in front of the infantry and a high-explosive barrage 140 m (150 yd) ahead, which moved towards a shrapnel bombardment along the German second line, laid to cut off the German retreat and block the advance of reinforcements. The German defence collapsed and 13,500 troops of the 21,000 in the five front divisions were lost, most having been trapped under cover and taken prisoner when the French infantry arrived.

The French reached their objectives at Vacherauville and Louvemont which had been lost in February, along with Hardaumont and Côte du Poivre, despite attacking in very bad weather. German reserve battalions did not reach the front until the evening and two Eingreif divisions, which had been ordered forward the previous evening, were still 23 km (14 mi) away at noon. By the night of 16/17 December, the French had consolidated a new line from Bezonvaux to Côte du Poivre, 2–3 kilometres (1.2–1.9 mi) beyond Douaumont and 1-kilometre (0.62 mi) north of Fort Vaux, before the German reserves and [Eingreif] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) units could counter-attack. The 155mm turret at Douaumont had been repaired and fired in support of the French attack. The closest German point to Verdun had been pushed 7.5 kilometres (4.7 mi) back and all the dominating observation points had been recaptured. The French captured 11,387 prisoners and 115 guns. Some German officers complained to Mangin about their lack of comfort in captivity and he replied, We do regret it, gentlemen but then we did not expect so many of you. Lochow, the 5th Army commander and General von Zwehl, commander of XIV Reserve Corps, were sacked on 16 December.

Subsequent operations

20–26 August 1917

French attack, August 1917

On 20 August 1917, the [2ème Bataille Offensive de Verdun] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Second Offensive Battle of Verdun) was carried out by the XIII, XVI, XV and XXXII corps, to capture Côte 304 and Mort Homme on the west bank and Côte Talou and Beaumont on the east bank. The plan required an advance of 1–2 kilometres (0.62–1.24 mi) on a 10-kilometre (6.2 mi) front. On 11 August, an artillery preparation by c. 3,000 guns on a 4 by 0.5 kilometres (2.49 mi × 0.31 mi) area began and by 20 August, the French artillery had fired 3,000,000 rounds, including 1,000,000 heavy shells, along with a machine-gun bombardment fired on tracks, crossroads, supply lines and German artillery batteries. In four days, French troops captured Bois d'Avocourt, Mort-Homme, Bois Corbeaux and the Bismarck, Kronprinz and Gallwitz tunnels, which had connected the German front lines to the rear, underneath Mort-Homme and Côte 304. On the right bank, Bois Talou, Champneuville, Côte 344, part of Bois Fosse, Bois Chaume and Mormont Farm were captured. Next day Côte 304, Samogneux and Régnieville fell and on 26 August, the French reached the southern outskirts of Beaumont. By 26 August, the French had captured 9,500 prisoners, thirty guns, 100 trench mortars and 242 machine-guns.

7 September 1917

Verdun Tableau de guerre, 1917 (Félix Vallotton, 1865–1925)

After the success of the attack in August, Guillaumat was ordered to plan an operation to capture several trenches and a more ambitious offensive to take the last ground from which German artillery-observers could see Verdun. Pétain questioned Guillaumat and Fayolle, who argued that the French could not remain in their present positions and must either advance or retire, advocating a limited advance to make German counter-attacks harder, improve conditions in the front line and deceive the Germans about French intentions. The two Corps on the east bank made small attacks, XV Corps on 7 September which failed and XXXII Corps the next day which was a costly success. The attack continued and the trenches necessary for a secure defensive position were taken but not the last German observation point. Further attempts to advance were met by massed artillery-fire and counter-attacks; the French commanders ended the operation.

Meuse–Argonne Offensive

Main article: Meuse-Argonne Offensive

Meuse–Argonne Offensive, 26 September – 11 November 1918

The French Fourth Army and the American First Army attacked on a front from Moronvilliers to the Meuse on 26 September 1918 at 5:30 p.m., after a three-hour bombardment. American troops quickly captured Malancourt, Bethincourt and Forges on the left bank of the Meuse and by midday the Americans had reached Gercourt, Cuisy, the southern part of Montfaucon and Cheppy. German troops were able to repulse American attacks on Montfaucon ridge, until it was outflanked to the south and Montfaucon was surrounded. German counter-attacks from 27–28 September slowed the American advance but Ivoiry and Epinon-Tille were captured, after which Montfaucon ridge was taken along with 8,000 prisoners and 100 guns. On the right bank of the Meuse, a combined Franco-American force under American command, took Brabant, Haumont, Bois d'Haumont and Bois des Caures and then crossed the front line of February 1916. By November, c. 20,000 prisoners, c. 150 guns, c. 1,000 trench-mortars and several thousand machine-guns had been captured. A German retreat began and continued until the Armistice.

