IMMORTAL VERDUN, WHERE THE FRENCH HELD THE GERMANS WITH THE INSPIRING SLOGAN, “THEY SHALL NOT PASS”
Why did Germany select this particular point for its grand offensive? The answer is to be found in a demand made by the great Junker associations of Germany in May, 1915, nine months before the attack was undertaken. That demand was to the effect that Verdun should be attacked and captured. They declared that the Verdun fortifications made a menacing salient thrust into the rich iron fields of the Briey basin. From this metalliferous field of Lorraine came the ore that supplied eighty per cent of the steel required for German and Austrian guns and munitions. These fields of Briey were only twenty miles from the great guns of Verdun. They were French territory at the beginning of the war and had been seized by the army of the Crown Prince, co-operating with the Army of Metz because of their immense value to the Germans in war making.
As a preliminary to the battle, von Falkenhayn placed a semicircle of huge howitzers and rifles around the field of Briey. Then assembling the vast forces drained from all the fronts and having erected ammunition dumps covering many acres, the great battle commenced with a surprise attack upon the village of Haumont on February 21, 1916.
The first victory of the Germans at that point was an easy one. The great fort of Douaumont was the next objective. This was taken on February 25th after a concentrated bombardment that for intensity surpassed anything that heretofore had been shown in the war.
Von Falkenhayn, personally superintending the disposition of guns and men, had now penetrated the outer defenses of Verdun. The tide was running against the French, and shells, more shells for the guns of all caliber; men, more men for the earthworks surrounding the devoted city were needed. The narrow-gauge railway connecting Verdun with the great French depots of supplies was totally inadequate for the transportation burdens suddenly cast upon it. In this desperate emergency a transport system was born of necessity, a system that saved Verdun. It was fleet upon fleet of motor trucks, all sizes, all styles; anything that could pack a few shells or a handful of men was utilized. The backbone of the system was a great fleet of trucks driven by men whose average daily rest was four hours, and upon whose horizon-blue uniforms the stains of snow and sleet, of dust and mud, were indelibly fixed through the winter, spring, summer and fall of 1916, for the glorious engagement continued from February 21st until November 2d, when the Germans were forced into full retreat from the field of honor, the evacuation of Fort Vaux putting a period to Germany’s disastrous plan and to von Falkenhayn’s military career.
Lord Northcliffe, describing the early days of the immortal battle, wrote:
“Verdun is, in many ways, the most extraordinary of battles. The mass of metal used on both sides is far beyond all parallel; the transformation on the Douaumont Ridge was more suddenly dramatic than even the battle of the Marne; and, above all, the duration of the conflict already looks as if it would surpass anything in history. More than a month has elapsed since, by the kindness of General Joffre and General Pétain, I was able to watch the struggle from various vital viewpoints. The battle had then been raging with great intensity for a fortnight, and, as I write, four to five thousand guns are still thundering round Verdun. Impossible, therefore, any man to describe the entire battle. The most one can do is to set down one’s impressions of the first phases of a terrible conflict, the end of which cannot be foreseen.
“My chief impression is one of admiration for the subtle powers of mind of the French High Command. General Joffre and General Castelnau are men with especially fine intellects tempered to terrible keenness. Always they have had to contend against superior numbers. In 1870, when they were subalterns, their country lost the advantage of its numerous population by abandoning general military service at a time when Prussia was completely realizing the idea of a nation in arms. In 1914, when they were commanders, France was inferior to a still greater degree in point of numbers to Prussianized Germany. In armament, also, France was inferior at first to her enemy. The French High Command has thus been trained by adversity to do all that human intellect can against almost overwhelming hostile material forces. General Joffre, General Castelnau—and, later, General Pétain, who at a moment’s notice displaced General Herr—had to display genius where the Germans were exhibiting talent, and the result is to be seen at Verdun. They there caught the enemy in a series of traps of a kind hitherto unknown in modern warfare—something elemental, and yet subtle, neo-primitive, and befitting the atavistic character of the Teuton. They caught him in a web of his own unfulfilled boasts.
“The enemy began by massing a surprising force on the western front. Tremendous energy and organizing power were the marks of his supreme efforts to obtain a decision. It was usually reckoned that the Germans maintain on all fronts a field army of about seventy-four and a half army corps, which at full strength number three million men. Yet, while holding the Russians from Riga to the south of the Pripet Marshes, and maintaining a show of force in the Balkans, Germany seems to have succeeded in bringing up nearly two millions and a half of men for her grand spring offensive in the west. At one time her forces in France and Flanders were only ninety divisions. But troops and guns were withdrawn in increasing numbers from Russia and Serbia in December, 1915, until there were, it is estimated, a hundred and eighteen divisions on the Franco-British-Belgian front. A large number of six-inch and twelve-inch Austrian howitzers were added to the enormous Krupp batteries. Then a large proportion of new recruits of the 1916 class were moved into Rhineland depots to serve as drafts for the fifty-nine army corps, and it is thought that nearly all the huge shell output that had accumulated during the winter was transported westward.