A Short History of the Great War

by A. F. Pollard

Verdun was selected for attack because its proximity to the German frontier made it dangerous in the hands of the enemy, and also made it easier for the Germans to concentrate on its attack the masses of artillery with which they proposed to do the fighting, while its salience hampered the French lines of communication. There were three lines of defence. The outermost ran in an arc nine miles from Verdun round in front of Malancourt, Bthincourt, Forges, Brabant, Ornes, Fromezey, and Fresnes; the second was some three miles nearer in, and the third ran by Bras, Douaumont, Vaux, and Eix. The danger consisted in the facts that the outer lines were thinly held by Territorials and the inner lines had not been properly fortified; for the French, unequalled in the lan of attack, never developed that patient and meticulous preparation for defence which stood the Germans in good stead, and always found it easier to visualize attacks than to materialize defences. Verdun, having survived the epidemic so fatal to fortresses in 1914, was treated as immune from serious danger in 1916. If, therefore, the Germans could batter to pieces the first position, the rest might easily fall, and they came dangerously near to fulfilling their hopes of reaching Verdun in four days.

At seven o'clock on the morning of Monday, 21 February, there burst forth on the centre of the front a heavier bombardment than any before experienced. The French defences were obliterated, and five hours later the Germans walked into possession. A counter-attack checked their progress in the afternoon, and the flanks of the French centre held out at Brabant and Herbebois throughout that day and the next. But the depression in the centre created a salient on either side, and the French could only fight desperate rearguard actions while the line was straightened out; by Wednesday morning they were back on a line running due east from Samogneux. But the German pressure on the centre was renewed and the French were pressed back to Beaumont and the Bois des Fosses. Ornes on the east and Samogneux on the west had to be abandoned, and on the 24th the Germans were threatening the centre of the last of the French lines of defence at Louvemont and Hill 347. Only a desperate rally enabled the French to keep their front intact while their left was withdrawn from Champneuville and Talou hill to Vacherauville and the Poivre hill, and their right from Bezonvaux and the Bois des Caurires to the Douaumont plateau. On the 25th the Germans launched what they thought was their final attack in the battle for Verdun, and before nightfall the news was telegraphed to Berlin that Fort Douaumont, the key of the last line of defence, had fallen.

It was a natural but unrealized anticipation. Eighteen German divisions were pitted against the worn and weary remnants of the original French defenders, and the Brandenburgers had captured the fort. But its ruins were merely a detail in the Douaumont position. To the east the French held the redoubt and to the west the village of Douaumont; and instead of carrying the plateau the Germans had been checked on its summit. Their other main attack had fared even worse on the Poivre hill to the west; and although Louvemont and Hill 347 had been carried in the centre, the fifth day of the battle closed with the Germans behind instead of beyond the real defences of the city they had hoped to reach in four. On that day, too, Ptain arrived to take over the command, and he was followed by reinforcements. On the morrow a furious counter-attack drove the Germans out of the greater part of Fort Douaumont and back to the northern edge of the plateau, and the crisis of the first surprise had passed. The battle continued, but the fact that it spread eastwards round to Eix and Manheulles showed that the concentrated thrust at the centre had failed; and the shortening of the French curve round by Fromezey, tain, Buzy, and Fresnes to a straight line running from Vaux to Les parges strengthened rather than weakened the defence.

The Germans now shifted their ground of attack from the east to the west of the Meuse, and on 2 March a four days' bombardment began of the Malancourt-Forges line. They sought to conceal their change of plan by renewing the struggle for Douaumont, but on 6 March they drove the French from Forges and Regnville back to their real defences on the ridge behind, of which the Mort Homme (Hill 295) was the crest, and Hills 304 and 265 its western and eastern supports. Their first attack was on the eastern sector of this front, and by nightfall they had gained Hill 265 and penetrated into the Bois des Corbeaux which stretched between it and Mort Homme. The struggle continued throughout the 7th and 8th, but on the 9th-11th the Germans varied it by reverting to the east bank of the Meuse and making a costly but unsuccessful attempt to outflank Douaumont by capturing Vaux, Damloup, Eix, and Manheulles. This diversion did not slacken the pressure on the west bank of the Meuse, and the French were forced back from the Bois des Corbeaux to the Bois de Cumires; on 14 March the Germans made a great bid for Mort Homme, and Berlin announced its capture. But they had only taken its north-eastern slopes, and on the 17th they sought a fresh approach from the west by means of a converging attack from Avocourt and Malancourt on Hill 304. The bombardment lasted until the 20th, when the Germans forced their way through Avocourt wood. They were driven back by a counter-attack on the 29th, but Malancourt fell on the 31st, and the French further withdrew from Haucourt. On 2 April the Germans also succeeded in driving an awkward wedge into the Bois de la Caillette between Vaux and Douaumont, but Mangin thrust it back on the following day.

There was yet another struggle for Mort Homme. On 7 April the French had evacuated their salient at Bthincourt and re-formed their front on a straight line running just north of Mort Homme. On the 9th the Germans, having failed in their local attacks, attempted a general movement against the whole front west of the Meuse. The battle raged for three days, and at one time the Germans penetrated into Cumires; but they were driven back by the French artillery, and the general assault, in spite of its carnage, produced no greater gain for the Germans than a ravine on the edge of the Poivre hill. From that date the first battle of Verdun died away amid local efforts along the lines east and west of the Meuse. But the Germans were still obstinately wedded to their scheme of exhausting France before the time came for a general Allied offensive; and they felt that they could not cut their losses and acquiesce in the blow to their prestige and to the credit of the Crown Prince. A respite, however was needed for the reorganization of the command and the re-formation of the armies shattered in the fruitless attacks and it was not until 3 May that the Germans were ready to begin the second battle of Verdun.