Aftermath

Analysis

Falkenhayn wrote in his memoir that he sent an appreciation of the strategic situation to the Kaiser in December 1915,

The string in France has reached breaking point. A mass breakthrough—which in any case is beyond our means—is unnecessary. Within our reach there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death.

— Falkenhayn

The German strategy in 1916 was to inflict mass casualties on the French, a goal achieved against the Russians from 1914 to 1915, to weaken the French Army to the point of collapse. The French Army had to be drawn into circumstances from which it could not escape, for reasons of strategy and prestige. The Germans planned to use a large number of heavy and super-heavy guns to inflict a greater number of casualties than French artillery, which relied mostly upon the 75mm field gun. In 2007, Foley wrote that Falkenhayn intended an attrition battle from the beginning, contrary to the views of Krumeich, Förster and others but the lack of surviving documents had led to many interpretations of Falkenhayn's strategy. At the time, critics of Falkenhayn claimed that the battle demonstrated that he was indecisive and unfit for command; in 1937, Förster had proposed the view "forcefully". In 1994, Afflerbach questioned the authenticity of the "Christmas Memorandum" in his biography of Falkenhayn; after studying the evidence that had survived in the [Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Army Military History Research Institute) files, he concluded that the memorandum had been written after the war but that it was an accurate reflection of much of Falkenhayn's thinking in 1916.

French train horses resting in a river on their way to Verdun

Krumeich wrote that the Christmas Memorandum had been fabricated to justify a failed strategy and that attrition had been substituted for the capture of Verdun, only after the city was not taken quickly. Foley wrote that after the failure of the Ypres Offensive of 1914, Falkenhayn had returned to the pre-war strategic thinking of Moltke the Elder and Hans Delbrück on [Ermattungsstrategie] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (attrition strategy), because the coalition fighting Germany was too powerful to be decisively defeated by military means. German strategy should aim to divide the Allies, by forcing at least one of the Entente powers into a negotiated peace. An attempt at attrition lay behind the offensive against Russia in 1915 but the Russians had refused to accept German peace feelers, despite the huge defeats inflicted by the Austro-Germans that summer.

With insufficient forces to break through the Western Front and to overcome the Entente reserves behind it, Falkenhayn attempted to force the French to attack instead, by threatening a sensitive point close to the front line. Falkenhayn chose Verdun as the place to force the French to begin a counter-offensive, which would be defeated with huge losses to the French, inflicted by German artillery on the dominating heights around the city. The 5th Army would begin a big offensive with limited objectives, to seize the Meuse Heights on the right bank of the river, from which German artillery could dominate the battlefield. By being forced into a counter-offensive against such formidable positions, the French Army would "bleed itself white". As the French were weakened, the British would be forced to launch a hasty relief offensive, which would also be a costly defeat. If such defeats were not enough to force negotiations on the French, a German offensive would mop up the last of the Franco-British armies and break the Entente "once and for all".

In a revised instruction to the French army of January 1916, the General Staff had stated that equipment could not be fought by men. Firepower could conserve infantry but a battle of material prolonged the war and consumed the troops which were preserved in each battle. In 1915 and early 1916, German industry quintupled the output of heavy artillery and doubled the production of super-heavy artillery. French production had also recovered since 1914 and by February 1916, the army had 3,500 heavy guns. In May 1916, Joffre implemented a plan to issue each division with two groups of 155 mm guns and each corps with four groups of long-range guns. Both sides at Verdun had the means to fire huge numbers of heavy shells to suppress defences, before risking infantry movements. At the end of May, the Germans had 1,730 heavy guns at Verdun against 548 French, which were sufficient to contain the Germans but not enough for a counter-offensive.

German infantry found that it was easier for the French to endure preparatory bombardments, since French positions tended to be on dominating ground, not always visible and sparsely occupied. As soon as German infantry attacked, the French positions "came to life" and the troops began machine-gun and rapid fire with field artillery. On 22 April, the Germans had suffered 1,000 casualties and in mid-April, the French fired 26,000 field artillery shells during an attack to the south-east of Fort Douaumont. A few days after taking over at Verdun, Pétain told the air commander, Commandant Charles Tricornot de Rose, to sweep away the German air service and to provide observation for the French artillery. German air superiority was challenged and eventually reversed, using eight-aircraft [Escadrilles] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) for artillery-observation, counter-battery and tactical support.

