#Verdun 1916 series

On 6 March, the Germans renewed their offensive, this time on the west bank of the Meuse. The ability of the French to sustain the battle was due to ammunition and supplies arriving along the 'Voie Sacree', the Scared Way, a single road into Verdun kept open despite constant German shelling. The French also greatly increased the number of artillery pieces at Verdun, leading to the Germans suffering equally from incessant shelling.

Petain also rotated units through Verdun on a regular basis and whilst this exposed much of the French Army to the battle, it ensured troops did not spend long periods of time at the front.

#Verdun 1916 series

Petain had a reputation as a master of defence and organised his forces to defend in depth by establishing a series of mutually supporting strongpoints, rather than pushing all his troops into the vulnerable front line trenches. General Philippe Petain was then given command of the French Second Army at Verdun. The seizure of ground became the priority and by the end of February, German losses at Verdun were similar to the French casualties. At this point, however, Crown Prince Wilhelm and his staff stopped following Falkenhayn's strategic concept and committed the Fifth Army to greater offensive action. French military leaders declared Verdun could not be held if the east bank of the Meuse was lost and that French national morale would not survive the loss of the city. The battle appeared to be going Falkenhayn's way. Five days into the battle, German forces captured Fort Douaumont, the largest and highest of the 19 forts protecting Verdun. The ground was littered with bodies in all stages of decomposition.At 4am on 21 February 1916 the battle began, with a massive artillery bombardment and a steady advance by troops of the German Fifth Army under Crown Prince Wilhelm. The soldiers were situated in a fighting zone visible from all sides, and they were bombarded from all directions they had no trenches, for they had no opportunity to dig them under continuous fire. It was the most terrible battle of attrition (Materialschlacht) of World War I, and it offered the most dreadful conditions that fighting men had ever encountered. Soldiers later called this battle the “hell of Verdun.” It turned into a type of warfare that the world had never seen before, nor has seen again - despite World War II, despite Stalingrad. The young Hessian soldier was proved right.

He thus gave the signal to begin the German strike against Verdun. On this day, February 21, 1916, Wilhelm, the crown prince of the German Empire, personally ordered a naval gun to fire the first shot. The forests surrounding the battlefield had been transformed into a blinding, deafening firestorm. They could provide no precise information, for wherever they looked, German artillery was firing. French reconnaissance planes were helpless as they tried to locate the batteries that delivered this heavy fire. More than 1,200 artillery pieces, including those of the heaviest caliber, fired in continuous bombardment a large share of the more than 2.5 million shells that had been brought to the front in 1,300 ammunition trains over a period of seven weeks. The heaviest artillery fire ever seen had already begun some hours earlier. “There's going to be a battle here, the likes of which the world has never seen,” wrote a young Hessian soldier to his mother as he prepared to attack with his companions in the early afternoon.