World+War+I+-+The++Battle+of+Verdun

media type="custom" key="2973856"Dan Nardolillo Google username - hottpantts215@aim.com Jacob Mooney Google username - 11JMooney

Casey Naylor, 11cnaylor@gmail.com The Germans thought the war would have to occur on the western front, not on the eastern where he thought the Russians were on the brink of a revolution. Felkenhayn persuaded Kaiser Willhelm II that britain was germanys most dangerouse ally. The idea was to force France from the war **without** France, Britain would have to surrender. The Germans introduced a new and horrific weapon to the battlefield when they included ninety-six flamethrowers in the assault to help clear French strongholds. The German siege of Verdun and its ring of forts, which comprised the longest battle of the First World War, has its roots in a letter sent by the German Chief of Staff, [|Erich von Falkenhayn], to the Kaiser, [|Wilhelm II], on Christmas Day 1915. In his letter to the Kaiser, Falkenhayn argued that the key to winning the war lay not on the Eastern Front, against Russia – whom he believed was on the point of revolution and subsequent withdrawal from the war – but on the Western Front. He reasoned that if France could be defeated in a major set-piece battle Britain would in all likelihood seek terms with Germany, or else be defeated in turn. In his letter to Wilhelm Falkenhayn believed that Britain formed the foundation of the Allied effort ranged against Germany and that she must be removed from the war. To that end he recommended implementation of a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant shipping, a policy directed squarely at starving Britain. This combined with a knock-out block to France would, he believed, bring about a successful conclusion to hostilities. The Kaiser acted upon Falkenhayn’s recommendations, agreeing to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, dangerous as it was in running the risk of bringing the U.S. into the war. He also sanctioned implementation of a set-piece siege against Verdun, Falkenhayn’s choice of French target, starting in February 1916. In so doing he agreed to switch focus from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. This latter strategy was not without its critics: in particular [|Paul von Hindenburg] argued that the opportunity was lost to capture the bulk of the Russian army. Ultimately the failure of Falkenhayn’s recommendations cost him his position. Falkenhayn’s choice of Verdun as the focus of the German offensive was shrewd. Although relegated by France to the status of a minor fortress during the early stages of the war, France having lost faith in the value of fortress defences, Verdun maintained a great psychological hold in the minds of the French people. On a practical level the woods immediately behind Verdun would have proved far easier to defend than the Verdun forts. The last fortress town to fall to the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, Verdun’s fortifications had been significantly boosted in the 1880s to withstand further attacks. In addition its status as an important fortress since Roman times guaranteed recognition of the name ‘Verdun’ to most Frenchmen. In short, it was of greater value symbolically than strategically. Falkenhayn counted upon this. His plan was to subject Verdun to intense bombardment, thus drawing in and diverting French troops from all over the Western Front to the eight mile wide front around Verdun. Falkenhayn’s stated aim was to “bleed France white” in its defence of the ancient fortress town. The fact that Verdun formed a French salient into German lines only served to help Falkenhayn, since it meant that it was open to attack from three sides at once. The task of besieging Verdun fell to the German Fifth Army under [|Crown Prince Wilhelm]. He planned to assault the town from both side of the surrounding Meuse River, a plan vetoed by Falkenhayn, who, cautious by nature, feared heavy losses, ordered the attack to be confined to the east bank of the river. Originally scheduled to start on 12 February the offensive was postponed to 21 February on account of poor weather, preceded by a 21 hour [|preliminary bombardment]. In the interim between the planned and actual start date French Commander-in-Chief [|Joffre] received intelligence of the imminent attack, hastily deploying reinforcements to the French Second Army. Meanwhile the fortress commander, Lieutenant Colonel Emile Driant, also a politician and published author, vainly attempted to improve Verdun’s trench systems in time. Driant prepared for the onslaught by posting two battalions, led by himself, at the tip of the Verdun salient on the east bank of the Meuse River. He faced formidable opposition: one million German troops against 200,000 defenders. The attack finally began at 07:15 on 21 February, Crown Prince Wilhelm opening the battle with 1,400 guns packed along the eight-mile front, the guns well served by good nearby railway facilities. 100,000 shells poured into Verdun every hour, Wilhelm’s intention being to kill the majority of the French defenders before the infantry even started their advance into the fortress. An optimistic assessment, a German scouting party sent in following the initial bombardment later that day reported half of the French fighting force remained to meet the planned attack. It is arguable that had Wilhelm chosen to attack at this point the fortress might still have been taken. Instead, daunted by the apparently formidable defences, Wilhelm chose to renew the bombardment. By the close of the day the German forces had succeeded only in capturing the French front line trenches, much less than planned, although Driant himself had been killed during the battle, and his two battalions demolished. Wilhelm withdrew his forward infantry in preparation for a further artillery bombardment, thus taking the sting out of the momentum that had been generated. More importantly it allowed the French defenders to position themselves such that they were able to enfilade the advancing German troops from across the river. Verdun remained in French hands, although the defensive situation was dire. A message was sent to French headquarters on 23 February reporting that Driant had been lost, as had all company commanders, and that the battalion had been reduced from 600 to around 180 men. The following day, 24 February, German troops succeeded in over-running the French second line of trenches, forcing the defenders to within 8 kilometres of Verdun itself. Nevertheless, two outer forts, Vaux and Douaumont, continued to hold out. A French division sent in piecemeal that same day was dispersed under heavy German artillery fire. The next day Douaumont fell to the 24th Brandenburg Infantry Regiment. The effect on French morale of the loss of Douaumont was marked, both upon the remaining defenders and the reinforcements freshly arrived. Popular French sentiment within the country demanded its recapture: withdrawal from Verdun was therefore politically impossible.