German propaganda medal dated 1917

The fighting at Verdun was less costly to both sides than the war of movement in 1914, which cost the French c. 850,000 and the Germans c. 670,000 men from August to December. The 5th Army had a lower rate of loss than armies on the Eastern Front in 1915 and the French had a lower average rate of loss at Verdun than the rate over three weeks during the Second Battle of Champagne (September–October 1915), which were not fought as battles of attrition. German loss rates increased relative to French rates, from 2.2:1 in early 1915 to close to 1:1 by the end of the Battle of Verdun and rough parity continued during the Nivelle Offensive in 1917. The main cost of attrition tactics was indecision, because limited-objective attacks under an umbrella of massed heavy artillery-fire, could succeed but created unlimited duration.

Pétain used a "Noria" (rotation) system, to relieve French troops at Verdun after a short period, which brought most troops of the French army to the Verdun front but for shorter periods than for the German troops. French will to resist did not collapse, the symbolic importance of Verdun proved a rallying point and Falkenhayn was forced to conduct the offensive for much longer and commit far more infantry than intended. By the end of April, most of the German strategic reserve was at Verdun, suffering similar casualties to the French army. The Germans believed that they were inflicting losses at a rate of 5:2; German military intelligence thought that French casualties up to 11 March, had been 100,000 men and Falkenhayn was confident that German artillery could easily inflict another 100,000 losses. In May, Falkenhayn estimated that the French had lost 525,000 men against 250,000 German casualties and that the French strategic reserve had been reduced to 300,000 troops. Actual French losses were c. 130,000 by 1 May and the Noria system had enabled 42 divisions to be withdrawn and rested, when their casualties reached 50 percent. Of the 330 infantry battalions of the French metropolitan army, 259 (78 percent) went to Verdun, against 48 German divisions, 25 percent of the [Westheer] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (western army). Afflerbach wrote that 85 French divisions fought at Verdun and that from February to August, the ratio of German to French losses was 1:1.1, not the third of French losses assumed by Falkenhayn. By 31 August, 5th Army losses were 281,000 and French casualties numbered 315,000 men.

French trench at Côte 304, Verdun

In June 1916, the amount of French artillery at Verdun had been increased to 2,708 guns, including 1,138 × 75mm field guns; the French and German armies fired c. 10,000,000 shells, with a weight of 1,350,000 long tons (1,370,000 t) from February–December. The German offensive had been contained by French reinforcements, difficulties of terrain and the weather by May, with the 5th Army infantry stuck in tactically dangerous positions, overlooked by the French on the east bank and the west bank, instead of secure on the Meuse Heights. Attrition of the French forces was inflicted by constant infantry attacks, which were vastly more costly than waiting for French counter-attacks and defeating them with artillery. The stalemate was broken by the Brusilov Offensive and the Anglo-French relief offensive on the Somme, which had been expected to lead to the collapse of the Anglo-French armies. Falkenhayn had begun to remove divisions from the armies on the Western Front in June, to rebuild the strategic reserve but only twelve divisions could be spared. Four divisions were sent to the 2nd Army on the Somme, which had dug a layered defensive system based on the experience of the [Herbstschlacht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). The situation before the beginning of the battle on the Somme was considered by Falkenhayn to be better than before previous offensives and a relatively easy defeat of the British offensive was anticipated. No divisions were moved from the 6th Army, which had 17+1⁄2 divisions and a large amount of heavy artillery, ready for a counter-offensive when the British offensive had been defeated.

The strength of the Anglo-French offensive surprised Falkenhayn and the staff officers of OHL despite the losses inflicted on the British; the loss of artillery to "overwhelming" counter-battery fire and the policy of instant counter-attack against any Anglo-French advance, led to far more German infantry casualties than at the height of the fighting at Verdun, where 25,989 casualties had been suffered in the first ten days, against 40,187 losses on the Somme. The Brusilov Offensive had recommenced as soon as Russian supplies had been replenished, which inflicted more losses on Austro-Hungarian and German troops during June and July, when the offensive was extended to the north. Falkenhayn was called on to justify his strategy to the Kaiser on 8 July and again advocated sending minimal reinforcements to the east and to continue the "decisive" battle in France, where the Somme offensive was the "last throw of the dice" for the Entente. Falkenhayn had already given up the plan for a counter-offensive near Arras, to reinforce the Russian front and the 2nd Army, with eighteen divisions moved from the reserve and the 6th Army front. By the end of August only one division remained in reserve. The 5th Army had been ordered to limit its attacks at Verdun in June but a final effort was made in July to capture Fort Souville. The effort failed and on 12 July, Falkenhayn ordered a strict defensive policy, permitting only small local attacks, to try to limit the number of troops the French took from the RFV to add to the Somme offensive.

