Why Germany Lost the Battle of Verdun (WW1 Documentary)

This episode is sponsored by the upcoming big strategy game Gilded Destiny. Check out their Kickstarter page, list the game on Steam, or wait until later to watch the video for more information. But now, let's get to the show. At the end of 1915, the Central Powers faced a dilemma. German and Austro-Hungarian forces had pushed back the Russian army that summer, while Bulgaria helped them finally crush Serbia in the fall. But the long-term outlook was still not good, since the Entente had more resources and more men. Something had to be done, but if the Germans attacked, French trench systems could stop them just as they stopped the French offensives in 1915.

If they waited, the numerical strength of the Entente would begin to tell. This was the enigma that German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn attempted to solve by launching the Battle of Verdun in February 1916. It would become the longest and most iconic

battle

of the First World War, but in the end Germany would fail. . In December 1915, the German High Command debated where to attack: they could advance into Russia, but the Russians could withdraw again and continue fighting. They could attack Thessaloniki, but this front was secondary. The potentially decisive front was the West, and Falkenhayn decided to attack the French at Verdun.

Verdun was the most fortified sector of the French line, with an extensive network of forts and supporting works, and formed a dangerous salient. To complicate matters, Falkenhayn believes that a breakthrough in trench warfare is impossible. Historians have long debated the German

battle

plan. For decades, most accepted Falkenhayn's postwar memoirs, where he wrote that his intention was to inflict unsustainable losses on France, to “bleed the French whites.” But most historians now maintain that the original plan was more likely for Crown Prince William's 5th Army to take the Meuse Heights overlooking the city, and possibly even the city itself, in a short, precise operation.

According to this argument, Falkenhayn switched to an attrition strategy after the initial plan went awry, and then lied about it after the war. If the Germans eliminated the Verdun Salient, they would deal France a severe blow and eliminate any threat to the German lines and the city of Metz. Even if Verdun did not fall at first, the Germans atop the heights could rain destruction on the French forces below; in the words of Falkenhayn and the Prussian Minister of War Adolf Wild von Hohenborn, “not even a mouse” could survive. Beyond that, it is unclear what Falkenhayn had in mind as a strategic objective.

Historians debate the extent to which he and other German leaders expected the French to collapse or negotiate, after giving up Verdun or suffering heavy losses in counterattacks. In part, this expectation was based on many German leaders' ideas of the French national character as hysterical or emotional. It is also possible that Verdun was the first phase of a broader offensive that would be planned when the first attack was underway. In early 1916, Crown Prince Rupprecht did not understand how a limited offensive could win the war: “he really wants, and is waiting for a stroke of good luck that would bring him an advantageous solution.

He wanted the decision to be made in the spring, but he explained that it was impossible to achieve a breakthrough, how else can we force a change from trench warfare to mobile warfare? (Afflerbach 194) The Chief of Staff of the 5th Army, General Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf, and other officers wanted to attack on both banks of the river, since only attacking in the east would expose the advancing troops to flanking fire, but Falkenhayn decided to attack on the east bank. Only: there is another historical debate about possible disagreements between the 5th Army and the General Staff. Operation Judgment was to begin on February 12, 1916, using as few infantry as possible to save reserves, but supported by overwhelming artillery firepower.

Meanwhile, French Headquarters had decided that the Verdun forts were not of critical importance as a siege defense. The Belgian, Russian and Austro-Hungarian forts had not fared well at the beginning of the war, so commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre removed much of the artillery and garrisons from the fortified region of Verdun for use elsewhere, including important forts such as Douamont and Vaux. Colonel Emile Driant, a battalion commander and local politician, pleaded in vain for better defenses. In purely military terms, the French High Command considered that Verdun did not have to be held at all costs, or even at all.

What I could do was anchor the line whenever it made operational sense. So Germany planned to attack towards Verdun with the aim of eliminating the salient, but without a clear long-term strategic objective. It seemed like the French wouldn't take the bait, but that would change once the battle began. In January 1916, the German air force aggressively patrolled the skies over Verdun with 270 aircraft, to prevent the 70 available French aircraft from conducting reconnaissance. The Germans brought 1,250 guns, giving them a 2 to 1 superiority in attacking the French positions and suppressing the French batteries with gas shells. The German guns would fire 2 million shells in the first week alone.

