The Battle of Verdun, 1916-18

During the Battle of the Marne, Verdun and its ring of forts formed an entrenched camp that provided solid support for General Sarrail’s 3rd Army. The enemy sought to bring down this stronghold with two attacks: one to the west against Revigny-sur-Ornain, the other to the east against Fort Troyon. Both attacks failed. Throughout 1915, General Joffre launched bloody operations to the east against the Saint Mihiel salient and, to the west, deployed the 3rd and 4th Armies to defend the Argonne. These local combats descended into tunnel warfare and became a real test for soldiers’ morale.

It was in this sector, therefore, where French positions were poorly maintained, that Germany’s General Falkenhayn decided to launch an offensive to wear down the French Army.

On 21 February 1916, Operation Gericht went ahead against the French positions. After a violent bombardment of the right bank of the Meuse and the town, the Germans advanced over a ravaged landscape. In four days, they progressed four miles, despite determined resistance from the 30th Army Corps, defending the Bois des Caures woods.

On 25 February, the enemy took Fort Douaumont, while General Pétain’s 2nd Army was tasked with defending Verdun. Pétain organised the front and supplies. The Bar-le-Duc to Verdun road became the main artery, the “Sacred Way” which, day and night, brought supplies for the defence of Verdun.

Stalled outside Vaux and Douaumont, on 6 March the German 5th Army expanded operations on the left bank of the Meuse. These two ridges, the only natural obstacles controlling access to Verdun, became the most disputed positions on the left bank of the Meuse. Within six days, the Germans had reached Mort-Homme. On the 20th, they sent in the 11th Bavarian Division to take the village of Avocourt. An initial attack with flame-throwers was successful, but the French counter-attack recaptured the wood and the sector known as the “Avocourt réduit”. The troops, without supplies for several days, were exhausted. On 29 March, the wood was retaken. On 9 April, the enemy pushed through the Bois des Corbeaux ravine, in a joint operation by three divisions. The French defence held firm without retreating, and General Pétain declared in his general orders, “Keep it up, men. We shall get them!” The fight continued, and the enemy were allowed to advance little more than two miles. In June, the French troops resisted on both sides of the Meuse. The Germans threw everything they had into the battle, launching attack after attack. Without success, they occupied part of Mort-Homme, which they fortified.

In August 1917, the French recaptured Hill 304 and Mort-Homme, and completely freed up Verdun. But the struggle went on along the Caurières ridge, where enemy artillery deployed new mustard gas shells. From the 24th onwards, Mort-Homme and its tunnels, including Les Corbeaux, and also Hill 304, were recaptured once and for all.

Three quarters of the French Army passed through Verdun, where losses on 15 July amounted to 275 000 dead, wounded or captured. The same was true for the German Army.

Among the soldiers buried there are the remains of Henri Collignon, a Councillor of State and former general secretary of the Élysée, who at age 58 enlisted as a volunteer in the 46th RI. He was killed in action on 15 March 1915.

Fighting on the Butte de Vauquois, 1914 to 1918

Since the French Revolution, the Argonne massif had been known as the “French Thermopylae”, and in 1915 it became one of the most disputed sectors. Located between Champagne and Verdun, it constituted a barrier between these two major First World War battle zones. This densely forested massif made for tough fighting conditions, and the terrain meant that the movement of troops was particularly difficult. Static warfare took on its own particular meaning here, as French and German attacks soon deteriorated into senseless, bloody mêlées.

Set on a natural observation point, 290 metres above the Aire and Buanthe valleys, from September 1914 the village of Vauquois became one of the Argonne’s strategic positions. In autumn 1914, the Germans turned it into a veritable fortress. In February and March 1915, the village was fiercely contested. Troops of the 9th and 10th Infantry Divisions showed great heroism. Despite the failure of preparations by the artillery and engineers, on the morning of 17 February the 31st Infantry Regiment launched its attack. Galvanised by its musicians who, at the sight of the enemy, played the Marseillaise, the regiment succeeded in reaching the ruins of the church. Pounded by German artillery crossfire, the unit’s few survivors abandoned that position to take up a new one halfway down the hill. Further assaults were impossible. In these circumstances, mine warfare became the only alternative.