Dan Nardolillo, jeanne168@comcast.net

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 * **   The Battle of Verdun 1916 - the greatest battle ever  ** ||
 * French attack on the German lines during the Battle of Verdun ||

The Battle of Verdun is considered the greatest and lengthiest in world history. Never before or since has there been such a lengthy battle, involving so many men, situated on such a tiny piece of land. The battle, which lasted from 21 February 1916 until 19 December 1916 caused over an estimated 700,000 casualties (dead, wounded and missing). The battlefield was not even a square ten kilometres. From a strategic point of view there can be no justification for these atrocious losses. The battle degenerated into a matter of prestige of two nations literally for the sake of fighting..... .  The battle of Verdun in 1916 is said to have been one of the greatest and most protracted battles in the history of warfare. It certainly cost the lives of many hundreds of thousands of combattants on both sides and caused destruction to homes and landscapes on an unprecidented scale. After the war the battle became a national symbol for France, both for those believing in national glory as well as for those endeavoring to show the utter futility of warfare. The gigantic and at times desperate scale of the fighting was apparent to contemporaries, even if the myth and bitter symbolism of the battle of Verdun would mainly be created in the post-war period. In this section we will show a collection of pages taken from Great War newsmagazines, French and British, which show photos and illustrations pertaining to the fighting at Verdun in 1916. Many of the now famous photos of the fighting were published at the time by such outstanding magazines as the French '[|L'Ilustration]' or '[|Le Miroir]' though in a different lay-out than one finds in modern-day history books. Most photos published in magazines in 1916 however are now mostly forgotten. The intention in this following extensive collection of pages from Great War magazines, is to give an idea of what people at the time of the battle itself read about and what kind of illustrative material they would have seen in print. It's also very interesting from a modern day point of view, for there were many aspects to this great battle, some not so obvious, others surprisingly moving and stirring. During the battle of Verdun, in contrast to the previous war years, many photos of actual combat in the front lines were taken. French magazines especially published many moving and for the times ground-breaking shots of weary but grimly determined poilus in front-line trenches and of battered and shattered forts and desolate shell-torn landscapes and villages. Consider this section to be a tribute to the many, no doubt valouress and foolhardy war-time photographers, who must have risked their lives under dangerous conditions, to record some of the many varied heroic and everyday events that went into making the battle of Verdun such a momentous episode in the history of the Great War.

The apparent successes of the fixed fortification system (with the exception of Fort Douaumont) led to the adoption of the Maginot Line as the preferred method of defense along the Franco-German border during the inter-war years. France's army was subsequently plagued not with desertions, but rather with a general refusal to march face-first into the teeth of Germany's impregnable positions. France's troops remained in their trenches, willing to fight only in a defensive capacity. The Battle of Verdun became a symbol of French determination, inspired by Petain's declaration "they shall not pass". The Germans achieved their initial aim, to inflict heavy losses on the French, but their own casualties were comparable.
 * Aftermath - Battle of Verdun**
 * Significance - Battle of Verdun**