Falkenhayn had underestimated the French, for whom victory at all costs was the only way to justify the sacrifices already made; the pressure imposed on the French army never came close to making the French collapse and triggering a premature British relief offensive. The ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses had also been exaggerated, in part because the 5th Army commanders had tried to capture Verdun and attacked regardless of loss; even when reconciled to Falkenhayn's attrition strategy, they continued to use the costly [Vernichtungsstrategie] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (strategy of annihilation) and tactics of [Bewegungskrieg] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (manoeuvre warfare). Failure to reach the Meuse Heights, forced the 5th Army to try to advance from poor tactical positions and to impose attrition by infantry attacks and counter-attacks. The unanticipated duration of the offensive made Verdun a matter of German prestige as much as it was for the French and Falkenhayn became dependent on a British relief offensive and a German counter-offensive to end the stalemate. When it came, the collapse of the southern front in Russia and the power of the Anglo-French attack on the Somme reduced the German armies to holding their positions as best they could. On 29 August, Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who ended the German offensive at Verdun on 2 September.

Casualties

In 1980, Terraine gave c. 750,000 Franco-German casualties in 299 days of battle; Dupuy and Dupuy gave 542,000 French casualties in 1993. Heer and Naumann calculated 377,231 French and 337,000 German casualties, a monthly average of 70,000 casualties in 2000. Mason wrote in 2000 that there had been 378,000 French and 337,000 German casualties. In 2003, Clayton quoted 330,000 German casualties, of whom 143,000 were killed or missing and 351,000 French losses, 56,000 killed, 100,000 missing or prisoners and 195,000 wounded. Writing in 2005, Doughty gave French casualties at Verdun, from 21 February to 20 December 1916 as 377,231 men of 579,798 losses at Verdun and the Somme; 16 percent of Verdun casualties were known to have been killed, 56 percent wounded and 28 percent missing, many of whom were eventually presumed dead. Doughty wrote that other historians had followed Churchill (1927) who gave a figure of 442,000 casualties by mistakenly including all French losses on the Western Front. (In 2014, Philpott recorded 377,000 French casualties, of whom 162,000 men had been killed, German casualties were 337,000 men and a recent estimate of casualties at Verdun from 1914 to 1918 was 1,250,000 men).

Souvenir of the battle showing a French soldier.

In the second edition of The World Crisis (1938), Churchill wrote that the figure of 442,000 was for other ranks and the figure of "probably" 460,000 casualties included officers. Churchill gave a figure of 278,000 German casualties of whom 72,000 were killed and expressed dismay that French casualties had exceeded German by about 3:2. Churchill also stated that an eighth needed to be deducted from his figures for both sides to account for casualties on other sectors, giving 403,000 French and 244,000 German casualties. Grant gave a figure of 434,000 German casualties in 2005. In 2005, Foley used calculations made by Wendt in 1931 to give German casualties at Verdun from 21 February to 31 August 1916 as 281,000, against 315,000 French casualties. Afflerbach used the same source in 2000 to give 336,000 German and 365,000 French casualties at Verdun, from February to December 1916.

In 2013, Jankowski wrote that since the beginning of the war, French army units had produced [états numériques des pertes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) every five days for the Bureau of Personnel at GQG. The health service at the Ministry of War received daily counts of wounded taken in by hospitals and other services but casualty data was dispersed among regimental depots, GQG, the [État Civil] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which recorded deaths, the [Service de Santé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which counted injuries and illnesses and the [Renseignements aux Familles] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which communicated with next of kin. Regimental depots were ordered to keep [fiches de position] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) to record losses continuously and the [Première Bureau] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) of GQG began to compare the five-day field reports with the records of hospital admissions. The new system was used to calculate losses since August 1914, which took several months but the system had become established by February 1916. The [états numériques des pertes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) were used to calculate casualty figures published in the [Journal Officiel] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), the French Official History and other publications.

