[ News
| Homes
| Life
| Entertainment
| History
| Science
| Community
| Shop ]
| Sport
| Culture
| Cars
| Money
| Broadband
| Learning
| Health
| Dating
| Games ]
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
The Series | Credits | Shop
Home | Overview | Controversies | Timeline | Combatants | Biographies | Glossary | Learn More
The Controversies | Tangled Beginnings | Breaking the deadlock | Live and let live | Jihad | A Harbinger of horrors | Cracking the code | Over there | The end?
Breaking the Deadlock | Verdun | The Somme | Cambrai
Verdun was both a town and a fortress system in eastern France, a tongue of French territory projecting into German-occupied land. At the outset of the war, it had been extremely well defended, a citadel protected by thick walls and a ring of 19 fortresses. However, it had been progressively downgraded and some of its guns had been despatched to needier sectors. By early 1916, many French troops had come to regard Verdun as a 'cushy billet'.
'We have almost nothing to worry about. We often play cards and sometimes we have to drop them and pick up our rifles, but it is usually a false alarm, and so we go back to our seats and our cards, our minds completely on the game again.'
French soldier at Verdun
This all changed on 21 February 1916. The Verdun salient (an outward bulge in defences) was comparatively isolated from the rest of the French line and could therefore be attacked on a narrow front. It was also close to Germany and its supply lines. The German commander Erich von Falkenhayn concentrated his guns - the greatest number so far in the war - on Verdun in the hope of breaking the deadlock.
On that February day, one million German shells rained down on the French lines, and 100,000 German soldiers went over the top in an attempt to achieve breakthrough.
The Germans also pioneered new tactics in an attempt to smash through the French lines. Command was delegated down the line to small units of highly mobile stormtroopers armed with the latest military technology - flame-throwers, grenades and light mortars. In addition, the German Army Air Service flew in squadrons (as opposed to single uncoordinated planes) to deny the French opportunities for aerial observation and to direct German artillery fire more effectively.
Armed with these new tactics and the advantage of surprise, the Germans quickly captured the key fortress of Douaumont (24 February). Church bells rang out across the Reich in celebration.
However, the French were determined to resist at Verdun and invested great energy in securing this end.
Three-quarters of the entire French army served at Verdun during the course of the eight-month battle. These men were supplied by incessant convoys of lorries motoring up and down the N93, the so-called Voie sacrée (Sacred Way) - the first major use of lorries in warfare.
By 24 October, Douaumont was back in French hands and Verdun was saved. However, 300,000 troops - French and German - had died in an unsuccessful German attempt to smash the deadlock.
NEXT: The Somme >