With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front

by F. S. Brereton

Here then, on the 19th February, 1916—a date which is destined to become historical—the Germans commenced on the Western Front, against the northern-most curve of the Verdun salient, a similar attack, an attack heralded by a storm of shells thrown from masses of artillery which had been collected for weeks past and hidden in the woods in that neighbourhood. There were guns dug in in every direction, guns which had been there, perhaps, since the commencement of the war; there were others artfully concealed in natural hollows; and there were yet again others, literally hundreds of them, parked close together in the woods and forests without other attempt at concealment—a huge mass of metal which, at a given signal, commenced to pound the French defences. Never before, without doubt, had such a storm of shell been cast on any one line of trenches; and continuing, as it did, for hours, ploughing the ground over a comparatively narrow stretch, it reduced everything within that selected area to a shapeless and tangled mass of wreckage. It was to be wondered at, indeed, that anything living could survive the ordeal. French trenches, stretching across the slope behind those meshes of laced barbed wire, were blotted out—were stamped out indeed—and soon became indistinguishable from the hundreds of cavities and craters and holes which marked the slopes across which they had run that morning. Fourteen-inch shells, seventeen-inch shells, and thousands of smaller missiles, ploughed through and rained over the line, and many a ponderous fellow found its way to the deep dug-outs and shelters which had long ago been prepared for such an eventuality. Smoke hid the sky on this 19th of February and the two days following, the smoke of bursting shells plunging upon the French positions, while the cannon which threw those shells were still hidden by the tangled woods clothing the ground occupied by the enemy. Yet, if the gallant poilus manning the French trenches were not in evidence, if, indeed, life was being stamped out of a number of them by this terrific avalanche of bursting metal, they were yet for all that not entirely unsupported, for already those guns behind the advance lines of our ally were thundering, while, overhead, fleets of aeroplanes were picking up the positions of German batteries, and were signalling back to those who had sent them.

Crouching in the depths of a dug-out, some thirty feet below the surface, a dug-out which shook and quivered as shells rained above it, Henri's comrades of the platoon smoked grimly, while that young fellow himself, once a Paris elegant, crouched in what was left of a fire-trench, now a mere shattered pit—and peered somewhat anxiously towards the open.

"And you are there still, mon ami?" called the Sergeant, when there was a five minutes' lull in the firing, "you find it warm perhaps, mon Henri? But you will hold to your post firmly—yes, you will do that, as will all our comrades."

His big, healthy, bearded face looked out from the narrow entrance of the stairs which gave access to the dug-out, and for a while he grinned, a friendly, encouraging grin, at our hero. Then those heavy thuds in the distance, and a loud burst close at hand, sent him diving back to shelter, leaving Henri alone, a pipe now gripped between his teeth, his rifle slung over one shoulder, standing his ground, gazing before him, waiting for the first sign of an enemy attack.

"It will come soon, yes, very soon," the Sergeant said, when another lull in the firing arrived. "They will go on blazing away, throwing tons of metal at us, till they think they have blotted us out of existence, and then—then you will see they will swarm to the attack, these Germans."

Yet that did not prove to be the case, for, as a matter of fact, the Germans, profiting by the lesson they had learned in Russia, and imagining that they could as easily—more easily, in fact—repeat their exploit on this Western Front, had set out to capture Verdun by the aid of their artillery alone, and had every confidence of smashing their way to the town with but little else, and with but little use of their infantry. Continuing their tempest of shells for many hours, till it seemed that not one French soldier could have survived the bombardment of that northern sector, they then sent forward their sappers and mere patrols to discover what damage had been wrought, and to take over the new position. Behind them, massed in amongst the trees, were German battalions, prepared to advance at once and dig in and secure what the guns had gained for them.

"Attention! The enemy are coming," Henri bellowed through the mouth of the stairway leading to that dug-out where his platoon was sheltering. "I can see them crossing the open."

"And the shell-fire, mon ami? It has ceased? No, surely not," came the voice of the Sergeant.

"Tiens! Halt a little, my friends," said the voice of an officer sheltering in an adjacent dug-out and coming at that moment to the exit from it, "one little moment, for shells still rain upon the position. Keep a careful watch, my gallant Henri, and warn us in due time."

Henri therefore once more stationed himself behind the battered edge of what had been once the parapet of a well-made trench, and peered through a broken loophole at the distant enemy. He could see scattered parties of men trailing across the open, emerging from the distant cover afforded by the trees, and marching steadily, without haste, it seemed, towards the French positions. Then, glancing to his left and to his right, he caught glimpses of other sentries like himself, solitary Frenchmen stationed in those battered fire-trenches to watch for the coming of the enemy—the thinnest of thin garrisons, indeed, placed there to guard the French lines from sudden attack, and to present as few men as possible to the devouring shells cast by the Germans. It was the policy, in fact, of the French commanders to expose their men just as little as was possible; to hold up the advance of enemy attacks with as few numbers as was consistent with safety; and in the event of massed attacks, where the pressure was enormous, to create havoc in the ranks of the enemy with their guns, their machine-guns, and their rifles—to kill Germans on every and any occasion, and then, if circumstances dictated such a move, to withdraw their slender garrisons to a line farther back, exchanging so many yards of territory willingly for the losses they had forced upon the Kaiser's soldiers. For this gigantic conflict in the West, this warfare devouring the nations of Europe, had, after the twentieth month of its outbreak, become more than ever a question of numbers. With teeming millions of soldiers at the commencement, Austria and Germany were able to fall upon their unprepared neighbours and almost to swamp their country; but the thin line of heroes who had dwelt in those trenches from the North Sea to the frontier of Switzerland had held the horde at bay, had kept it back until their comrades could rush to the rescue. Numbers were now far more equal; the toll of Germans taken by British and French and Belgians, and of Austrians and Germans by the Russians, had begun to tell upon the enemy effectives. Thanks to the mighty army which Britain had collected, the Allies were now greater in number than were the enemy, and, adopting a system devised by the French, were carefully saving their men, willingly giving ground if need be, if its tenure meant great losses, and always, both by day and night, taking every opportunity of killing Germans—yes, of killing Germans, of reducing the Kaiser's ranks, and of hastening the day when, with weakened numbers, Germany could no longer resist the onslaught of the armies of France and Britain and Belgium. Here, then, in front of Verdun, the French had but a mere handful in their first-line trenches—a mere handful—upon whom that torrent of shells was rained. Just a scattered, yet noble band, ready to hold up the assault which would most certainly follow.