Rivalling one another in skill and effort, French sappers and German pioneers dug underground galleries to carry explosives as far as the mine chamber. This strategy was initially used to accompany the French infantry who, at that time, could not be supported by heavy artillery. After the roar of the mine, through the smoke and under a hail of earth, the soldiers rushed forwards to occupy the designated objective. One after another, the attacks went on. On 5 March, the French took Vauquois, with heavy losses, but the hill continued to be fiercely disputed.

After the bloody attacks of winter 1915, the engineer units set about digging deeper and deeper pits and using more and more powerful charges. Altogether, nearly 17 km of mines were dug on the German side and 5 km on the French side. Like battleships in the night, two rival work units would sometimes collide with one another in the near darkness. As André Pézard writes in Nous autres à Vauquois, throughout 1915, “Vauquois was never a quiet sector.”

The mine war continued, reaching its height in May 1916, when a mine of 60 to 80 tonnes went off, killing 108 men of the 46th RI and leaving a massive crater. After this explosion, which brought no progress to speak of, both French and Germans limited themselves to defensive combat. In March 1918, mine warfare was abandoned for good. In May-June, Italian troops relieved the French soldiers. In September, a powerful Franco-American attack permanently recaptured the hill.

The 82nd, 331st, 46th, 113th, 131st, 31st, 76th, 89th, 313th, 358th and 370th Infantry Regiments, 42nd Colonial Infantry Regiment and 138th and 139th US Infantry Regiments, not forgetting a detachment of the Paris fire brigade, were the main units to distinguish themselves in the assault.

Today, Vauquois is a unique site in First World War history and remembrance. A symbol of this bitter struggle, Vauquois represents the memory of 10 000 soldiers who were buried forever. There is nothing left of the village itself. Proof of the men’s tenacity, the summit of the hill is today 18 metres lower than it was in 1914. In the midst of this lunar landscape stands a memorial to the dead and to this village that “died for France”, where once a hundred-year-old chestnut tree proudly stood.

With its unique landscape, this cemetery is characterised by its blue, pink and white hydrangeas. Planted after the war by Countess de Martimprey, widow of Captain de Martimprey, these flowers bear witness to the suffering of this lady whose husband was reported missing during the fighting at La Haute-Chevauchée on hill 285 on 13 July 1915. At Lachalade there is a monument to the memory of the Italian volunteers who fell in Argonne, including Bruno and Costante Garibaldi, grandsons of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of the Italian independence. Lazare Ponticelli, of Italian origin, who was the last French "poilu" (infantryman) and who died in 2008, was one of these Italian soldiers. Nearby, a cross marks the site of the former cemetery of the Garibaldis, whose graves were transferred to the Italian cemetery in Bligny (Marne).

Bar-le-Duc, prefecture of the Meuse became an administrative, military and medical centre during the Great War. Upon mobilization, some buildings were turned into army hospitals. The town hall hosted the headquarters, while the schools were used as billets for the troops. On the eve of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, thirteen medical teams provided care in the seven hospitals in the town. At the train station, an evacuation hospital (HOE) ensured the transfer of the wounded to the various medical facilities in the region, depending on the severity of the wounds. With the growing number of dead, a military cemetery was opened in 1915, at the site of the current national war cemetery. The town was not spared by the bombardments which caused many victims. In recognition of their sacrifices, André Maginot, Deputy of Bar-le-Duc and Minister of Pensions, gave the town the Military Cross on 30 July 1920.

In 1941 then in 1945, the bodies of soldiers and victims who died during World War II were brought together there. Among these men, there lie six French (including resistance fighters shot by occupation troops on 28 August 1944, on the esplanade of the Federation: Robert Lhuerre, Jean Pornot and Gilbert Voitier), a Belgian lieutenant, Armand Jacob, who died at Bar-le-Duc on 15 June 1940 (grave no. 793) and a Soviet, Constantin Maskaloff (grave 2804 A to D).

From the Second World War, three officers of the 21st colonial infantry regiment, who died on 15 June 1940, are buried next to the soldiers from the Great War. Created in 1919, the necropolis was extended in 1922 to accommodate the remains of soldiers who were initially buried in the neighbouring municipalities of Vassincourt, Contrisson and Laimont.

A monument at the entrance to the village commemorates the soldiers of the 21st colonial infantry regiment who died in the fighting on 15 June 1940.