The German armies compiled [Verlustlisten] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) every ten days, which were published by the [Reichsarchiv] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in the [deutsches Jahrbuch] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) of 1924–1925. German medical units kept detailed records of medical treatment at the front and in hospital and in 1923, the [Zentral Nachweiseamt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) published an amended edition of the lists produced during the war, incorporating medical service data not in the [Verlustlisten] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). Monthly figures of wounded and ill servicemen that were treated were published in 1934 in the [Sanitätsbericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). Using such sources for comparisons of losses during a battle is difficult, because the information recorded losses over time, rather than place. Losses calculated for particular battles could be inconsistent, as in the Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War 1914–1920 (1922). In the early 1920s, Louis Marin reported to the Chamber of Deputies but could not give figures per battle, except for some by using numerical reports from the armies, which were unreliable unless reconciled with the system established in 1916.

Some French data excluded those lightly wounded but some did not. In April 1917, GQG required that the [états numériques des pertes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) discriminate between the lightly wounded, treated at the front over a period of 20–30 days and severely wounded evacuated to hospitals. Uncertainty over the criteria had not been resolved before the war ended, [Verlustlisten] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) excluded lightly wounded and the [Zentral Nachweiseamt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) records included them. Churchill revised German statistics, by adding 2 percent for unrecorded wounded in The World Crisis, written in the 1920s and the British official historian added 30 percent. For the Battle of Verdun, the [Sanitätsbericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) contained incomplete data for the Verdun area, did not define "wounded" and the 5th Army field reports exclude them. The Marin Report and [Service de Santé] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) covered different periods but included lightly wounded. Churchill used a [Reichsarchiv] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) figure of 428,000 casualties and took a figure of 532,500 casualties from the Marin Report, for March to June and November to December 1916, for all the Western Front.

The [états numériques des pertes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) give French losses in a range from 348,000 to 378,000 and in 1930, Wendt recorded for the French Second Army and the German 5th Army, casualties of 362,000 and 336,831 respectively, from 21 February to 20 December, not taking account of the inclusion or exclusion of lightly wounded. In 2006, McRandle and Quirk used the [Sanitätsbericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) to adjust the [Verlustlisten] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) by an increase of c. 11 percent, which gave a total of 373,882 German casualties, compared to the French Official History record by 20 December 1916, of 373,231 French losses. A German record from the [Sanitätsbericht] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), which explicitly excluded lightly wounded, compared German losses at Verdun in 1916, which averaged 37.7 casualties for each 1,000 men, with the 9th Army in Poland 1914 average of 48.1 per 1,000, the 11th Army average in Galicia 1915 of 52.4 per 1,000 men, the 1st Army Somme 1916 average of 54.7 per 1,000 and the 2nd Army average on the Somme of 39.1 per 1,000 men. Jankowski estimated an equivalent figure for the French Second Army of 40.9 men per 1,000, including lightly wounded. With a c. 11 percent adjustment following McRandle and Quirk, to the German figure of 37.7 per 1,000 to include lightly wounded. The loss rate is analogous to the estimate for French casualties.

Morale

The battlefield in 2005

The concentration of so much fighting in such a small area devastated the land, resulting in miserable conditions for troops on both sides. Rain, combined with the constant tearing up of the ground, turned the clay of the area to a wasteland of mud full of human remains. Shell craters became filled with a liquid ooze, becoming so slippery that troops who fell into them or took cover in them could drown. Forests were reduced to tangled piles of wood by constant artillery-fire and eventually obliterated. The effect on soldiers in the battle was devastating and many broke down with shell-shock. Some French soldiers attempted to desert to Spain, those caught being court-martialled and shot. On 20 March, French deserters disclosed details of the French defences to the Germans, who were able to surround 2,000 men and force them to surrender.

A French lieutenant at Verdun, who would be killed by a shell, wrote in his diary on 23 May 1916, "Humanity is mad. It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!" Discontent began to spread among French troops at Verdun during the summer of 1916. Following the promotion of General Pétain from the Second Army on 1 June and his replacement by General Nivelle, five infantry regiments were affected by episodes of "collective indiscipline". Two French Lieutenants, Henri Herduin and Pierre Millant, were summarily shot on 11 June; Nivelle then published an Order of the Day forbidding French troops to surrender. In 1926, after an inquiry into the cause célèbre, Herduin and Millant were exonerated and their military records expunged.

