Introducing the World’s War:
Though, by almost every calculable metric, the Second World War was far greater in depth, scale and the degree to which each participant nation was involved, the First World War devastated the Armies of Europe, India, Australia/New Zealand and America in ways that have never again been replicated. Weaponry that is now commonplace in modern armies, and was commonplace then, was paired with tactics befitting the Napoleonic Wars. An old-fashioned bayonet charge with soldiers standing tall, shoulder to shoulder, charging across open ground would have been a sight to behold at something like the Battle of Waterloo. But, at something like the Battle of Verdun – 101 years after the Battle of Waterloo – the machinegun, rifle and artillery gun tore those proud men to shreds. And unbelievably, up until the very end of the war, the tactics did not change.
Wave after wave of humans – real men with individual stories, parents, wives, children – were sent against machineguns in the thousands. Up, they rose out of the trenches and walked across open ground taking pot-shots at an enemy they could not see but an enemy which could see them very easily. Often, entire battalions (800-1000 men) would be wiped out in a matter of minutes, reduced to only 100 or 200. For months on end, indeed for most of the war, the battle-lines did not change. But more and more and more men died horrible, gruesome, bloody, violent and lonely deaths.
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British Army lost 19,000 men killed – an infamous moment in military history. By comparison, over the whole of Operation Overlord in World War 2, lasting 2 months, the British Army lost 11,000 men killed. That was the horror of World War 1. As a French officer remarked during the Battle of Verdun, “Every half hour the appearance of the Earth was changed by shell-fire. … whole ranks [of Germans] were mowed down and those that follow suffered the same fate.”
To borrow the words of Indy Neidell, “this is modern war”.
Introducing the New Series:
In this series, which has no defined end or timeline, we will explore the horrors of World War 1. Starting now, with the Battle of Fort de Vaux, other articles in the series will explore Zeppelin raids on London – how the crew lived on them, died on them and how their bombs ravaged London. We will also explore the activities undertaken by the Indian Expeditionary Force “D” against the armies of the Ottoman Empire in Mesopotamia and the near total destruction of the 6th (Pune) Infantry Division at the Siege of Kut. Of course, we will also be looking at that World War 1 campaign; Gallipoli. And, as time progresses, we will be looking at all that we can from this war.
The Battle of Verdun:
When war broke out in 1914, the German Army advanced swiftly across Belgium and Northern France. As neither side had had time to develop defences, dig trenches, lay down fortifications or prepare dense minefields, this early period of the war was characterised by constant movement and motion, with armies trying to out-manoeuvre each other to gain the strategic or tactical advantage. And, as part of this early campaign, the German Army had isolated the French town of Verdun from the North, East and West. A series of 18 French Forts defended the approach to the city. In 1914, the Germans were not able to breech these defences. In February of 1916, the Germans prepared themselves for another assault. They would attack the city from all sides but the heaviest blow would fall on the North-East where lay the absolutely massive fortresses Douaumont and de Vaux.
On the 12th of February, 1916, the German 5th Army would attack. The opening shots of the battle, which was – up until the 2022-2023 Battle of Bakhmut – the longest single open battle in history, were fired by 1,200 Germany heavy artillery guns and hundreds of other smaller guns. It is calculated that on the first day, 40 heavy shells were landing on a single French position every minute. To us, this does not sound survivable and indeed the Germans assumed the same. But, as a French officer at Fort de Vaux tells us, “Heavy shell fire is not as deadly as one imagines, especially if one keeps cool, … and jumps out of the way when he hears a big shell coming. That was where the Boches [Germans] made their mistake. They thought we could not stand the hammering.” Another French officer fighting to defend the Le Mort Homme – the Hill of Dead Men – writes, “Nothing the manuals say, nothing the technicians have foreseen is true today. Even under a hail of shells, troops can fight on and beneath the most terrific bombardment, it is still the spirit of the combatants which counts.”