Located near the Sacred Way and far from the front, the town of Revigny, like Lemmes-Vadelaincourt, took in many wounded people, almost 700 a day. A train loaded with the wounded arrived almost every thirty minutes. These men were cared for in medical units set up in the former girls' school or in barracks. The most seriously wounded succumbed to their injuries, while the others, those in the best health, were sent to other hospitals behind the lines.

Set up near an old field hospital, the Revigny-sur-Ornain National Cemetery was built in 1915 to bury soldiers who had succumbed to injuries received on the Champagne and Verdun fronts. Expanded in 1922 to make room for the bodies of other soldiers, this military cemetery holds the remains of 1,313 soldiers who fought in the Great War, 72 of whom lie in an ossuary. Almost one thousand of these men were killed during the Vassincourt battles in the summer of 1914. At the centre of the cemetery stands a monument honouring the memory of those who died at Champagne and Verdun.

Verdun, which today is the capital of freedom, was once one of the most horrifying battlefields of the Great War. From February to December 1916, during 300 days and nights French and German soldiers lived here a real "hell".

The town of Verdun, in the Meuse département, is an old Gallic oppidum. Its name, made up of ver or "ford" and dun(o) "height" refers to a place that dominated an old crossing point on the Meuse river. Known as Virodunum, the Gallo-Roman castrum was later fortified, but in vain, since in 450 Attila reduced it to nothing. In Verdun in 843, Charlemagne's grandsons signed the treaty for the division of the Carolingian Empire; the document is considered to be the first written evidence of the French language. Between 870 and 879, the city, in the possession of Lotharingie, was incorporated into the kingdom of France, before falling under the rule of the Othonian Germanic empire in 923. The town was the subject of a contest of power between the lineage of counts, from whence came Godefroy de Bouillon, and the episcopal princes, supported by the Germanic emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. A bloody revolt allowed the middle-classes to escape from under their power in the 13th century. Henri II of France seized the town on the 12th June 1552 during the "Chevauchée d'Austrasie" (Austrasian wars). Charles Quint created the place de Metz on the 18th of October of the same year. Verdun thus became a border town, with the full threat of siege. In order to strengthen their power over the county, Henri and his successor, François the First, granted it special privileges and hastily modernised the medieval ramparts. Raised earth mounds and triangular bastioned flanks protected the walls from artillery fire; structures made of earth inside the square accommodated canons. One of the league towns during the Religious wars, Verdun would not submit until after Henri IV's conversion.
In 1611, Louis XIII renewed the town's protected status. In 1624, Richelieu decided to finish the Verdun citadel. He sent Marshal de Mardillac and engineers from Argencourt, Aleaune and Chastillon. The work lasted ten years: the old bastions were replaced by new ones, spaced at regular intervals around the citadel and linked together by a rampart. Vauban stared modernising the town's defensive system in 1675. He added demi-lunes in front of the medieval fortified enclosure and, between 1680 and 1690, built its bastioned enclosure, applying the principle of defensive flooding. Most importantly, he created a dyke to stop the Pré l'Evêque and closed the three crossing points on the Meuse upstream from Verdun with three bridge locks, the Saint-Amans, Saint-Nicolas and Saint-Airy bridges. In the 18th century, the town concentrated its efforts on controlling the flooding that affected the lower town. The Sainte-Croix Bridge, what is now the Legay Bridge, was rebuilt with wider arches. The Anthouard and Jeanne d'Arc barrages were created in order to end the residents' duty to provide accommodation for the soldiers of the garrison. The royal power no longer looked after the fortifications. Only the "Polygone des mineurs" (now at Thierville, near the Niel barracks) in the north was suitable to be used as an exercise ground for troops. During the revolutionary wars the town, under the command of Beaurepaire, was to capitulate on the 30th August 1792. The Germans thus occupied the town for six weeks before withdrawing on the 14th October when confronted by Kellermann. Under the First Empire, Verdun, at some distance from the front, did not really interest the fortifications commission. It was only after 1815, when France was back in the same situation as in 1789, that the authorities undertook work to reinforce the town along the lines of Vauban's fortifications: the new gate was opened (next to today's Carrefour des Maréchaux), to the North -East, a curtain wall strengthened the demi-lunes on Chaussée and Minimes (now the rue de la Liberté and rue du 8 mai 1945) and three networks of counterscarp galleries were dug under the glacis on the Saint-Victor side (Jules-Ferry school).
