Verdun - the Start of the War of Attrition (maybe)

Battle of Loos, Falkenhayn’s Plan,   Reasons for Attacking Verdun, 

Main Events of the Battle,   Why did the Germans lose the Battle of Verdun?, Results of the Battle

The Battle of Loos, 1915

From 25 September to 8 October, the British fought the Battle of Loos.  This is the Wikipedia summary of the battle:

This famous quote from the battle sums up its result:

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Basic account from BBC Teach

More detailed timeline of the battle

YouTube

Verdun: The Longest & Most Horrific Battle of WWI - clear narrative

Falkenhayn’s Plan

In September 1914, after the German Army was defeated at the Marne, Kaiser Wilhelm had dismissed Moltke and appointed instead Erich von Falkenhayn as his Chef of General Staff.

Falkenhayn believed that Germany would lose a war on two fronts, so he had three key aims:

1. Make Peace with Russia

   (he failed: the Russians rejected all his overtures for a peace)

2. Stop the Austro-Hungarians opening up a third front in Italy

   (he failed: the Austro-Hungarian army launched an offensive in May 1916)

3. Detach France from Britain (whom he saw as Germany’s main enemy)

   His suggestion for how to do that is revealed in a document called ‘the Christmas memorandum’:

Reasons for Attacking Verdun [ADJUST]

1. Attrition: If we believe Falkenhayn’s 1920 claims, he invented the idea of attrition warfare – to wear down the enemy rather than defeating him in battle, to do this to the French, and to do it at Verdun. 

2. Defence hub: ‘Verdun’ was a complex of French forts at the centre of their defence system.  German forces had fairly easily captured the fortresses in Belgium in 1914, so they hoped that they might capture it with few losses, but then destroy the French forces which tried to retake it.

3. Joffre: The French Commander had been withdrawing men and equipment from the Verdun forts and sending them into the trench line (he had also decided that forts had had their day); the German attack was being prepared at a moment when the forts were at their weakest.  Fort Douaumont, the largest and highest fort in the complex, was defended by just 56 men. 

4. Useful strategically: It was close to German railway lines, and the German 5th Army had captured the main French railway line into the area – so it would be difficult for the French to supply their armies.

5. ‘Salient’ Verdun was a point where the French front line bulged into the German line of trenches (see map), so the German artillery could fire on it from three sides, but all the counter-attacking French forces would be concentrated in the one corridor.

6. Tie up British forces: Encyclopaedia Britannica suggests that the Germans maintained their attacks on Verdun in order to disrupt/delay Franco-British preparations of the Somme attack.

Main Events of the Battle

• 21-24 February 1916

  The German attack (Operation Gericht - 'Operation Judgement') took the French by surprise and made sweeping gains on the east bank of the River Meuse; crucially they did NOT, however manage to take the heights overlooking Verdun.

• 25 February

  In France, Joffre was blamed for the defeat and dismissed, and General Pétain was put in charge of the French Second Army.  Before he could reorganise the defences, the Germans captured Fort Douaumont – a massive psychological setback for the French.

• March to June

  Further German attacks captured more of the area, including Fort Vaux (7 June).  On 23 June Pétain advised withdrawing; he was ordered to hold at all costs.

• June

  The Russian General Brusilov attacked and drove back the Austro-Hungarians; the Germans were forced to transfer some artillery away from Verdun.  And after the British attack on the Somme in July, the German forces at Verdun received no more reinforcements, and their offensive simply fizzled out.

• July to August

  German attacks either failed, or failed to make any progress.  They did not attack again after 3 September.

• 21 October

  A French attack under General Charles Mangin recaptured Douaumont on 24 October and Vaux on 2 November – though the loss of life was so great that Mangin was called ‘the Butcher’.  Fighting petered out in December; historians disagree on when exactly the ‘Battle of Verdun’ ended.

Why did the Germans lose the Battle of Verdun?[FRAPPE]

1. Falkenhayn: The historian Alistair Horne (1962) blamed Falkenhayn.  He believed that Germany still had a chance of winning the war in 1916, but that “Falkenhayn squandered it at Verdun” by his "indecisiveness [and] almost pathological scretiveness".  Winston Churchill believed that the resources Falkenhayn "lavished vainly in the attack on Verdun" lost Germany the war.

2. Russia and the Somme: in June the 5th Army had to send some artillery to the Brusilov Offensive, and received no more reinforcements because of the Haig's Somme Offensive.

3. Abandoned the plan: Having made significant gains in February, the Germans did NOT defend and destroy the French counter-attacks, but continued to attack with huge losses.  Historians have written of the disjoint between strategy (Falkenhayn’s plan) and tactics (how the battle was conducted on the ground).  It is known that Crown Prince Wilhelm (who led the 5th Army) and the Army Commanders did not agree with Falkenhayn’s talk of ‘bleeding France white’.  Instead, it was the French who wore down the German attack. 

4. Prestige: As Falkenhayn had predicted, the French came to see the battle as an issue of prestige, and the French Army was ordered to recapture Verdun at any price … i.e. the French won the battle of attrition.

5. Pétain defended Verdun brilliantly.  He used a narrow-gauge railway to transport food for the men and fodder for the animals of the Second Army, but all the reinforcements and munitions had to be transported by motorised transport along a road which became known as the Voie Sacrée (‘Sacred Road’: because it led to death).  He cared deeply for the young men going into the battle, and introduced the ‘Noria’ (waterwheel) rotation system whereby each division only spent three days in the front line; with fewer men, the German soldiers by contrast spent long periods on the front line.  Most of all Pétain did NOT, as Falkenhayn had hoped, throw his men into deadly charges; he realised that a mass-bombardment achieved little, and used his artillery to destroy the enemy’s artillery, and to protect advancing troops using a creeping barrage.

6. Eastern heights: The 5th Army never managed to capture the eastern heights, so the planned tactic of shelling the counter-attacking French from above was unavailable.

On 10 Aoril 1916, Pétain issued a stirring order to the troops to resist the invader, finishing with the words on the famous recruitment poster:  "Courage!  We will have them"

Results of the battle

1. Did the battle win the war?

   After the war, and over the coming decades, the battle was mythologised in both France (as an inspiration to victory) and Germany (where it helped the rise of Nazism) … but, at the time, it doesn’t seem to have had any great effect.  If anything, it was the French who mutinied in 1917, and it is arguable that it was the German politicians, not the German soldiers, who folded in 1918.

2. Was it the start of the 'War of Attrition'?

   Again, personally, I would say not.  Firstly, was it a battle of attrition? – Even if Falkenhayn wanted it to be, his commanders seem to have ignored him and gone for victories.  Secondly, Haig clearly went for a victory on the first day at the Somme.  In BOTH these battles commanders started talking about enemy losses ...  but only when the initial breakthrough victory had failed to be achieved (i.e. the talk of 'attrition' was more to cover their backs than a primary strategy).

3. Although horrific, the battle was NOT as deadly as the War of Movement in 1914.

 

However:

4. It confirmed the ability of ordinary men on both sides to suffer hardship and death for duty’s sake.

5. It confirmed the importance of motorised transport in modern warfare.

6. It was the first battle where control of the skies was an issue.

7. It was the first battle to use flammenwerfer - flame-throwers - used by the Germans on 26 February.  

8. It was the first battle to recognise shell-shock.

9. One of the reasons for the Battle of the Somme was to relieve the pressure on the French at Verdun.

10. In France, the success of the recapture of Fort Douaumont went to the military's heads.  Ignoring Pétain's cautious/defensive approach, the 'Verdun School' of Army leaders reasserted the value of attack ... an approach which drove the French soldiers to mutiny in 1917.