In the attack zone, the French had about 30,000 men of weak units to oppose the 60,000 Germans in the first waves. Winter weather then delayed the offensive and several Alsatian deserters revealed the coming attack, allowing the French a few days to prepare. Finally, on February 21, German troops assaulted French positions and Operation Judgment began. They advanced cautiously at first, attempting to infiltrate French lines and avoid strongpoints in an early use of stormtrooper tactics. Colonel Driant's battalion decisively defended the Bois des Caures, which delayed the Germans, but on the 22nd the forest fell and Driant died. Falkenhayn was optimistic: "Sehen Sie, mit dem Angriff habe ich mal wieder das Richtige getroffen - Look, with the attack I was right again." (Afflerbach 199) Then, on February 25, German patrols reached Fort Douamont, the axis of the French. defenses but almost defenseless due to a French command and control error.

The few dozen French artillerymen present surrendered without a fight. German newspapers proclaim his capture as a great victory, although several German officers argued for decades over who actually accepted the surrender. On February 28, the Germans had advanced up to 8 km but ran into problems. Joffre then decided to hold Verdun and put General Henri-Philippe Petain's 2nd Army in charge of the defense. The French sent reinforcements and stopped the Germans in their tracks. One of the French soldiers advancing towards the front was the doctor Louis Maufrais, who witnesses the evacuation of local civilians: “Ahead of us arrives a long convoy of refugees in carts.

It is always the same misery: one or two horses on the reins, the cows tied to the back, the dog between the wheels. In the car, suitcases, and on top of them sacks, oats, hay and the elderly, the children and a tarp covering everything.” (Maufrais 195) Most historians think that if Falkenhayn had assigned more infantry divisions to this initial offensive, the Germans could have completely taken the heights of the eastern bank, but now the Germans did not have the numbers and the French did. Falkenhayn himself began to have doubts, according to Wild von Hohenborn: "Falkenhayn is very nervous about the impasse and the heavy losses." (Afflerbach 201) Such doubts are not evident to Dr.

Maufrais, who experienced the impact of a heavy German shell that hit his underground first aid station: “The impact was terrifying. Those who, like me, were sitting, were lifted from their seats and those who were standing collapsed. I felt a violent blow to my stomach and head. All the lights went out. The door resounded like a struck gong, and below it was enveloped in a cloud of dust and burning gas that burned our throats and nostrils. Nobody said a word. “We heard the big chunks of dirt fall onto the shelter and then, after a long minute, the noise died down.” (Maufrais 209) So, after spectacular German advances in the first few days, they failed to take the eastern heights and found themselves in the same trap that the 5th Army feared.

The Germans now held an unsustainable line (they did not control all the high ground in the east and had not attacked in the west), so the French artillery on the western heights could rain devastating fire on the exposed German positions across the river. . . The Germans then attacked the West Bank on March 6. However, the French stopped them again, this time on two hills that would become famous for brutal fighting and horrendous conditions: Hill 304 and Mort Homme, Dead Man's Hill. The bombardment is so intense that at the end of the battle, Mort Homme is 20 meters lower than before.

The French High Command's decision to control Verdun was exactly what Falkenhayn later said he wanted, but it cost him dearly. Pétain quickly established a defense in depth and improved his desperate logistical situation. Thousands of trucks snaked along the road from Bar-le-Duc that became known as the Voie Sacree, a lifeline that required constant maintenance by army engineers. This was one of the first cases of mass supply by motor vehicle and a harbinger of the motorized Allied armies of 1918. The French also built an additional railway line to supply the front, partly nullifying the Germans' earlier advantage of a header. much closer.