During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, troops from Verdun (1,500 garrison soldiers, 2,000 mobile guards and 1,400 men from the national sedentary guard), consolidated by 2,600 survivors of Sedan, under the command of General Guérin de Waldersbach and General Marmier, defended the territory against the 10,000 recruits of the Prince of Saxony. On the 23rd September his army totally surrounded the town, commandeering the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages to commit to investment. The town, besieged and under fire from 140 heavy artillery pieces, surrendered on the 8th November. It would be governed by the prefect of Bethmann-Hollweg until the 13th September 1873. In 1874, the French government made rearming Verdun its top priority. It made General Séré-de-Rivières responsible for creating a defensive network from Verdun to Toul. And so, within forty years, the town became the strongest place in Europe: within a radius of 40 km around the town, the engineer built two rings of forts (19 in total, including 14 in concrete); seven kilometres of parallel underground galleries 20 metres below ground completed the structure (in 1888) with a railway network 185 km long with stone reinforced tracks for horse carriages and pieces of artillery. These alterations to the Meuse countryside were accompanied by social changes. The population and the economy became "militarised". There were soon to be more soldiers than civilians (27,000 compared with 13,300), the army became the largest employer in the area, the quarries and blast furnaces worked almost exclusively for the construction and arming of the forts and the countryside was used as a training ground for troops. Of the two sides who confronted each other for 300 days during the First World War, the Verdun sector had the largest concentration of troops; between February and July 1916 losses under General Nivelle's command totalled 62,000 dead, in other words, 812 deaths a day. The civilian population had fled the town. Only the general staff occupying the underground citadel and the Fire Brigade stationed in the cellars of the Mairie remained in the besieged town of Verdun. The town would be awarded the Légion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre with palms by the President of the Republic, Poincaré, on the 13th September 1916. The people of Verdun emerged battered from the fighting and peace returned. The French and American Red Cross and organisations from the Duchy of Luxembourg brought aid to the returning inhabitants: a canteen was set up in the railway station, a dispensary opened in rue Saint-Sauveur and a municipal cooperative association took up residence in the Town Hall. American troops remained until May 1919. The rebuilt cathedral, a reminder of the historic Verdun and a point of reference for the Poilu (slang term for a foot soldier) and the citadel, a symbol of resistance against the enemy, formed the basis of the city's memorial centre, along with the military cemeteries, the national necropolis at Douaumont and battlegrounds such as the Bois-des-Caures.
The reconstruction of Verdun, approved by two Meuse statesmen, Raymond Poincaré and André Maginot, was scheduled for 1917. The town centre, which was planned further to the north of the town on specially declassified military land, demonstrated the desire to emphasise its industrial nature through the construction of two railway stations and major development of its ports. The state made around 16,000 hectares of land, the principal battlefields, available for redevelopment, some of which would be replanted with trees. The soldiers' graves would be brought together in the national necropolis (Douaumont), or in more modest cemeteries (Glorieux and Bevaux). The tomb of the unknown soldier of Verdun was created in the citadel in 1920. The urban topography now conjures up the battle through the names of new streets and the renaming of others. A war museum was built and the monument to the children of Verdun who died for France was opened in 1928, followed by another one, dedicated to the Victory (inaugurated in 1929), as well as that to the 375 Territorials who died in the fire in the munitions store in 1916 (square d'isly); commemorative plaques have been put up in the citadel and in the barracks etc. When war was declared on the 3rd September 1939, Verdun took up its function as a garrison town once again.
