While the German assaulting columns in the van fought the French hand to hand, picked corps of workers behind them formed an amazing human chain from the woods to the east over the shoulder of the center of the Douaumont slope to the crossroads of a network of communicating trenches 600 yards in the rear.
Four deep was this human chain, and along its line nearly 3,000 men passed an unending stream of wooden billets, sandbags, chevaux-de-frise, steel shelters, and light mitrailleuses—in a word, all the material for defensive fortifications passed from hand to hand, like buckets at a country fire.
Despite the hurricane of French artillery fire, the German commander had adopted the only possible means of rapid transport over the shell-torn ground covered with debris, over which neither horse nor cart could go. Every moment counted. Unless barriers rose swiftly, the French counter-attacks, already massing, would sweep the assailants back into the wood.
Cover was disdained. The workers stood at full height, and the chain stretched openly across the hillocks, a fair target for the French gunners. The latter missed no chance. Again and again great holes were torn in the line by the bursting melinite, but as coolly as at maneuvers the iron-disciplined soldiers of Germany sprang forward from shelters to take the places of the fallen, and the work went on apace.
USE THE DEAD AS A SHELTER.
Gradually another line doubled the chain of the workers, as the upheaved corpses formed a continuous embankment, each additional dead man giving greater protection to his comrades, until the barrier began to form shape along the diameter of the wood. There others were digging and burying logs deep in the earth, installing shelters and mitrailleuses or feverishly building fortifications.
At last the work was ended at fearful cost; but as the vanguard sullenly withdrew behind it, from the whole length burst a havoc of flame upon the advancing Frenchmen. Vainly the latter dashed forward. They couldn't pass, and as the evening fell the barrier still held, covering the German working parties, burrowed like moles in the mass of trenches and boyeaux.
FRENCH PLAN TO BLAST BARRICADE. [ [!-- IMG --]
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Approximate Positions of German Troops at Various Dates, and More Important Actions of the Verdun Campaign in in Their Chronological Order.—See Key to Letters and Numbers on Opposite Page.] THE VERDUN BATTLEFIELD Key to Map on Opposite Page Battle lines showing the approximate positions of the German troops at Verdun at various dates are designated in the map as follows: A. Positions Feb. 21, 1916, when German offensive was begun. B. Positions on Feb. 23. C. Positions on Feb. 25. D. Positions on Feb. 27. E. Bethincourt salient, April 7, before French retired. F. Positions on April 18. The more important actions of the Verdun campaign in their chronological order are indicated as follows: 1. Germans open offensive against Verdun, piercing French lines. 2. French evacuate Haumont, Feb. 22. 3. French recapture Forest of Caures, Feb. 22, but lose it again. 4. Germans pierce French line, taking 3,000 prisoners. 5. Germans capture Brabant, Haumont, Samogneux, etc., Feb. 23. 6. Berlin reports capture of four villages and 10,000 French prisoners Feb. 23. 7. Germans capture Louvemont and fortified positions Feb. 25. Fort Douaumont stormed by Brandenburg corps, then surrounded by French, but relieved by Germans March 3. 8. Germans take Champneuville Feb. 27, with 5,000 prisoners. 9. Bloody encounters at village of Eix on Woevre plain, Feb. 27. 10. Germans occupy Moranville and Haudiomont, Feb. 27. 11. Champlon and Manheuilles fall Feb. 28; 1,300 French prisoners. 12. Verdun battered and set on fire by 42-centimeter guns. 13. French evacuate Fort Vaux, after heavy bombardment, March 1. 14. Germans begin violent bombardment of Dead Man's Hill, March 1. 15. Germans capture village of Douaumont, March 2; 1,000 prisoners. 16. Fresnes captured by Germans, March 5. 17. Germans capture Forges, March 5; drive against French left wing. 18. Germans take Regneville, west of Meuse, March 6. 19. Germans capture heights of Cumieres, etc., March 7. 20. Village of Vaux taken and retaken by Germans, March 8-10. 21. Crown Prince brings up 100,000 reinforcements, March 10-12. 22. French recapture trenches March 14, with 1,000 German prisoners. 23. Struggle for heights of Le Mort Homme, March 16. 24. Germans capture positions north of Avocourt, March 20. 25. Artillery duels east of Verdun, March 25. 26. French recapture part of Avocourt Wood, March 28. 27. Germans capture Malancourt, March 29-31. 28. Heavy fighting south of Douaumont, April 2-5; French successes in battle of Caillette woods, etc. 29. Germans recapture Haucourt, April 6. 30. Germans close in on Bethincourt salient, April 7. 31. French withdraw from Bethincourt April 9, but hold lines south. 32. French lines bombarded continuously, April 10-15, with violent assaults but no decisive results. |