Petain also introduced the Noria rotation system, which took units off the line before they could be completely destroyed. This meant that approximately ¾ of the army saw action at Verdun, including future presidents Charles de Gaulle, Pierre Lebrun and René Coty. The German 5th Army, on the other hand, often kept units in line until they were totally exhausted, with predictable effects on morale. The Noria system was part of the reason the battle became a propaganda symbol. When in the early days it seemed that Verdun might be

lost

, French newspapers downplayed its importance, but once the line held, the media equated its defense with the national will to resist.

Pétain's famous order of the day, “Courage, we will catch them,” and General Robert Nivelle's “Ils ne passeront pas – They will not pass” became morale-boosting slogans on the home front. German propaganda found itself in a difficult position as the battle progressed, as news of a major victory in the early days raised expectations. Now, German newspapers like the Kriegsecho focused on enemy losses: “Our attack is advancing, with difficulty but irresistibly; Verdun is an immense furnace where the best of France's strength burns." (Krumeich 28) The newspaper went on to say that the battle was like a Moloch eating the children of France.

For the men in the trenches, the conditions were unimaginable, as hundreds of weapons pulverized the relatively small battlefield. The wet winter mud turned into soup and the trenches collapsed; the front line was often whatever shell holes the men could find. This swamp was also strewn with tens of thousands of corpses. The French soldier Hervé Lambert wrote to his home: “A couple of lines from the trenches and mass graves where we are. There are still 4 of my team, out of 9. As for the view in front of me, it is overwhelming. The corpses touch each other, piled on top of each other, with the smell of decomposing bodies that sticks to the throat.

It's horrible, with craters so big you could fit a tram into them. I won't say anything else." (Lyon 81) Medical services were barely functioning and the injured often had to fend for themselves. There was a shortage of drinking water, forcing soldiers to take deadly risks: “We had to walk 1,000 meters to the fort [douamont from a ravine]. It was raining and there was mud everywhere. He passed by a water well from which water was flowing. The town of Douamont was previously located in this corner. But before reaching the , you had to climb over dozens of corpses. The French knew the water source and bombed it periodically.

There lay infantrymen, pioneers, all piled on top of each other. “Everyone wanted water but they didn’t get it.” (Osburg 21) The French then managed to stop a second German attack, leading the French commanders to conclude that the German offensive was over as little more could be gained by attacking again. But the Germans weren't done yet. In April and May, fighting raged back and forth, but the lines did not move much. IncreasinglyUnits from both sides were sent to hell and losses increased. On May 8, ammunition caught fire and exploded inside Fort Douamont, killing nearly 700 Germans in an instant.

The Germans slowly advanced the lines despite French counterattacks and managed to surround Fort de Vaux in early June. The French garrison was completely isolated for almost a week. Fort commander Sylvain Reynal later recalled the suffering of his men: “The men were overcome with vomiting, because they were so miserable that they had reached the point of drinking their own urine. Some

lost

consciousness. In the main gallery, a man was licking a small wet spot on the wall.” (Hart 205) Reynal surrendered the fort on June 7, 101 days after the Germans planned to take it. A major German attack on June 23 made some progress and captured the ruins of the village of Fleury with the help of phosgene gas shells.

The battle had raged for months, and the Germans had finally captured Mort Homme and Hill 304 from the French, but had not yet taken the eastern heights, a far cry from the initial plan for a quick attack. In early April, Falkenhayn even floated the idea of ​​calling off the attack: “Surely then it will be said that we had not won the battle of Verdun. But that is said even now and we can and must accept it. If we win the battle, our chances of ending the war greatly increase. If we do not win the battle, our final victory will be delayed, but it will not be affected if we decide not to pull out our teeth uselessly at Verdun.” Afflerbach 203.

On May 8 he even admitted to the Kaiser that the battle had reached a stalemate. Why then, if the Germans had already lost several teeth, did Falkenhayn persist? The 5th Army command, especially Schmidt von Knobelsdorf, reasoned that they could still prevail and avoid the embarrassment of retreating. Falkenhayn agreed, partly as a result of wishful thinking and faulty intelligence. German reports greatly overestimated French losses, putting them at 525,000 or even 800,000 dead and wounded compared to 225,000 Germans in mid-summer. (Afflerbach 204) The Germans misinterpreted the French rotation system and thought that every new division they saw meant that the one they had replaced had been decimated.

