The Last Days of Fort Vaux, March 9-June 7, 1916

by Henry Bordeaux

A little later, when a fresh assault is launched farther to the east, between the cemetery and the slopes of the fort, the enemy grenadiers who precede it are clothed in uniforms and caps taken from the prisoners, and they shout in French, with a heavy Teutonic accent: “Don’t shoot!” adding even the number of the regiment (409th) whose facings they are wearing, although the numerals have been torn off. Already, in the morning, in order to approach the ravine, the enemy has made use of another ruse which he has employed more than once. Stretcher-bearers, ostentatiously displaying their Red Cross armlets, seem to be carrying a stretcher or digging a grave: the stretcher contains a machine-gun, the grave is an embryo trench.

For all that, this series of assaults has brought the enemy up to the approaches to the village and cemetery of Vaux. Through what defect in co-ordination does he fancy it to be already within his grasp? Has his half-success of the previous day turned his head? On the morning of March 9 he sends two or three companies of the 19th Regiment to occupy his vaunted gain. The companies quietly enter Vaux, in columns, without previous reconnaissances. Now a battalion of ours has just come up to reinforce us, during the night of 8th-9th, under the command of Major Delattre. It celebrates its arrival by a furious fire, at once counter-attacks with the bayonet and throws the enemy back to the ravine of Hardaumont. Major Delattre, rifle in hand, goes at the head of his men. He is past fifty; his age and the hardships of the campaign have earned him retirement, but he has refused it—a son and a brother of his have fallen in the war, and he is thus tied to his post by sacred bonds. He knows, by the way, what will befall him. The evening before he confided his presentiments, in quite a cheerful spirit, to a comrade:

“There are families marked out for the salvation of the country. It is an honour. I shall follow in the footsteps of my son and my brother.”

And so it turned out; he was killed on the ground that had been regained.

On the 9th, during the day, the enemy renews his onslaught and manages to establish himself in the eastern portion of Vaux village and in the cemetery. He tries to reach the fort by its northern side, but cannot get near; our fire brings him to a halt at the trench dug behind the barbed wire, two or three hundred yards from the earthwork.

The day of the 10th will be still more of an ordeal. The Germans have to justify the lying communiqué which told the world of the capture of Fort Vaux. Throughout the night of March 9–10 and the day of the 10th, the artillery, in clearing the way, overwhelms the fort with projectiles of every calibre, and tries to isolate it by a curtain fire which makes a special mark of the lower end of La Horgne on the Damloup side, the ravine of Les Fontaines in Vaux-Chapître Wood, and the advanced works of Souville. Accordingly the fort and that part of the village which remains in our hands form an islet swept from end to end by gunfire, where the infantry, when it marches, thinks that it will find nothing but débris of war-stores and a garrison either wiped out or so much reduced and dispirited that it will be incapable of defence.

But the reinforcements have come in spite of all. The 3rd Battalion of light infantry is in reserve, ready to lend its aid to the brigade which is fighting. The Territorials of the 71st are still sending out fatigue parties for water, food, and munitions. The scouts have not abandoned their duties. This is the continual miracle of Verdun. Under an unprecedented bombardment everything is done as before—reliefs, replenishing, the linking up of connections. A sense of order directs the whole, and the work gets done.

Major Belleculet is in command at the fort. Besides the two companies of Territorials, he has at his disposal a battalion of Regulars. He has organized his defence in front of the fort, on the slopes already approached the previous evening, protected by two rows of barbed wire. The enemy pays less attention to these slopes than to the fort itself, either because he believes his own lines to be nearer, or because, in order to bring his troops close to their objective, he wishes to profit by the more rapid descent from the tableland on to the plains of the Woevre after the two or three hundred yards of gentle incline in front of the counterscarp.

From eight o’clock in the morning, on the observing station which remains intact, the commandant sees small groups of men go down the slopes of Hardaumont and mass themselves to the left of the railway. He calculates the forces whose range he has got to be three battalions. No doubt the reserves, out of sight, are more numerous.

At noon the bombardment increases in force. At six o’clock in the evening it breaks off abruptly. The village and fort are both attacked at once. This is the sudden frontal attack, daring, almost foolhardy, which the enemy pursued with success at the outset of the Verdun battle, relying on his artillery superiority and on surprise or loss of nerve in the ranks of his opponents. He is not master of La Caillette Wood or of Damloup, he has no grip either on our right or on our left. He confines operations to a stubborn obstacle whose possession would ensure him a salient in our lines, and he dashes against it as hard as he can, like a battering-ram against a door.