Not only would the psychological effect be disastrous for the French public, but it would also undermine the trust in the current government, and if Briand lost his job, so would Joffre, so giving up Verdun was out of the question. But French President Aristide Briand made it perfectly clear that losing Verdun was unacceptable. If the Germans could not be held on the eastern bank of the Meuse, the French would retreat and build new positions on the western bank. Losing Verdun – not an optionįor French army Chief of Staff Josef Joffre, Verdun wasn’t really that important, at least militarily.

Trench after trench, the Germans gained a foothold, despite fierce resistance from well camouflaged machine guns and blockhouses. Through ice, rain and snow, the soldiers fought, as rifle shots and grenades burst in their midst. With the advantage of surprise, they stormed the first French lines. Then the German combat troops emerged from the saps with grenades, wire cutters and flamethrowers. Some soldiers were simply obliterated, torn apart by the force of the guns, others were buried alive deep in their trenches or bunkers. In an intensity never witnessed before, the barrage destroyed whole forests, blowing trees metres high into the air, and raining stones and earth on the poor souls on the ground. Even in the Vosges near the Swiss border, the thunder of the German guns could be heard.

The largest concentration of guns in history at this point opened up in a violent concert, described by witnesses as the symphony of the devil. On February 21, the bad winter weather finally cleared and German aircraft and observation balloons hit the skies. The attack was planned for February once the weather cleared. Preparations were made over the winter, massing artillery pieces of all calibres and millions of shells. Total destruction, then attack battalions and pioneers storming the hills in a wedge towards the mighty fortress of Douaumont, taking the remnants of the other fortresses that were surely destroyed by the heavy bombardment. The key to the attack was heavy artillery. Falkenhayn concluded that if Verdun was successful, there would be peace before the summer of 1916. In the best case, they would hastily execute an offensive at the Somme, suffer heavy casualties as well, and open themselves up for a decisive German counterattack. The French would be tied down, and if they lost badly, the British would be forced to intervene. By capturing the heights east of the River Meuse and loading them with artillery, the Germans could constantly threaten the city and the local defences, forcing the French to continuously attack the German defences. Verdun was not Falkenhayn’s first choice, since it was a heavily fortified area, but it was also a commanding location. It must be a place the enemy could not afford to lose, for strategic or propagandistic purposes, and would thus fight until wiped out. In order to deliver the blow in the north, he would attack at a place further south that would draw in as many French forces as possible. But he’d learned the hard way that without eliminating or at least tying down the French beforehand, the defence would be too strong. To Falkenhayn, the weakest point of the Western Front was the British sector, and attacking at Artois could, he believed, lead to a decisive breakthrough that would collapse the whole Western Front.

Verdun 1916