Commemoration

Memorial at the Trench of the Bayonets (Tranchée des Baïonnettes), where according to legend, a unit of French troops was buried alive by shell bursts, leaving only their rifles protruding above the ground, with bayonets fixed.

In April 1916, Pétain had issued an Order of the Day, ["Courage! On les aura"] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("Courage! We will get them") and on 23 June 1916, Nivelle ordered, "They shall not pass".

Vous ne les laisserez pas passer, mes camarades (You will not let them pass, my comrades).

— Nivelle

Nivelle had been concerned about diminished French morale at Verdun; after his promotion to lead the Second Army in June 1916, manifestations of indiscipline occurred in five front line regiments. [Défaillance] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) reappeared in the French army mutinies that followed the Nivelle Offensive (April–May 1917).

Denizot published statistical tables including French troop movements, as well as monthly French artillery ammunition consumption by type of gun (German artillery ammunition consumption is reported in lesser detail) and period photographs show overlapping shell craters in an area of about 100 square kilometres (39 sq mi). Forests planted in the 1930s have grown up and hide most of the Zone rouge (Red Zone) but the battlefield remains a vast graveyard, where the mortal remains of over 100,000 missing soldiers lie, unless discovered by the French Forestry Service and laid in the Douaumont ossuary.

Pétain praised what he saw as the success of the fixed fortification system at Verdun in La Bataille de Verdun published in 1929 and in 1930, while construction of the Maginot Line [(Ligne Maginot)] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) began along the border with Germany. At Verdun, French field artillery in the open outnumbered turreted guns in the Verdun forts by at least 200:1. It was the mass of French field artillery (over 2,000 guns after May 1916) that inflicted about 70 percent of German infantry casualties. In 1935, a number of mechanised and motorised units were deployed behind the Maginot line and plans were laid to send detachments to fight a mobile defence in front of the fortifications. Verdun remained a symbol and at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1953–1954), General Christian de Castries said that the situation was "somewhat like Verdun". French forces at Dien Bien Phu were supplied by transport aircraft, using a landing strip in range of Viet Minh artillery; the French forces at Verdun were supplied by road and rail, beyond the reach of German artillery.

Verdun Memorial on the battlefield near Fleury-devant-Douaumont, opened 1967: to the fallen soldiers and civilians

Verdun has become for the French the representative memory of World War I. Antoine Prost wrote, "Like Auschwitz, Verdun marks a transgression of the limits of the human condition". From 1918 to 1939, the French expressed two memories of the battle, a patriotic view embodied in memorials built on the battlefield and the memory of the survivors who recalled the death, suffering and sacrifice of others. In the 1960s, Verdun became a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation, through remembrance of common suffering and in the 1980s it became a capital of peace. Organisations were formed and old museums were dedicated to the ideals of peace and human rights. On 22 September 1984, the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (whose father had fought near Verdun) and French President François Mitterrand (who had been taken prisoner nearby in World War II), stood at the Douaumont cemetery, holding hands for several minutes in driving rain as a gesture of Franco-German reconciliation.

See also

• List of French villages destroyed in World War I
• Reverse salient
• Rue Verdun, Beirut, Lebanon
• Voie Sacrée

