The Western Campaign.—During the year 1916 the unity of command which was postulated as an indispensable preliminary to the victory of the Allies so long before it became a fact was achieved neither as between Britain and France in the West and Russia in the East, nor even as between Britain and France along the Western front. The most that can be said of the co-ordination between the forces under the British and French Commanders-in-Chief is that liaison was established between them, and that as far as was possible each endeavoured to help the other by diverting to itself the energies of the German forces. The Western fighting embraced two main episodes: the powerful German attacks on Verdun, eventually unsuccessful; and the Allied offensive on the Somme, in which by far the greater share was borne by the British.
The year began with numerous German attacks widely separated in locality, and intended to mask the main offensive while keeping the French and British occupied. Hartmannsweilerkopf, in Alsace (2nd to 8th Jan.); Champagne (9th Jan.); Givenchy, Arras, Neuville, Loos (14th Jan. to 6th Feb.); Vimy Ridge, Frise, Soissons, Ypres-Comines area, and Tahure (9th to 20th Feb.) were among them.
On 21st Feb. the new battle of Verdun began. This enterprise, though officially accredited to the German Crown Prince, was the design of General von Falkenhayn. Verdun was one of the four fortresses, of which the other three were Belfort, Toul, and Épinal, on which French armies defending the capital and the country from an invasion from the east would base themselves. The town lies sunk in the Meuse valley, and the German invasion in 1914 flowed past it along the heights of the Meuse down to St. Mihiel. At the beginning of the war Verdun was protected by an outer line of forts, with batteries pushed out in a circuit of 30 miles. The forts were not, however, strong enough in 1914, nor the perimeter of defence extended enough, to withstand the new artillery that had reduced Liége and Namur, and a fierce struggle went on during 1915 along the Meuse heights on the east of Verdun and beyond the low hills on the western side of the town and river, with a view to pushing out the defences all round. As previously pointed out, much had been done in this direction by General Sarrail, but not enough to deter von Falkenhayn and the German General Staff from selecting Verdun as a point for an attack which, if successful, would disorganize seriously the continuity of the French defences. In 1916, as for two years more, the problem of either combatant was to break through a line of trenches which extended continuously from the sea to Switzerland; and failing a complete break-through, comparable to that which had crippled Russia in 1915, to effect a fracture or a deep dent which would compel the loser to reconstruct his system of communications. At the best such a thrust might disclose a fatal weakness in the assailed; at the next best it would disastrously hamper his future activities.
Verdun as a fortress had strong and modern defences. West of the Meuse, north of the town, are low hills the chief of which is the Charny Ridge with dominating strategic points beyond
known as Hill 304, Hill 295, Hill 265. The French lines were pushed beyond these into the woods of Avocourt and Forges, but below the heights of Montfaucon, which were the Crown Prince's head-quarters. On the east of the Meuse the heights rise to a tableland severed by wooded ravines and overlooking the plain of the Woevre. The line of French trenches embraced all this tableland and a good deal of the plain beyond. Its outer line ran in a bold convex curve from Forges and Consenvoye on the Meuse to Fresnes on the Woevre, but it did not penetrate the woods of Forges or Spincourt, and it was below the gun positions on the hills of Ornes. Inside this outer circle was the inner line of Samogneux, Beaumont, Fosses Wood, and Bezonvaux. Inside that again the line of Bras, Douaumont Fort, Hardaumont Wood, Vaux Fort, and Eix.
The multiple defences were most elaborate between these two inner lines. A weak point was that though such defences would be very exacting of life and effort, yet the outer ones were not pushed out far enough to place the bridges of the Meuse out of reach of long-range gun-fire; and an overwhelming attack might have jammed a defending army on the east of the Meuse against the river. The French had provided against the possibility by the multiplication of transport, as well as of inner defences. The Germans hoped by the weight, volume, and suddenness of their attack to bring about the not impossible catastrophe. They massed an amount of artillery which, though surpassed afterwards in the war, was at that time the greatest assemblage that had ever been seen together, and accumulated a supply of ammunition exceeding the quantity which all previous experience prescribed. The heavier guns were placed at Ornes, Spincourt, and Forges. The woods below afforded cover for a concentration of men; and this concentration, amounting to fourteen divisions, with others in immediate reserve, was at first thrown at the 7-mile sector from Brabant-sur-Meuse to Herbebois, which was held by three French divisions under General Humbert.
The attack began on the morning of 21st Feb. with an artillery bombardment lasting four hours. The great weight of shell demolished the French first-line defences, so that the German troops had little to do but walk over them, while a remnant of the defenders fell back to their supporting positions. These were not sufficiently strong or well constructed to enable weak forces to hold them long against the force of three army corps (18th, 3rd, and 10th, with a Bavarian Division) which the Germans sent in after the guns had done their work. The effectiveness of the German artillery was due in part to its weight, and in part to the fact that French counter-battery work effected little, owing to the thick weather.
The trench systems in the Haumont and Caures Woods were carried, but the resistance of parts of the first line at Brabant, Herbebois, and elsewhere was even at this dangerous moment reducing the speed of the German advance, though the momentum was far from exhausted. It was not till next day that the first line was definitely abandoned by the French; and on 23rd Feb. the line Samogneux-Herbebois was temporarily held. Before the morning of 24th Feb. the French contracted their line still further by drawing in their outposts from the Woevre. It seemed a matter for surprise at the time that no flank attack was made by the Germans in the Woevre; it had been perhaps thought an unnecessary extension of their general scheme, though the weather, which was bitter and snowy, was unfavourable for operations in that sodden plain.
But the German second wave of attack was now rising in fury, and General Pétain, who had undertaken the command of operations on the French side, was still awaiting reinforcements. The character of von Falkenhayn's attack had become clear, and while to the French the need for holding on was imperative, the Germans had a need no less urgent for hastening operations and exploiting their preliminary success to a point at which General Pétain could not repair the breach. They had, in fact, two days in which to achieve their aim—24th and 25th Feb. On the 24th they flowed round the Beaumont Woods and came close to the Talou Ridge, the Poivre Ridge, and the rest of the French line where it ran past Haudremont and Douaumont to Vaux. On the 25th they attacked the Poivre Ridge without much success, but pressed the more important sector of their attack close to Douaumont.
Next day, 26th Feb., brought the fateful hour of the struggle. Pétain's reinforcements were at hand. The Germans made their supreme effort on a 2-mile front at Douaumont, and the picked 24th Brandenburger Regiment was the spear-head of an assault which at one moment burst its way into the Fort Douaumont trenches between the village and redoubt—a fine feat of arms which evoked this telegram from the Crown Prince's head-quarters: "Douaumont, the eastern pillar of the Verdun defences, is solidly in German hands". The adverb alone was misplaced. The position was not held solidly, for Pétain's reserves, thrown in at the exact moment, flung back the Germans and prevented the leak in the defences from being widened by any further inrush.