With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front

by F. S. Brereton

As to the German infantry, they were in great numbers. Indeed, there were some seven German army corps massed against the Verdun salient; while the French, with incomplete information of the intending coup to be attempted by the enemy, had but two army corps to defend the positions. Moreover, time would be required in which to bring up reinforcements; for, be it remembered, the Verdun salient is pushed out to the east of the River Meuse, and though there are bridges crossing the river, they are not so numerous as to allow of huge forces being rapidly transferred across them. A still more important factor in the position was, perhaps, the distance those reserves must be brought before they could stand shoulder to shoulder with their comrades. It is not mis-stating the fact on the night of the 21st February when we assert that those two French army corps, holding a trench-line extending over some twenty-five miles, stood, for the time being and for many hours to come, alone between the enemy and their objective. They must fight not only to retain their positions, but must fight for time—time in which General Joffre and his commanders could rush reinforcements to assist them. Yet, though the battle had only lasted one single day, it had proved every man in those two corps a stanch fighter, every one determined to resist to the utmost.

"We here, in the neighbourhood of Brabant, my friends, hold fast as you know," said the officer, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. "Though the enemy have poured shot and shell on us, though they have blown our positions up and obliterated our trenches, we are here; and, indeed, do I not see before me a most cheery and merry company? Yes, another cup of coffee as I smoke and talk. It is cold outside, and somehow coffee soothes a man's nerves after such an ordeal. Well, then, here we are, firm, and not thinking of retiring yet awhile. On the line to Haumont, they, our comrades, hold their battered trenches, and, like ourselves, have taught the enemy a severe lesson. Then, passing to our right, you get to the Bois de Caures, which this morning was held by a French garrison. If we in this position were plagued with the fire of enemy guns, in that strip of forest our friends have been deluged, and their positions torn asunder and blown to pieces, even their dug-outs often being penetrated. The place became untenable, and yet it has been of assistance in the fighting. It was mined, and when the Germans, held off till that time by our sharpshooters, launched a division at it, our fellows slipped away before the enemy, and, waiting till the Germans were in the wood and pouring into the battered trenches, fired the mines, killing hundreds of them."

There came grunts from that bearded veteran, a gleam of his even white teeth, and muttered remarks from the others seated about the fire in the dug-out.

"Terrific!" exclaimed Henri. "Absolute murder; yet, what would you?"

"Yes, what would you?" repeated the officer. "It is France, it is liberty, it is the right to live as we wish for which we fight, against the oppression of a people who look upon might as right, and who, if they could, would deprive France and Britain and all the Allies of their liberty. So, murder! Yes, my comrade, but, as you observe, necessary. If the Kaiser, seeking for some great event, casts his hosts of men at us, our duty is plain; not an inch of ground of the sacred soil of France must be rendered up unless absolutely necessary; while the enemy, if they advance, must advance over the corpses of their comrades. But let me proceed. The Bois de Caures was evacuated, and then the southern end of it seized once more by some of our gallant fellows. Then there was fighting on the line to Ornes and at Herbebois, and there, too, the garrisons held their positions, having fought throughout the day and inflicted enormous losses on the Boches. Elsewhere I cannot tell you what the position is, though there is rumour that all is favourable."

Taking it in turns to go on duty, to watch the ground in front of them or to repair their battered trenches, that slender garrison which the policy of the French High Command had placed in the first line of trenches about the salient of Verdun waited with calm confidence for the morrow—for the 22nd February. Nor had they long to wait ere the conflict once more reopened. Guns had boomed throughout the night, and shells had continued to rain about them, but now, as light broke, and they hastily gulped down their breakfast, the bombardment increased in intensity along that northern sector, while presently enemy troops could be seen forcing their way up a ravine which cuts its way between Brabant and Haumont. Poilus in positions there were driven back for a moment by flame-projectors, which were used freely by the enemy—spurts of flaming liquid were scattered over them, and sometimes whole lengths of trenches set burning. Then the torrent of shells which was pouring upon the northern sector was increased, though that had seemed almost impossible, in the neighbourhood of those two places. Brabant and Haumont were shattered, the village of the latter name being flattened out and destroyed utterly. Shells ploughed the ground behind the French front position, so that communication-trenches, which had suffered severely on the previous day, and support- and reserve-trenches were blown to pieces and out of all recognition. Indeed, as the day passed, the slender garrison in that part were forced to abandon whatever protection the ground had previously given, and, retiring before the enemy, to fight a rear-guard action in the open. Some three or four miles of country behind that front line was indeed searched by the enemy guns; some indication of the enormous expenditure of shells indulged in by the Kaiser. The French left, resting on the River Meuse and the centre, was thus forced backward, though the gallant garrison of Herbebois still held on, together with a force of men on a hill just south-west of them. Some success had in fact fallen to the German phalanx attack on the Verdun salient. General von Haeseler, who was nominally in command, though acting under the orders of the ambitious Crown Prince of Germany, had by his smashing artillery-fire, though not by his infantry attacks, forced the French to abandon a portion of their trenches, and had indeed shortened that line to which we have referred previously—that line which formed an imaginary base to the Verdun salient. In fact, he had contrived to narrow the neck of the salient, though not yet very greatly, and thereby had limited the space across which the French troops could retire in the event of the abandonment of the salient being necessary.

Repeating the process on the following day—for by then the French had fallen back to their second line, now badly battered, at Samogneux and Hill 344—these new positions were assailed with such a torrent of shells that by the evening they were absolutely untenable, and a further retirement was essential. Indeed, by the morning of the 24th, the French left, as it lay on the River Meuse, was withdrawn to the famous Pepper Hill, so that the distance between the new first line and the city of Verdun was considerably decreased, while that imaginary base-line, across which the French must retreat if the salient was to be evacuated, was still further shortened. But elsewhere, where artillery-fire had given the enemy less assistance, where, indeed, massed guns could not be spared to blaze a path towards Verdun, desperate fighting held up the advance of the Germans. At Herbebois and Ornes and on to Bezonvaux there was hand-to-hand fighting of the most desperate nature, while at Maucourt—an advance position held by the French—terrific execution was done to the masses of troops hurled forward by the Germans. Here masked French quick-firing guns caught German columns of attack, twenty men abreast and hundreds deep, at close range, and blew them into eternity. Yet the hordes still came on, with a bravery never surpassed, and, in spite of every effort, in spite of a superb display of courage and tenacity, the French were forced to retire up the slopes towards Bezonvaux, and so in the direction of the fortress of Douaumont perched up aloft and looking down upon the scene of this sanguinary conflict. Towards the former of these two places the garrison of Ornes was also compelled to beat a retreat, finding itself at Bezonvaux, at the mouth of a ravine, which ascends the heights leading to that fortress already mentioned, which was to be the scene of a terrible battle in days now near at hand. To portray all that occurred on this eventful 23rd February would be almost impossible, and certainly beyond the scope of these pages; yet one must mention the case of those gallant Zouaves and African sharpshooters, who, to the north of Douaumont, recaptured a wood between Herbebois and Hill 351, which is just to the south-west of it, and lies in front of Beaumont. Here, in spite of an avalanche of shells which was poured upon them, and of murderous attacks launched in their direction, they held out for quite a considerable period, and, having in turn retired upon the Bois de Fosse, were eventually compelled to fall back upon the plateau of Douaumont.

The morning of the 24th, as it dawned, discovered, indeed, a critical change in the positions held by our noble allies. The northern face of the salient had, as we have described, been driven in, and the handful of troops holding it had been forced to retire over some four miles of country, fighting in the open, infantry and gunners fighting a terrific rear-guard action, and doing their utmost—and doing that most gallantly—to hold up a further advance of the enemy. That imaginary base-line which we have mentioned as running across the base of the salient, where the winding River Meuse traces its path amongst the hills, had been dangerously shortened, and already Germans were massing in the neighbourhood of Vacherauville, close down to the river, under the shadow of the Côte du Poivre, where they hoped to drive in their wedge, and to further shorten that line across which French troops must retreat if indeed the salient was to be evacuated. And towards the east, towards the apex of the salient, outlying advance-parties of the French had been driven in by sheer weight of guns and numbers, and were now back on the heights of the Meuse, their line drawn from that held by their comrades in the neighbourhood of Louvemont, close to the Côte du Poivre, round about Douaumont and its village, and so to Vaux and south of it. Here, indeed, we must leave them for a moment, while we return to Henri and Jules and their comrades, entangled in that country to the north which had been ploughed, almost every foot of it, by the torrent of shells poured upon it by the Kaiser's artillery.

Stealthily creeping away from their advanced positions, and leaving these dull-grey lines of German dead stretched out before them—a ghastly indication of their prowess—the troops fell back in clusters, clambering from shell-hole to shell-hole, creeping behind any cover which was to be discovered, and making the utmost use of the darkness.

"And so it is you—you, Jules?" cried Henri, as dawn broke on the early morning of the 23rd and discovered his comrade. "Well, I never!"