It was used for assembling the troops to be sent into action along the length of the Northern and Eastern border. On the 13th May 1940, the Germans crossed the Meuse at Sedan and took the Maginot line from the rear. Following the capture of the La Ferté fort and the surrounding of Dunkirk, General Hutzinger gave the order to organise defending the Verdun area. The commander in charge of the town, General Dubuisson, had anti-tank obstacles constructed, artillerymen were sent to Séré-de-Rivières' forts and a halting line was set up in the Bois Bourru at the Besonvaux ravine. On the evening of the 15th June 1940, the German army arrived in Verdun. In the cemeteries at Bévaux and Faubourg-Pavé the bodies of its defenders were laid to rest. The occupying army set up headquarters in the place de la Nation (the Freiskommandantur) and in Coq-Hardi hall (the Feldgendarmerie). A prison was opened in rue du Rû, soldiers moved into the barracks (Verdun was used as a training centre for young recruits) and frequented the cafés such as the Café de la paix and Le Continental; the Thierville and Jardin-Fontaine barracks were converted into the Frontstalag. The liberation of the Mause took allied troops a week. The Wehrmacht was against a summary defence: tanks and artillery equipment were positioned, at the Voie Sacré crossroads and the road to Châlons and at a place called Moulin-Brûlé, in the suburb of Glorieux. The city could once again provide eyewitness accounts of war. The Beaurepaire bridge, saved from being blown up by the resistance fighter Fernand Legay, was renamed in his honour. The renamed avenues "de la DB US", "du 8 mai 1945" and "du Général-de-Gaulle" came to enrich the toponymy. Plaques and commemorative monuments sprang up: a plaque in honour of Legay on the bridge of the same name, the posts marking the Route of Liberty, the monument to the Resistance fighters slaughtered on avenue de Metz and the one to the Fusillés (those shot by firing squad) of Thierville.
France's participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) left its mark, most notably in the American logistical buildings. The former Maginot barracks was restored in 1951 and was used for housing troops. At the Jardin-Fontaine (the former manoeuvring area for Thierville behind the Maginot barracks), US troops erected special prefabricated buildings to house the engineers and hold religious services, and other public facilities (gymnasia, car parks, garages etc.). Soldiers' tombs can still be seen in the public cemetery. The 50 hectares on the banks of the Etang Bleu were converted into depots and workshops and some of this equipment would be used in the making of the film "The Longest day". The "Chicago" zone, developed in 1953, first contained a laundry and later a bakery. The Fort du Rozelier was converted into a NATO munitions depot intended to receive atomic weapons. In 1958 a hospital was built on the former Faubourg-Pavé aerodrome in the Désandrouins sector. The Gribauval barracks became a place for accommodating troops. On the 22nd September 1984, the 70th anniversary of the start of the First World War, the West German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and the President of the Republic, François Mitterrand, sealed the friendship between the two nations by mounting a plaque in memory of all servicemen at the German necropolis in Consenvoye. Three years later The United Nations (UN) awarded the Meuse city the statute of World capital of Peace, freedom and the rights of Man.
Some historic sites to visit in Verdun The underground citadel The underground citadel Visit the underground galleries of the citadel on board of a small train and discover the every day life of the "poilus" during the First World War. Open an entire year Tariffs : Adults : 6€ Children : 2,5€ Underground citadel Avenue du 5ème RAP 55000 VERDUN Tel : 03 29 86 14 18 The Douaumont ossuary The initiative to build an ossuary in Douaumont, comes from the bishop of Verdun, His Eminence Ginisty. Situated in the heart of the battlefield, this ossuary measuring 137meters in length, is dominated by an 46 meters high tower and was built between 1920 and 1932 thanks to a contribution launched in 1919. It shelters human remains of 130 000 soldiers. In front of this monument the national necropolis, inaugurated on 1929, contains tombs of 15 000 combatants. Open every day from March to November Tariffs : Adults : 3,50€ Children : 2€ Phone : 03 29 84 54 81 The Douaumont fort Interior visit on two gallery levels and casemates. Open every day Tariffs : Adults : 3€ Children : 1,50 € Phone : 03 29 84 41 91 The Verdun memorial Located in Fleury-devant-Douaumont, on the site of the old village station, the Verdun memorial, also known as the memorial of freedom, was built in the sixties, thanks to the initiative of the National Committee for the Memory of Verdun (Comité National du Souvenir de Verdun CNSB) chaired at that time by the writer Maurice Genevoix. The official opening took place in 1967. The museum has a strong historical und pedagogical vocation. Open every day from February to December Tariffs : Adults : 5€ Children : 2,50 € Phone : 03 29 84 35 34 Office de Tourisme de Verdun Avenue du Général Mangin 55100 Verdun E-mail :contact@tourisme-verdun.fr Tél : 03 29 84 55 55 Fax : 03 29 84 85 80