But, the most horrific fighting of the whole battle was taking place at Fort de Vaux.
The Battle of Fort de Vaux:
The attack on Fort de Vaux came a little while after the beginning of the Battle of Verdun. Fort Douaumont, the largest fort in the 18 that defended Verdun, fell on the 25th of February when a German raiding party managed to sneak into the virtually unoccupied fort and take its inhabitants captive without firing a single shot. This, along with the capture of the heights that Fort Douaumont sat on, puts the German artillery within range of Fort de Vaux. Throughout February and all the way into May, the Fort was under constant shelling every day. The artillery fire would only let up when the German infantry would make a charge.
Another French officer describes a German attack on the Fort at midnight of March 17th.
“Soon after midnight the lookout gave the alarm. Our searchlights pierced the darkness and we saw a dark mass slowly approaching up the hillside. When the light hit them they began shouting loudly. Then our guns and mitrailleuses [machinegun, likely the Hotchkiss M1914] began, and that took the song out of them. The first lot never got within striking distance of us … A second rush followed immediately … These got right up to our barbed wire, where a lot of them stayed. We could hear them shouting, despite the bursting shells, but my men fired coolly. … Nothing stops a charge like mitrailleuse [machinegun] … We simply swept them away in rows. There was one group bunched up against our wire so close that they continued to stand after they were dead, supporting each other.”
But, as the fighting went on, the luck of the French defenders would change for the worse. In March, the fort would lose all its artillery and a German shell would blow up much of the ammunition storage. Despite this, even as late as May, the French were confident that the German 5th Army had been exhausted and victory had been achieved. To some extent, this was true. German attacks along the front-line had lessened in degree and intensity, but there was still a lot of fighting left to be done. And in June, when the Fort was under the command of Major Sylvain Eugene Raynal, the Germans seemed once again to be winning.
On June 2nd, the Germans launch their final attack on Fort de Vaux. The defenders were now so short of ammunition and men – they had not been able to receive any reinforcements or supplies due to German shelling – that they could do nothing when the German attack came at 0230hrs on the 3rd of June. The previous day had been filled with artillery striking every single French position in and around the fort and the men, as well as the officers, knew that this was their last “motion-picture show”. A survivor remarks “The officers were constantly walking through our midst; they were as calm and collected as usual but we felt that the hour was at hand for they looked into every detail”.
When the German infantry charged on the 3rd, the French artillery was too late in responding and their shells fell well behind where the German lines were. With dwindling machinegun ammunition, Major Raynal’s men were not able to put up an effective defence either and the German infantry advanced unchecked and unbothered. Before they attacked the fort, they crashed into the 3 trench-lines surrounding it. These were, again, lightly defended by only 3 companies of infantry. The trench to the East collapses and the company there retreats into the Fort. This allows the German infantry to swing around the fort and destroy the remaining 2 trenches, the survivors of which all retreat into the Fort and find themselves under the command of Major Raynal.
Throughout the day, the French and Germans fight constant hand-to-hand and very close quarter battles for the walls and battlements of Fort de Vaux but as the sun sets, the French still hold the Fort. At 1400hrs on the 3rd, Major Raynal reports to his superiors: “Situation unchanged. The enemy is pursuing his labours on top and round the earthworks. The fort is to be pounded by small ordnance. The enemy occupies our old first-line trenches in force and is strengthening them. He seems to have a trench armed with a machine-gun facing the south-west, not far from the ditch of the defile [shell-hole].”
By the 4th, the situation had deteriorated considerably, and no one puts it better than Major Raynal. In the afternoon, he sends a messenger-pigeon to HQ stating: “We are still holding out, but are subjected to a very dangerous gas and smoke attack. It is urgent that we should be extricated; let us have immediate visual signalling communication by way of Souville [another Fort], which does not answer our appeals. This is my last pigeon.” The pigeon in question was Le Vaillant. It had served throughout the war and would, unfortunately, be mortally wounded by German snipers on its flight out of Fort de Vaux. It would barely make it back to HQ where it would die soon after delivering the message. It was awarded the Legion of Honour, France’s highest military decoration.
