![]() He would also have been aware that the forts of the "Verdun Fortified Region", as the French called the area, were now badly organised, under-equipped and under-manned, this because the French High Command had lost faith in the virtues of permanent fortifications after the Germans had crushed and taken the forts of Liège, Namur and Manonvillers in 1914, and had stripped them of many of their artillery pieces and men. Another reason for the choice of Verdun was that it was cut in half by the River Meuse which would make it harder for the French to defend their position. The front line at Verdun was in fact around the edge of a salient, similar to those at Ypres and St Mihiel and this would have influenced Von Falkenhayn's decision to chose Verdun for this major attack with a salient one can launch converging attacks from two sides. This section was subdivided into the Northern, the Eastern and the Centre sectors and were under the command of Generals Foch, Langle de Cary and Dubail respectively. The following day the French was forced to retreat to their second line of trenches and by 24 February had moved back to their third line and were only 8 km from Verdun.īy early 1916 one could divide the Western front into the section from the North Sea to the Somme which was defended by French, British and Belgian forces and the section from south of the Somme to the Swiss border which was defended solely by the French. The attack started on 21 February 1916, and a million German troops, led by Crown Prince Wilhelm, were to be faced by 200,000 French defenders. Verdun was a fortified French garrison town on the River Meuse, 200 km east of Paris and in December 1915, General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of Staff of the German Army, decided to launch a major attack against it. The Battle of Verdun The Battle of Verdun What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. One French Lieutenant at Verdun who was later killed by an artillery shell wrote in his diary on List of World War I cemeteries and memorials at Verdun
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