References

Books

• Afflerbach, H. (1994). Falkenhayn, Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (in German). München: Verlag Oldenburg. ISBN 3-486-55972-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Chickering, R.; Förster, S. (2006) [2000]. Great War, Total War, Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front 1914–1918 (Cambridge University Press ed.). London: Publications of the German Historical Institute. ISBN 0-521-02637-7.
• Churchill, W. S. (1938) [1923–1931]. The World Crisis (Odhams ed.). London: Thornton Butterworth. OCLC 4945014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Clayton, A. (2003). Paths of Glory: The French Army 1914–18. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-35949-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Denizot, A. (1996). Verdun, 1914–1918 (in French). Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Latines. ISBN 2-7233-0514-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Doughty, R. A. (2005). Pyrrhic Victory: French Strategy and Operations in the Great War. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University. ISBN 0-67401-880-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Durant, A.; Durant, W. (1967). The Story of Civilization. Vol. 10. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster. OCLC 387805.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Falkenhayn, E. (2004) [1919]. Die Oberste Heeresleitung 1914–1916 in ihren wichtigsten Entschliessungen [General Headquarters and its Critical Decisions 1914–1916] (PDF) (in German). facsimile of Hutchinson 1919 trans. (Naval & Military Press ed.). Berlin: Mittler & Sohn. ISBN 978-1-84574-139-6. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
• Foley, R. T. (2007) [2005]. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 (pbk. ed.). Cambridge: CUP. ISBN 978-0-521-04436-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Grant, R. G. (2005). Battle: A Visual Journey Through 5,000 Years of Combat. London: Dorling Kindersley Publishers. ISBN 1-40531-100-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Heer, H.; Naumann, K. (2000). War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II, 1941–44. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 1-57181-232-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Holstein, C. (2010) [2002]. Fort Douaumont. Havertown: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-84884-345-5.
• Horne, A. (2007) [1962]. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (Penguin repr. ed.). London. ISBN 0141937521.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Jackson, J. (2001). France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-820706-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Jankowski, P. (2014) [2013]. Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-931689-2.
• Le Hallé, G. (1998). Verdun, les Forts de la Victoire (in French). Paris: Citédis. ISBN 2-91192-010-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Mason, D. (2000). Verdun. Moreton-in-Marsh: Windrush Press. ISBN 1-900624-41-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Murase, T. (2002). An Asian Zone of Monetary Stability. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press. ISBN 0-73153-664-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Ousby, I. (2002). The Road to Verdun: France, Nationalism and the First World War. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-22405-990-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Pedroncini, G. (1989). Petain: Le Soldat 1914–1940 (in French). Paris: Perrin. ISBN 2-262-01386-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Philpott, W. (2014). Attrition: Fighting the First World War. London: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1-4087-0355-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Samuels, M. (1995). Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies 1888–1918. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-4214-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Schwerin, E. Graf von (1939). Königlich preußisches Sturm-Bataillon Nr 5 (Rohr): nach der Erinnerung aufgezeichnet unter Zuhilfenahme des Tagebuches von Oberstleutnant a. D. Rohr. Aus Deutschlands großer Zeit. Sporn: Zeulenroda. OCLC 250134090. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Terraine, J. (1992) [1980]. The Smoke and the Fire, Myths and Anti-myths of War 1861–1945 (Leo Cooper ed.). London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0-85052-330-3.
• Verdun and the Battles for its Possession (PDF). Clermont Ferrand: Michelin and Cie. 1919. OCLC 654957066. Retrieved 16 August 2013.
• Windrow, M. (2004). The Last Valley: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. ISBN 0-29784-671-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Williams, C. (1998). A Life of General De Gaulle: The Last Great Frenchman. Hoboken, NJ: Jossey Bass. ISBN 0-47111-711-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Wynne, G. C. (1976) [1939]. If Germany Attacks: The Battle in Depth in the West (Greenwood Press, NY ed.). London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-8371-5029-9.

Encyclopaedias

• Dupuy, E. R.; Dupuy, T. N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopaedia of Military History: From 3,500 BC to the Present (4th ed.). New York: Harper Reference. ISBN 0-06270-056-1.

Journals

• Barcellini, S. (1996). "Memoire et Memoires de Verdun 1916–1996". Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains. 46 (182). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. ISSN 0984-2292. JSTOR 25732329. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Foerster, W. (1937). "Falkenhayns Plan für 1916 ein Beitrag zur Frage: Wie gelangt man aus dem Stellungskrieg zu Entscheid ungsuchender Operation?". Militärwissenschaftliche Rundschau (in German) (2, 3 ed.). Berlin: Mittler. ISSN 0935-3623. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Krumeich, G. (1996). ""Saigner la France"? Mythes et Realite de la Strategie Allemande de la Bataille de Verdun". Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (in French). 46 (182). Paris: Presses universitaires de France. ISSN 0984-2292. JSTOR 25732324. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

Further reading

Books

• Brown, M. (1999). Verdun 1916. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 0-7524-1774-6.
• Holstein, C. (2009). Walking Verdun. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-84415-867-6.
• Keegan, J. (1998). The First World War. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09180-178-8.
• MacKenzie, D. A. (1920). The Story of the Great War. Glasgow: Blackie & Son. OCLC 179279677.
• McDannald, A. H. (1920). The Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 38. New York: J. B. Lyon. OCLC 506108219.
• Martin, W. (2001). Verdun 1916. London: Osprey. ISBN 1-85532-993-X.
• Mosier, J. (2001). The Myth of the Great War. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-276-8.
• Pétain, H. P. (1930) [1929]. Verdun (PDF) (trans. M. MacVeagh ed.). London: Elkin Mathews & Marrot. OCLC 1890922. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
• Romains, J. (1938). Prélude à Verdun and Verdun (in French) (Prion Lost Treasures 1999 ed.). Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 1-85375-358-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
• Rouquerol, J. J. (1931). Le Drame de Douaumont (in French). Paris: Payot. OCLC 248000026.
• Sandler, S. (ed.) (2002). Ground Warfare: an International Encyclopedia. Vol. I (2002 ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-344-0. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Serrigny, B. (1959). Trente Ans avec Pétain (in French). Paris: Librairie Plon. OCLC 469408701.
• Zweig, A. (1936) [1935]. Erziehung vor Verdun (in German) (Viking Press ed.). Amsterdam: Querido Verlag N.V. OCLC 829150704. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)