As the Fort has no more pigeons, it has no way of contacting the outside world except for runners. These were men to whom messages were given and their only job was to run. Run from enemy fire, shells and shrapnel and find HQ. In the afternoon of the 5th, 2 such runners arrived from the Fort. They revealed that the Fort’s Southern Wall had fallen and the Germans had placed a machinegun there. They had sieged all the exits and the only way out of the Fort was to jump out of the 2nd floor into a water-logged ditch when the Germans weren’t looking. There is no way in. The 4 companies are now all holed up in the Fort, with food and water supplies almost over. Over 600 men, with little ammunition among them, now sat crammed into a fort designed only to hold 150.
At 0730hrs on the 5th, HQ succeeds in re-establishing communication with the Fort – all done by runners or light signals – and they soon learn that the Fort is very much on its last legs. The defenders are being subjected to constant gas and flamethrower attacks and slowly, though not without fighting, they have to relinquish parts of the fort. Repeatedly, the Fort calls for artillery support but HQ does not respond. It is not known why. That evening, the signals from the Fort read out that they are out of food and will soon run out of water, furthermore they have taken 53 more men wounded that day.
By this point, most of the upper levels of the Fort had been captured by the Germans. Major Raynal, who had been wounded earlier in 1914 and 1915 to the point where he could not walk without a cane, was seen rushing about what the parts of the Fort that were still controlled by the French, directing machinegun fire and inspiring his men. On the 6th, the last of the water had run out. The French soldiers, now confined to the cellars of the Fort and on some upper levels, had nothing left to drink and no supplies could physically reach them. They were also very low on ammunition and the lack of food and water had caused many of them to fall ill.
On the 7th, after 5 days of constant fighting and repeatedly asking for reinforcement, artillery support, food and water, the signalman at Fort de Vaux sends the Fort’s last signal to Divisional HQ; “Don’t leave us, don’t leave us”.
On the 8th, with his men forced to lick moisture off the walls to stave off their thirst, Major Raynal surrenders his shattered companies. It must be noted, the companies under his command did not want to surrender; they wanted to fight to the end.
The End of the Battle:
Crown Prince Wilhelm, the commander of the German 5th Army – units of which had been attempting to take the Fort since March – orders his local officers that the surrender of Major Raynal’s men must be observed with the strictest military honours. On June 11th, after Raynal and his men had been given food and water by their German captors, as well as time to rest and medical attention, Crown Prince Wilhelm meets with Major Raynal. Wilhelm presents the defeated French officer with a sword, symbolic of the bravery and heroism shown by Raynal and his men. As for the Fort itself, the French would recapture it on the 2nd of November after dozens of costly failed attempts to seize it between June 8th and the 1st of November. The Fort, largely untouched after the war, can now be visited by tourists and stands tall to this day. The Battle of Verdun would kill about 300,000 men on both sides and end in a very costly French victory. All the territory, towns and forts taken by the Germans would be recaptured and – assisted by the British assaults in the Battle of the Somme – the Allies would make incredibly costly gains on the European front.
Sources:
H. Bordeaux, The Last Days of Fort de Vaux (1923)
Multiple French Officers, “The Climax of the Verdun Battle”, in Charles F. Horne (ed.), Source Records of the Great War, Vol. IV (1923), pp. 206-232
Robert Bruce, “To the last limits of their strength: the French Army and the logistics of attrition in the Battle of Verdun”, in Army History, 45 (1998), pp. 9-21
Letters home in Current History (1916-1940), 4:1 (April, 1916), pp. 36-40
Letters home in Current History (1916-1940), 4:2 (May, 1916), pp. 252-256
Letters home in Current History (1916-1940), 4:2 (May, 1916), pp. 260-265
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