Falkenhayn was so confident after the advances of late May and June that he predicted the war would end at the end of the next winter; he even lied to Chancellor Bettman Hollweg about German casualties. In reality, the French had only lost about 10% more men than the Germans. But German leaders had begun to lose faith in the Chief of the General Staff. General Max von Gallwitz sarcastically commented that at this rate they would reach Verdun in 1920. Admiral von Müller wrote of the growing doubts in his diary: “Great dissatisfaction with the Kaiser, who does not understand the seriousness of the situation, and with Falkenhayn, who thinks that in Verdun "everything is normal".

Afflerbach 205 Falkenhayn attempted a final offensive in July against the last French strongholds on the eastern heights, but failed. Berlin dismissed him in August and replaced him with Paul von Hindenburg, who declared an end to offensive operations at Verdun. So, after months of crushing death and the French still clinging to the heights, the Germans gave up at Verdun. But for the French the battle was not over. The French High Command had also made changes. Joffre replaced Pétain with artillery general Robert Nivelle in May. In late June, Joffre correctly concluded that the German offensive force at Verdun was exhausted and he shifted forces north for the next offensive on the Somme.

For more than three months, intense tactical fighting continued, pushing men like French soldier Marc Boasson beyond their limits: “This is not heroism. This is an ignominy. What kind of nation will they make of us tomorrow, these exhausted creatures, empty of blood, empty of thought, crushed by superhuman fatigue? (Horne 340) Boasson was later murdered. The German soldiers had it no better, like the German-Danish soldier Jeppesen, whose mind played tricks on him at night: “Suddenly I saw a monster right in front of me, it was standing and beckoning me to come closer. He could feel the hackles underneath. my steel helmet.

I pulled out my revolver, flipped the safety, and crawled forward. But when I got to the "monster," it turned out to be one of the little ponies used to pull the carts. He had died here during an explosion and had been lifted onto his backside. Now all the flesh had been removed and the moonlight shone through the skeleton.” (Eberholst 70) Finally, the French were ready to launch a massive counterattack. Heavy rain delayed preparations, but brought in 650 guns to destroy a limited section of the German line with a quarter of a million shells. They also used innovative tactics, faking the start of the attack so that the German batteries would reveal their positions and then hitting them with counter-battery fire, completely knocking out more than 40% of the German batteries.

The new bombardment, advancing just ahead of the advancing infantry, began the attack on 23 October. The French infantry displayed much better small unit tactics and were better armed with specialized close combat equipment and more light machine guns. And the enemy they faced was weak. The German troops were miserable, wet, cold and exhausted from their long stays at the front. The French infantry broke deep into the German lines and thousands of people surrendered. French colonial troops recaptured Fleury and Fort Douamont on 24 October, after the German garrison left when 400mm super-heavy shells hit the roof and started a fire.

The French then took the abandoned Fort de Vaux on November 3. The attackers invaded German William Hermanns' unit at night, and as he fled from them he fell into a large crater: “Eight or ten huge men stood before me, one with a rifle pointed at my head. He was still half kneeling. I shouted: "Excuse me, je suis votre prisonnier!" Someone removed the man's hand with the gun. I stammered in French: "I don't hate you." I do not hate anyone'. And then I collapsed.” (Hart 209) In a few days, the French captured much of what had taken the Germans months to conquer.

In December, the French launched a final offensive and pushed the front line back a further 3 kilometers, to a safer distance from the city. The Germans were as unable to stop him as they were in October, although Generals Nivelle and Charles Mangin gained a reputation for wasting French lives. Verdun was now clearly out of reach of the Germans, if they intended to take it in the first place. Hindenburg arrived at the end of the year with a pessimistic conclusion: “On this occasion the enemy caught us with our own petard. We can only hope that next year the experiment will not be repeated on a larger scale and with the same success.” (Horne 317) The longest battle of the First World War, the Blutpumpe of Verdun, was over.