Theses

• Sonnenberger, M. (2013). Initiative Within the Philosophy of Auftragstaktik: Determining Factors of the Understanding of Initiative in the German Army 1806–1955 (MMAS). Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College. OCLC 875682161. Retrieved 12 June 2014.

External links

• NASA satellite map
• Map of the Verdun battlefield, showing fortifications
• Underground at Verdun
• The Battle of Verdun
• Info from firstworldwar.com
• Verdun (excerpt)
• Dutch/Flemish Forum
• Verdun, A Battle of the Great War
• Douaumont Bataille Ossuaire Three panoramas
• Map of Europe, 1916
• Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) German Wikipedia
• Contemporary Schneider artillery catalogue
• Chlumberg, H. "The Miracle at Verdun"

• Humphries, M. O.; Maker, J. (2013). Der Weltkrieg: 1914 The Battle of the Frontiers and Pursuit to the Marne. Germany's Western Front: Translations from the German Official History of the Great War. Vol. I. Part 1. Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-1-55458-373-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Official Commission of the Belgian Government: Reports on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and of the Laws and Customs of War in Belgium (PDF). London: HMSO. 1915. OCLC 820928791. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
• Raleigh, W. A. (1922). The War in the Air, Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force (PDF). Vol. I (Hamish Hamilton 1969 ed.). Oxford: OUP. OCLC 785856329. Retrieved 6 June 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Sheldon, J. (2010). The German Army at Ypres 1914 (1st ed.). Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-84884-113-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Skinner, H. T.; Stacke, H. Fitz M. (1922). Principal Events 1914–1918 (PDF). History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. London: HMSO. OCLC 17673086. Retrieved 7 February 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Strachan, H. (2001). The First World War: To Arms. Vol. I. Oxford: OUP. ISBN 0-19-926191-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Terraine, J. (1980). The Smoke and the Fire: Myths and Anti-Myths of War, 1861–1945 (Leo Cooper 1992 ed.). London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0-85052-330-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• The war of 1914 Military Operations of Belgium in Defence of the Country and to Uphold Her Neutrality (PDF). London: W. H. & L Collingridge. 1915. OCLC 8651831. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
• Thomas, N. (2003). The German Army in World War I, 1914–15. Vol. I. London: Osprey. ISBN 1-84176-565-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Tucker, S.; Roberts, P. M. (2005). World War I: Encyclopedia. Vol. I. New York: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-420-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Tyng, S. (1935). The Campaign of the Marne 1914 (Westholme Publishing 2007 ed.). New York: Longmans, Green and Co. ISBN 1-59416-042-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Zuber, T. (2007). The Battle of the Frontiers: Ardennes 1914 (2009 History Press Stroud UK ed.). Charleston SC: History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5255-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

Journals

• Horne, J.; Kramer, A. (1994). German "Atrocities" and Franco-German Opinion, 1914: The Evidence of German Soldiers' Diaries. Vol. 66. ISSN 0022-2801. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

Websites

• Rickard, J. (1 September 2007). "Siege of Maubeuge, 25 August – 7 September 1914". Retrieved 18 February 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)

Further reading

• Erdmann, K. D. (ed.) (1972). Kurt Riezler: Tagebücher, Aufsätze, Dokumente. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. OCLC 185654196. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Kluck, A. (1920). The March on Paris and the Battle of the Marne, 1914 (PDF). London: Edward Arnold. OCLC 2513009. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
• Zuckerman, L. (2004). The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I. New York: NYU Press. ISBN 0-81479-704-0.

External links

• Brave Little Belgium
• De Eerste Wereldoorlog (Belgian)
• Brave Little Belgium
• German Occupations
• German atrocities, 1914
• Atrocities of War
• Animation of the Great Retreat
• Sambre-Marne-Yser: sieges (French)