SOISSONS—ST. JEAN DES VIGNES.
Only these two towers, with their beautiful spires, have remained of this church for more than a century. One of the towers has been so damaged as to present strange problems to an engineer in the strength of materials.
The great attack on Verdun was intended to capture the city in four days and to clear the way to Paris at one swoop, and the Emperor (whose presence never seemed to bring good fortune to his troops) was waiting at Ornes, some eight or ten miles north, to make his triumphal entry. The attack began with enormous impetuosity on the 21st of February, 1916, but in four days—with enormous losses on both sides, but chiefly to the attackers—the Germans were still held some four or five miles away from their objective on the east side of the river, and double as far on the west. But nearer the Argonne their positions had allowed them already to cut the full-gauge railway to St. Menehould by shell-fire.
A book written by General von Zwehl[40] gives the number of guns used in this attack as being about 230 in each of three corps. He also speaks of the "dejection and pessimism" induced in his troops by the failure of the artillery to make the clear way to the city which had been predicted and promised.
The Douaumont Fort was entered on the 25th, and the Emperor had sent to Berlin the news that the "key of the last defences of Verdun" was in German hands. But on the next day Pétain began counter-attacks, and although during several months the Germans made progress from time to time, eventually gaining the Vaux Fort and most of the Mort Homme Ridge, the great attack had, in reality, miscarried from the start.
The city itself, from which all civilians had been evacuated by the 25th of February, was heavily shelled, especially at the commencement of the attack, but as a city it has not suffered to anything like the same extent as Rheims, to say nothing of Albert, Lens, or Ypres. The fighting and the tremendous shelling were always in a zone lying roughly between four and eight miles from the city; within this zone the ground is as completely shell-marked, the villages and woods as completely destroyed, as even on the Somme.
The greatest German advance was reached in June, 1916, Thiaumont Fort being taken on the 30th of June, when at one point the Germans were only three miles from the city. Thiaumont was retaken when the French offensive started in the following October, and on the 2nd of November Vaux Fort was recovered and the Germans had been driven back nearly to the lines they had succeeded in occupying on the 24th of February. But the Mort Homme Ridge was entirely regained only in August, 1917, and it was still another year before it could be said that Verdun was entirely "cleared." The final success of the French in driving back the enemy is attributed by General von Zwehl to the overwhelming superiority of their artillery, the German heavy guns having been sent elsewhere.
Plate 98, taken from the left bank of the Meuse, shows the broken bridge at St. Mihiel and the ridge above; the little town lies chiefly beyond the picture in a hollow on the right. It has been very little damaged; even the great clock in the church tower is uninjured. It is easily seen how entirely the ridge, some 300 feet above the river and filling up an acute bend, enabled the Germans to dominate the road and railway on the left bank for a long distance. In April, 1915, a French attack on the north side of the salient took Les Éparges after severe fighting, but made no further progress. The neighbouring country to the west of the Meuse is quite unharmed until one comes within a few miles of the river. The St. Mihiel Salient was attacked from the south by the Americans and by the French from the north on the 11th of September, 1918, just as the Germans had determined to evacuate it, and it was finally cleared within a week.
The view from the Pont Ste. Croix at Verdun over the Meuse ([Plate 99]) shows a portion of the most destroyed area of the city, in which some sort of reconstruction had already started. On the opposite side of the river, however, tall buildings were standing quite uninjured, and entering the city from the south by the Porte St. Victor one traverses a long length of street without seeing any serious destruction. The cathedral (not a very interesting building after many reconstructions) has been badly damaged as to its vaulting and roof, but the towers still stand; the Church of St. Saviour has been less fortunate.