Every once in a while there develops an event that materially changes history. Such was the Battle of Verdun, which occurred during the First World War, in a small garrison town in eastern France, exactly one hundred years ago. The Battle of Verdun began on February 21st, 1916.
Many firsts occurred during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. It was a battle filled with the highest density of dead per square yard in history. It was the longest and bloodiest battle of all time. For the first time, aircraft were used in support of ground tactics.
The German High Command decided to concentrate all of their forces upon Verdun in an effort to break through to Paris. They intended to surround the French Army and win the war. It almost worked.
Thirty-two additional fortresses surround Verdun into two defensive rings. Because of a series of bad decisions by the French High Command, heavy gun batteries were removed from these forts in 1914. The Germans did not know it, but the fortresses surrounding Verdun were defenseless. The German Army prepared for their breakthrough to Paris by amassing 850 heavy guns (75mm to the 420mm ‘Big Bertha’). They faced 270 heavy French guns that were short of ammunition and in poor repair. The Germans had 72 battalions of elite troops to face a disorganized 34 battalions of French troops. Further, the Germans were about to pull off a surprise attack; even after gathering a supply of two million five hundred thousand-artillery shells which had required hundreds of trains! All of this was in preparation for a battle front only eight miles wide.
The original battle that began February 21st, 1916 was scheduled to have started a week earlier. Miserable weather caused the German High Command to delay the battle and miss their first opportunity to break through to Paris. They had no idea the French Forts were indefensible. Had it not been for the weather, the Germans would have attacked a week earlier. From February 12th, when the attack was scheduled to begin, until February 21st, when the attack commenced, the French moved thousands of troops into the area. They shored up the artillery capabilities of the fortresses, and the Germans lost their first opportunity to go uncontested to Paris.
German troops did break through the French front line on the morning of February 21st. And if ground commanders had followed orders and kept going towards Verdun that afternoon, they had an undefended path to the city. The second lost opportunity to go straight to Paris was lost. Had it not been for command indecisiveness, “the Great War” would have been cut short by two years and millions of lives. The Germans thought their initial attack was very successful, having captured ten thousand prisoners, sixty-five heavy guns and seventy-five machine guns. In terms of WWI, it was. Had the order to keep going on February 21st been obeyed, however, by evening, when the weather turned bad again, the German army would have been in Verdun.
The third opportunity for the Germans to break through to Verdun came on February 25th when the key fortress surrounding Verdun, Fort Douaumont, was attacked. German 420mm shells (Big Bertha) pounded the fortress with sixty-two shots. The forts super structure withstood the pummeling. As the fort did not return fire, the Germans thought they had destroyed Douaumont’s artillery capabilities. However, French guns had been disassembled and sent elsewhere. Fort Douaumont was undefended. The Germans could have gone around the fort. They didn’t. They went full boar towards Douaumont, defended by only a few hundred men. The German’s concentration upon Douaumont allowed the French to improve defenses elsewhere. It also provided time for a change in command.
The change in command brought a bright, highly regarded artillery General named Petain to take command of Verdun.
Up to this point in the Battle “only” several thousand men had lost their lives. Two more choice opportunities would be provided for the Germans to break through. They never did. The remaining French fortresses were reinforced. On the land between them were dug hundreds of miles of trenches. The French were literally “dug in”. The French resistance would last until October of 1916, and cost both armies a million two hundred thousand casualties. After the war there were one hundred and fifty thousand unidentified corpses which were interred in a huge Ossuaire overlooking what used to be Fort Douaumont. Were it not for inept German command, Verdun could have been taken on 8 June and 23 June. In both instances German troops drove a hole in French lines, but they just stopped moving forward.
Let’s assume the Germans had broken through at Verdun. The results would have been staggering for the rest of the 20th century because the war would have ended:
| 1. | Twenty five million casualties of World War I would have been prevented. |
| 2. | The United States would not have entered the war (we did not enter the war until more than a year after the Battle of Verdun started). |
| 3. | The war would have been considered simply another European conflict. |
| 4. | There would have been no treaty of Versailles and therefore no Adolf Hitler. |
| 5. | There would have been no World War II, no dissemination and destruction of Europe’s Jews, and none of the seventy million casualties from 1939-1945. |
If the Germans had broken through at Verdun, it is possible that what turned into a century of war could have turned out to have been a century of peace.
George W. Rauch
February 10, 2016
Addendum:
About Verdun
Verdun was founded in the third century BC and became an important Gaelic fortress in Roman times. The town is strategically situated on the Meuse River between Rheims and Metz. Treves (now known as the German Town of Trier), the former seat of the Roman Empire north of the Alps, is sixty miles north. For centuries Verdun has been tossed back and forth between the Germans and the French, depending upon which country won the last war. The French call Verdun “The Gateway to Germany”, their historical enemy.
Prior to the Battle in World War I, Verdun’s other significant mention in history was the Treaty of Verdun in 843, which resulted in the dismantling of Charlemagne’s Empire. Charlemagne died in 814. His only surviving son, Louis the Pious, succeeded him. By 840 the succession of rule was complicated by struggles among Charlemagne’s three grandsons over who would rule The Holy Roman Empire. The compromise split the Holy Roman Empire into three domains closely resembling the modern boundaries of Germany, France and Italy.
Some noticeable World War II figures that went through Verdun were Corporal Adolf Hitler, Lieutenant Harry Truman, Major Dwight Eisenhower, Colonel George S. Patton, Captain Charles DeGalle, Colonel Douglas McArthur, Colonel Irwin Rommel, Sir Winston Churchill, von Manstein, Pauleus, Keitel, and von Kluge, to name a few. The impression the Battle of Verdun had upon these men played a profound part in how the Second World War was fought. This was especially true of Marshal Philippe Petain, the greatest of the French World War I Generals, who became known as the Savior of Verdun.
Petain became President of the Vichy Government during WWII and was tried for treason and sentenced to death after World War II. He refused to commit French troops to WWII because of his own WWI experiences. DeGalle gave Petain clemency.