The Battle of Verdun is considered by some to be the greatest battle of human history, and certainly can claim to be one of the lengthiest, lasting for nearly a year, from the 21st February 1916 until the 19th December 1916. There were an estimated 700,000 casualties at Verdun, within a 10 kilometer radius. The German High Command decided to attack Verdun, a salient into German lines, because they felt that this location, although not likely to result in a grand strategic breakthrough, was not a place from which the French could retreat, for both strategic reasons and reasons of national pride. Rather than a traditional military victory, Verdun was planned as a vehicle for destroying the French army. The Germans assaulted the French forces with a massive artillery barrage and then advanced on French trenches using flamethrowers for the first time. Although Germany slowly advanced and captured the centre-piece of France's fortifications at the Douaumont Fort, they could not capture Verdun itself. In July 1916, the British and French launched an offensive on the Somme principally to relieve pressure on Verdun, Battle of Verdun At the end of the Battle of Verdun, the sides returned to the very same lines they had started from. The Battle was not a strategic success. Many would argue that the Germans would have been better further advancing in the East to knock the Russian Empire out of the war and capture the grain fields of Ukraine. This was not itself without risk, as even if successful, troops would have to be diverted from active fighting to occupy captured territories, grain could not be harvested without losing men from active duty and furthermore direct train routes were not available to the area. France's losses were appalling however in the Battle of Verdun. It was the perceived humanity of Field Marshal Philippe Pétain who insisted that troops be regularly rotated in the face of such horror that helped seal his reputation. The rotation of forces meant that 70% of France's army went through 'the wringer of Verdun', as opposed to the 25% of the German forces who saw action there. The loss of life and effect on morale stretched the French army to the very edge of mutiny. In that respect, Verdun was successful: mutiny was avoided by promises by the French army leadership that they would no longer engage in costly offensives. In the mathematics of the war, it was crucial that the smaller and more slowly increasing populations of the Central Powers inflict many more casualties on their adversaries than they themselves suffered. At Verdun, Germany did inflict more casualties on the French that they incurred—but not in the 2:1 ratio that they had hoped for. Verdun brought the French to the brink of collapse, but it did not push their forces over the edge. They did not pass.
 * The Battle**


 * took place on a front about 15 miles long
 * on both banks of the meuse river
 * lasted from Feb 21 to Dec 15 1916
 * Feb 25, beginning of war, German pressure made French front begin to break
 * fall of Fort Douaumont
 * 25 of Feb, French general Noel de Castelnau arrived at Verdun
 * he made the decision to maintain the defense on the right bank of the Meuse
 * by Oct French strong enough to stage a limited offensive against the Germen around Verdun
 * Charles Mangin recaptured Fort Douaumont on 24 Oct.
 * ended, French won
 * French: 378,777 casualties
 * 61,189 killed; 216,337 wounded; 101,151 missing
 * German: over 700,000 casualties
 * lost 337,000; 100,000 missing

Tucker, Spencer C. (2006). World War I: A student Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.

Jacob Mooney 11JMooney@gmail.com

**The Battle of Verdun- WWI

A German General named Erich von Falkenhayn developed a battle plan for attacking Verdun, France, a city protected by a ring of underground forts even with the forts General Erich von Falkenhayn thought it was one of the weakest miliarty areas of the french border.. The germans wanted to gain more land and had decide the would attack their rivial France because the Schlieffen Plan. The German army thought that by caputering Verdun it would be the easiest way to Paris. And if they would have been able to get to Paris the french would be destoried. So b ecause of the fast moving german army and their heavy guns the french army was forced to fight in small group with really no tactical links. **

**The Battle of Verdun was the longest and most costly battle of the First World War. It would dominate much of the fighting of 1916, forcing France’s allies to fight battles that might otherwise not have been fought, or to alter the timing of their offensives to provide indirect aid to the French. By the end of the battle the French and Germans between them had lost close to one million men. The battlefield was not even a square ten kilometres. From a strategic point of view there can be no justification for these atrocious losses. The battle degenerated into a matter of prestige of two nations literally for the sake of fighting**

Facts about the war

The Schlieffen Plan- It was the plan that would start the war. It was a plan the the gremans cames up with to take over all of France. The plan was to be quick and easy. The german knew they would face a vast number of french ressiestance but the french people fought back more then the german ever thought. The paln was not just for France but it was also the plans of invading Russia.The plan was created by Schlieffen but was later mofitied and used by Helmuth Von Moltke after Schlieffen retirement. Even being a good plan it never worked the way it was susposed to for the Germans.

Trench warfare- Trench warfare was used before in some wars but we really saw much of WWI fight fought from the trenchs. Trench warfare in which both sides constructed elaborate and heavily armed trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front with soldiers in both trench lines largely defiladed from the other's small arms fire and enclosed by barbed wire The area between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's land") was fully exposed to small-arms and artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even successful ones, often sustained severe casualties as a matter of course.

One man keeps watch as the rest of his group sleeps.

The Western Front

**Battle of Verdun Outline

1 Preparation **** The German plan of attack- using heavy guns The German preparations The situation from the French perspective 2. German Offensive **** The postponed attack of 12 February The start of the German attack Pétain takes defence measures Reflection The Left Bank of the river Meuse 3 Battle of Flanks-Left Bank **** The Battle of Côte 304 and Le Mort-Homme 4. Battle of Flank - Right Bank ****<span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> The first German attack: the occupation of Fleury The crises in the French defence The second German attack: the failed attack of Fort Souville The third German attack: the battle of Fleury The explosion in the Tavannes Tunnel

5. French Offensive

****<span style="color: #0a0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;"> The relief of Knobelsdorf and Falkenhayn The fall of Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux

End of the Battle ( killed) Germany - 143,000 France - 162,440

Total - 337,000

And the end of the battle it turned out to be the longest battle of world war one and maybe one of the longest in world history lasting 10 months. And after almost a year of fight no one on either sided gained any ground. **