This time it opened on the west bank of the Meuse, and Mort Homme was as before the obstacle and the objective. After two days' bombardment the Germans gained some trenches north of Hill 304, and on the 7th they attacked it on three sides and compelled the French to abandon the crest. This reduced Mort Homme to a difficult salient, and after a few days' lull the Germans gained the summit on 21 May by an expenditure of man-power out of all proportion to the value of the result. By the 24th they had secured what was left of Cumires at a similar cost, and the French line ran straight from Avocourt in front of Esnes and Chattancourt to the Meuse. On the east bank the onslaught was no less furious, and on 7 May the Germans drove the French out of Douaumont fort and down the road towards Fleury. Mangin recovered the greater part of Douaumont on the 22nd, but German reinforcements took it again on the 24th, and on the 25th pushed on by Haudromont wood and Thiaumont farm, outflanking Vaux on the west. Further progress was made in the following days, and on 1 June the fall of Damloup uncovered the eastern flank of the Vaux position. The fort itself made a marvellous resistance under Major Raynal, and held out till the 6th.

There was a lull for four days, but on the 11th the struggle recommenced with the Germans only four miles from Verdun. It raged chiefly on the slopes of Froideterre and round the village of Fleury close by, and the climax came on the 23rd. On that day the Germans got into Fleury and were driven out; on the 24th they were in again, but on the 30th the French recovered Thiaumont and neutralized the German advantage. On the morrow the Western front was aflame with the battle of the Somme. Verdun had done its work and taken its wages. The struggle flickered on; Fleury changed hands again in July and August, and so did Thiaumont. But the attack had lost its vital importance and the decisive scene had shifted to the west where the Germans and not the French were on the defensive. Ptain and then Nivelle, who succeeded him in April, had held the fort till the appointed time; and their heroic troops had made their name and that of Verdun a possession for ever. Falkenhayn, who had taken Moltke's place as chief of the German Staff and was responsible for the German strategy at Verdun, was removed to another sphere of activity; but the Germans themselves were right when they attributed failure less to their own defects than to the valour of their foes. These, they exclaimed, were not the French they had met at Sedan in 1870. They were not. Then, they were the soldiers of an Emperor who went to war with the cry "to Berlin" on their lips. Now, they were the soldiers of a democratic Republic fighting for home and freedom, a fragment of the eternal soul of France.

The central act of the German offensive thus closed with defeat at Verdun; there were two others, one fought in the Alps and the other on the sea. The Italian campaigns were never more than subsidiary operations in the war, for it was not until 27 August 1916 that Italy declared war on Germany, and the number of German divisions on the Italian front was never more than six. Even to Austria Russia was the dangerous foe, and Italian strategy threatened at worst no more than the temporary loss of Trieste, a trifle compared with that of Galicia. For the difficulties of the terrain, jealousy between Italians and Jugo-Slavs, and Italy's lack of the industrial means for equipping a sufficiently formidable army, put it beyond her power to threaten any vital spot in the Hapsburg dominions. Italy, moreover, had not entered the war with the same motives or same unanimity as the other Powers, and her army at the front was not the same embodiment of national strength and spirit. The Austrian offensive in May was therefore due rather to the temptations held out by the weakness of the Italian flank than to any urgent necessity of defence against the projected Italian advance. Nevertheless the Italian plains were always seductive, and it would obviously be convenient to dispose of the Italian threat before Austria had again to face the serious menace of Russian invasion; and an attack on the Asiago plateau was Austria's natural contribution to the general German plan of anticipating in detail the combined Entente offensive (see Map, p. 298).

The first year of the Austro-Italian war had seen no real impression made on Austria's mountain defences, and even in the valley of the Isonzo Gorizia still forbade an Italian advance on Trieste. The Italian line was the worst possible for defence, and it depended for its security upon the fact that the bulk of the Austrian forces were involved in Russia and in the Balkans. The front was on the Isonzo, but a flank of over 200 miles invited a thrust down one of the various passes towards Venice which, if successful, would cause the whole front to collapse like a pack of cards; and marvellous though the feats of Italian valour and mechanical ingenuity had been in the mountain fighting throughout the winter, they had not wrested the passes from Austria's hands. The attack was preceded by a bombardment which began on 14 May, and the scene selected lay on a line drawn from Trent to Venice through the Sette Communi, Posina, and Pasubio. The flanks held fairly firm, but the centre gave way, and on the 20th-24th the line was withdrawn on the left to Posina and Pasubio. Things were no better in the Sette Communi on the right, but west of Pasubio the Italians stopped the Austrian advance in the pass of Buole on 30 May. On the same day, however, they had to evacuate Arsiero and Asiago, south of the Sette Communi. But by now Cadorna had got his reinforcements, and on 3 June he announced that the Austrian offensive was checked. The attack was, however, renewed on the 13th, and the Austrians advanced to within four miles of Valstagna and the railway running down the Brenta valley to Padua. They got no farther, and before the end of June Cadorna began his counter-offensive. By that time the thoughts of the Austrians and most of their troops were elsewhere; and just as the German campaign at Verdun was ruined by the Entente offensive on the Somme, the Austrian advance from the Trentino was stopped by the Russian attack in the East. In the first week of June Brussilov had gone through the Austrian lines like brown paper at Lutsk and Dubno.