It had begun with a rapid German advance and the French commanders chose, as Falkenhayn later said he wanted, to defend the city at all costs. Why then did the German army fail? One problem was the lack of a clear strategic objective. As much debate as there may have been about when Falkenhayn did or did not commit to the Bleeding France White concept, there is no consensus that he had a clear idea of ​​what this could actually achieve in practice, and his secretive communication style left others in the spotlight dark. He seems to have expected France to collapse if he applied enough pressure.

While French losses were greater in the early phases of the battle, the final casualty count was 377,000 killed and wounded for the French and 335,000 for the Germans. Terrible losses, but not enough to take France out of the war. The Germans also overestimated their own capabilities, especially the supposed superiority of their troops compared to the French, and underestimated French determination, skill, and strength. As the initial plan failed and the battle dragged on, the German high command became all too willing to believe unrealistic estimates of French casualties, as it confirmed their prejudice that they were winning the battle of attrition.

Operationally, the chances of taking the heights quickly disappeared during the first week, as Falkenhayn did not have enough infantry to push through the French reinforcements. Falkenhayn himself also admitted after the war that not attacking the West Bank from the beginning was a mistake. The possible differences between the General Staff and the 5th Army, if they had existed, would not have helped matters. Crown Prince Rupprecht even declared the battle lost on March 20: “after a beautiful initial success... everything came to a standstill and the operation was on the verge of failure.” (Afflerbach 203) Verdun from February to August can be considered a tactical success for Germany, and from then until December a tactical success for France.

But it was a German strategic defeat and, possibly, a French defensive victory. France did not collapse and, although weakened, attacked on the Somme alongside the British and held most of the line on the western front. The German army wasted valuable reserves and fought a costly 10-month battle that its leaders planned to avoid. Falkenhayn had not consulted the Austro-Hungarians in advance, so they did not undertake any supporting attack and eventually needed help to stop the Brusilov offensive. By the end of 1916, Germany's strategic position was worse than before Verdun. Verdun also left a lasting legacy after the war.

He came to represent the worst of trench warfare and the suffering of soldiers in the minds of millions of people and, for many, the cruel futility of the First World War. French lieutenant de Mazonod worries about the future: “This war has marked us for generations. It has left its mark on our souls. We will rediscover all those inflamed nights of Verdun one day in the eyes of our children.” (Horne 340) For many others in France, it became a symbol of the unwavering national will to resist the German invasion, to not let them pass. The battlefield is now littered with monuments, memorials and cemeteries, and literature and film have turned to Verdun again and again over the past century.

After World War II, it even became a place of reconciliation between France and Germany. However, in December 1916 all that was in the distant future. Nivelle's success at Verdun caused Paris to appoint him the new commander-in-chief. He was convinced he had solved the riddle of trench warfare and decided to win the war in the spring of 1917. The Battle of Verdun is often considered the iconic battle of World War I that exemplifies the suffering of men in war. industrialized. The war itself caused historic social changes and dramatically altered the map of Europe once it ended. Alternate history fans often like to ponder how it could have ended differently or even been avoided in the first place.

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Terrain and logistics will affect you, while large-scale issues such as wounded veterans and trade disruption will challenge you with the social and tactical impacts of war. Can you keep your economy running and your supply chains intact? Can you keep the various groups in your society under control as new ideologies emerge and rapid transformation leaves some of them behind? If you want to step into the shoes of a leader during the Industrial Revolution on a massive 1.6 million tile map, check out Gilded Destiny. Right now, their Kickstarter campaign is running, giving you access to the game's next Alpha and offering the base game at a discounted price.

For your support, you can also get some gifts like the Greater Austria German Unification Medal, which should make every connoisseur of the German War of 1866 laugh. You can also help the developers by listing the game on Steam. We would like to thank Aquila Interactive for sponsoring this video. As usual, you can find all the sources for this episode in the video description. If you're watching this video on Patreon or Nebula, manythanks for the support. Watch our video on the Brusilov Offensive to learn more about the largest battle on the Eastern Front in 1916. I'm Jesse Alexander, and this is a production of Real Time History, the only history channel that won't let you pass.