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.

Remembered by French World War I soldiers as the bois de la tuerie or “Slaughter Wood”, La Gruerie wood was the scene of fierce fighting as from the autumn of 1914. The historian, Marc Bloch, who would be shot as a resistance fighter in 1944, spent some time in the wood as it was ripped and torn by relentless machine-gun fire and shelling. As a sergeant in the 272nd Infantry Regiment, Bloch captures the fighting in his war notes, as well as the proximity to the enemy, for the trenches were sometimes just yards apart. As in other sectors of the Argonne, the many attacks in La Gruerie wood served only to gain a few hundred yards, soon to be lost again.

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).

Among the French soldiers lies Lieutenant-Colonel André Agel (grave 495). A former student at the Saint-Cyr military academy, Sudan class (1891-1893), this senior officer in charge of the 51st infantry regiment (RI) "was killed gloriously on 10 November 1914, at the foot of the German trenches he had received orders to take. In this situation, as was previously the case on many occasions, he gave the most magnificent example of courage and dedication to the troops under his command". The body of Thomas Ziller (grave 521) is also buried here. Originating from the Alsace region, on 4 December 1914 this soldier enlisted voluntarily with the 2nd foreign regiment under the assumed name of Eugène Girard. After transferring to the 57th RI in April 1915, he died as a result of his injuries on 28 June 1916. He was posthumously awarded the War Cross with palms.

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).