The French General Staff during this gigantic struggle was constantly guided by the following rule: Make the Germans pay dearly for each of their advances. When it was believed that in order to defend a certain point too many sacrifices would have to be made, they evacuated that point. As soon as the Germans took hold of the point, however, they were the target of a terrific fire from all of the French guns, which were put to work at once. This was what General Pétain, commanding the Verdun army, called "the crushing fire."
Verdun Northwest District in Detail.
On April 9, 1916, a general attack was made by the Germans on the front between Haucourt and Cumières, and simultaneously assaults were delivered north and west of Avocourt and in Malancourt Wood and the wood near Haudromont Farm. The struggle for the possession of Mort Homme developed into one of the most notable and important battles of Verdun. The attacking front of the Germans ran from west of Avocourt to beyond the Meuse as high as the wood in the Haudromont Farm. This general attack, one of the most violent that the Germans had made at Verdun, failed completely. On the left of the French, a little strip of land along the southern edge of the Avocourt Wood was won, but in a dashing counterattack the French recaptured it. In the center the Germans were repulsed everywhere, except south of Béthincourt, where they succeeded in penetrating an advanced work. On the right bank, at the side of Pepper Hill, the Germans only gained a foothold in one trench east of Vacherauville. The main summit of Mort Homme, Hill 295, as well as Hill 304, the principal positions, remained firmly in the hands of the French.
A captain of the French General Staff, and who was an eyewitness, has described in a French publication some striking phases of the fight:
"It is Sunday, and the sun shines brilliantly above—a real spring Sunday. The artillery duel was long and formidable. Mort Homme was smoking like a volcano with innumerable craters. The attack took place about noon. At the same time, from this same place, lines of sharpshooters could be seen between the Corbeaux Wood and Cumières and the gradient at the east of Mort Homme. They must have come from the Raffecourt or from the Forges Mill, through the covered roads in the valley-like depressions in the ground. It was the first wave immediately followed by heavy columns. Our artillery fire from the edge of Corbeaux Wood isolated them.... At times a rocket appeared in the air; the call to the cannons, then the marking of the road. The regular ticktack of the machine guns and the cracking of the shells were distinctly heard even among the terrific noises of the bombardment.
"The German barrage fire in the rear of our front lines is so frightful that one must not dream of going through it. Where will our reenforcements pass? The inquietude increases when at 3.15 p. m. sharp numerous columns in disorder regain on the run the wood of Cumières. What a wonderful sight is the flight of the enemy! The sun shines fully on these small moving groups. But our shells also explode among them, and the groups separate, stop disjointed. They disappear; they are lying down. They get up—not all of them—but do not know where to go, like pheasants flying haphazard before the fusillade.
"With a tenacity that must be acknowledged the enemy comes back to the charge, but the new attacks are less ordinate, less complete, and quite weak. Even from a distance one feels that they cannot succeed as well as the first. This lasts until sunset."
To honor the French troops for their brilliant defense General Pétain issued the following Order of the Day: