Verdun
For other uses see Verdun (disambiguation).Verdun (German (old):
Wirten, official name before
1970 Verdun-sur-Meuse) is a city and
commune in the
Lorraine région, northeast
France, in the
Meuse département, of which it is a
sous-préfecture. Population 25,000.
Verdun (Latin:
Verodunum) was founded by the Gauls (as its Celtic name shows. "Dunum" is the latinized version of a Celtic word meaning
oppidum). It has been the seat of the
bishop of Verdun since the
4th century, with interruptions. In the
Treaty of Verdun in
843, the empire of
Charlemagne was divided into three parts. Verdun became part of the middle kingdom
Lotharingia, and later of the
Holy Roman Empire, in which it was an
Imperial Free City. The Bishopric of Verdun formed together with
Toul and [[Diocese of Metz|Metz]] the
Three Bishoprics, which became part of France in
1552 (recognized in
1648).
Norwich Duff visited Verdun in 1819, shortly after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. He writes:'Verdun is prettily situated in a valley surrounded by hills. The River Meuse runs through the town and forms several canals and ditches round the town which is fortified and, I believe, by the great Marshal
Vauban. The citadel and [surrounds] are a good deal out of repair and [people] were at work on them. Though there is little to see at Verdun, every part of it felt interesting from the number of our countrymen [ie British prisoners of war] confined here during the war. Verdun is famous for its sweetmeats, sugar plums, confits etc which are said to be the best in France. They made us show our passports [here] it being a fortified town.
Battle of Verdun
Verdun was the site of the
Battle of Verdun in
1916 during
World War I. One of the costliest battles of the War, Verdun exemplified the '
war of attrition' pursued by both sides and which cost so many lives.
By the winter of
1915-
1916, German General
Erich von Falkenhayn was convinced that the war could only be won in the west. He decided on a massive attack on a French position 'for the retention of which the French Command would be compelled to throw in every man they have'. Once the French army had bled to death, Britain would be fighting alone on the
Western Front and could be brought down by Germany's
submarine blockade.
Falkenhayn targeted the town of Verdun and its surrounding forts. They threatened German lines of communication and lay within a French salient (a bulge in the line), restricting their defenders. Verdun was a
Gallic fortress before Roman times and later a key asset in wars against
Prussia, and Falkenhayn knew that the French would throw as many men as necessary into its defense. He realized that this would enable him to inflict the maximum possible casualties. Since Germany had a larger population, he concluded that Germany could afford to lose 2 men for every one Frenchman. In an absolute reflection of how dehumanized and inglorious the war had become, Falkenhayn stated that the objective was to "bleed France white".
He massed artillery to the north and east of Verdun to precede the infantry advance with intensive artillery bombardment. His attack would hit the French positions on the right bank of the
Meuse. Although French intelligence had warned of his plans, these warnings were ignored by the French Command and troop levels in the area remained low. Consequently, Verdun was utterly unprepared for the initial bombardment on the morning of
21 February 1916. German infantry attacks followed that afternoon and met tenacious but ultimately inadequate resistance for the first four days.
On
25 February the Germans occupied
Fort Douaumont. French reinforcements - now under the leadership of
General Pétain -- began to arrive and were instantly thrown into "the furnace" (as the battle was called) to slow the German advance, no matter what the cost. Over the next several days, the stubborn defense managed to slow the German advance with a series of bloody counter-attacks. In March, Falkenhayn decided to target the French positions on the left bank of the Meuse as well, broadening the offensive front two-fold. Throughout March and April, Le Mort Homme and Hill 304 were under continuous heavy bombardment and relentless infantry attacks. Meanwhile, Pétain organised repeated, small-scale counter-attacks to slow the German advance. He also ensured that the
Bar-le-Duc road into Verdun - the only one to survive German shelling - remained open. It became known as
La Voie Sacrée ('the Sacred Way') because it continued to carry vital supplies and reinforcements into the Verdun front despite constant artillery attack.
German gains continued in June, but slowly and only after increasingly heavy losses on their side. They attacked the heights on both banks of the river. On
7 June, following almost a week of bitter resistance,
Fort Vaux fell to the Germans after a murderous hand-to-hand fight inside the very fort. On
23 June the Germans reached what would become the furthest point of their advance. The line was just in front of Fort Souville, the last stronghold before Verdun itself. Pétain was makeing plans to evacuate the right bank of the Meuse when the
Allies' offensive on the
Somme River was launched on
1 July, partly to relieve pressure on the French. The Germans could no longer afford to continue their offensive at Verdun when they were needed so desperately on the Somme. At a cost of some 400,000 German casualties and a similar number of French, the attack was finally called off. Germany had failed to bleed France to death and from October to the end of the year, French offensives regained the forts and territory they had lost earlier. The battle lasted 11 months. Falkenhayn was replaced by
Hindenburg as Chief of General Staff and Pétain became a hero, eventually replacing
General Nivelle as French commander-in-chief.
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A panoramic view of Verdun in 1919 |
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Pan view of Verdun from 2004 |
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A portion of the battlefield today |
There are many French and German cemeteries throughout the battlefield. The largest is the French National Cemetery and Douaumont Ossuary, near Fort Douaumont. Thirteen-thousand crosses adorn the field in front of the ossuary which holds roughly 130,000 unidentified remains brought in off the battlefield. Every year yields more remains which are often placed inside the ossuary's vaults.
Among many revered memorials on the battlefield is the "Bayonets Trench", which marks the location where some dozen bayonets (fixed to rifles) lined up in a row were discovered projecting out of the ground after the war. And below each rifle was the body of a French soldier. It is believed that these belonged to a group of soldiers who had rested their rifles against the parapet of the trench they were occupying when they were killed during a bombardment. The men were buried where they lay in the trench and the rifles left untouched.
Nearby, the World War I Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial is located east of the village and is the final resting place for 14,246 American military Dead, most of whom died in the
Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The chapel contains a memorial to the 954 American Missing whose remains were never recovered or identified.
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