DC Under Siege_4of6_Verdun 1916 The Mill on the Meuse
Transcript
00:00By the end of 1915, there was stalemate on the Western Front.
00:17Germany's mainly defensive posture had cost France alone over one million men killed,
00:23wounded or missing.
00:24With the opposing trenches stretching from the Channel to the Alps, Erich von Falkenhayn,
00:29chief of the German General Staff, looked for an indirect way out of the deadlock in
00:33the West.
00:35He intended not a major breakthrough, but a battle of attrition in a place the French
00:40would never give up, a place into which she would pour all her men and resources.
00:46With the French army bled to death, he reasoned, France would no longer have the will to fight
00:51and Britain, isolated, would withdraw.
00:56Falkenhayn found such a place in north-eastern France.
01:00The siege that ensued lasted some 300 days, cost over 700,000 casualties, and by its end,
01:11it was difficult to determine an outright victor.
01:14For France, this battle has become synonymous with national pride, national fortitude and
01:20the will of the entire nation.
01:23It was the place that France rediscovered its identity and where the seeds of a united
01:27Europe were first sown.
01:31Verdun, 1916.
01:53Along this road in 1916, which became known as the Voix Sacrée, the Sacred Way, four
02:18fifths of the French army came to the defense of Verdun, a small provincial city on the
02:26River Meuse, about 260 kilometers east of Paris.
02:35Once the lines of trenches had settled into position in late 1914, and with its ring of
02:4020 major and 40 minor forts ringing the town, Verdun stacked out into German-occupied territory
02:47like an elbow.
02:58Germany had stood on the defensive in 1915, except for local attacks in the two salients,
03:03Ypres and Verdun.
03:05The defenses at Ypres had been forced back closer to the town, but Verdun had held, despite
03:11bitter fighting at the base of its salient.
03:14Vauquois to the west and Les Épages to the southeast suffered devastating mine attacks
03:19in the fight for control of the vital heights.
03:22Although the attacks were ferocious, the French held their ground.
03:30Despite the devastation wrought on the flanks, Verdun itself had remained a comparatively
03:34quiet sector.
03:36Indeed, the French commander-in-chief, General Joseph Joffre, did not take seriously the
03:41threat of an assault on Verdun, and gradually took most of the men and large artillery pieces
03:46away from the ring of defensive forts to reinforce other areas.
03:54In 1914, Joffre had actually ordered that Verdun be abandoned, because tactically it
03:59made no sense to hold on to it.
04:00The local general, General Saraya, just disobeyed orders, refused to obey, and they hung on
04:06to it.
04:07Verdun is now the tip of a salient sticking out into German occupied territory, and Falkenhayn's
04:13thinking is, if we threaten Verdun, the French will pour in more and more troops to defend
04:21it, and we will kill them.
04:22It's as simple as that.
04:28Joffre was very successful in 1914, but he took fright at what had happened to the forts
04:34in Belgium and on the edge of France, which had been so heavily beaten into the ground
04:40by the Germans that he feared for the forts which France had arranged around her borders
04:45over centuries in many ways.
04:48And he decided that he would take the men and the guns out of the forts and spread them
04:54around the field.
04:56Underestimating the threat to Verdun, and the belief that the system of forts was unnecessary
05:01to an effective defence, was to prove a costly error in judgement, both militarily and personally,
05:07for the French commander-in-chief.
05:16What Falkenhayn envisioned was a win-win strategy, to be the victors whether they took the city
05:21or not.
05:23The prize would be the destruction of the French army.
05:29Verdun's strategy had to be seen from the background, which he reached at the end of 1915
05:35on the German side, namely that deeper breaches into the enemy's territory would most likely
05:42no longer be possible in the foreseeable future.
05:45Accordingly, he concluded that it would make sense to achieve a small break-in on a battlefield
05:52of his choice, which would force the enemy to
05:58concentrate its forces on this point, and in this way to block the feared German breakthrough.
06:07In this situation, the favorable topography of the territory north of Verdun, together
06:13with the German artillery superiority that was still available at the time, should contribute
06:18to the French counter-attacks.
06:28Falkenhayn's instrument for the prosecution of his plan was the German Fifth Army, which
06:33had been fighting around the Salien from the beginning.
06:37The Fifth Army commander was the Kaiser's 34-year-old son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm.
06:43A gift to cartoonists, he was known to the Allied soldier as the Clown Prince, or Little Willie.
06:50The Crown Prince Wilhelm often gets a bad press.
06:53He looks like a fop, he looks a bit stupid in many ways.
06:58Being the son of the Emperor, of the Kaiser, you couldn't think he was really fully qualified,
07:02but he was a much better commander than people realized.
07:06He was shrewd, he was farsighted, and he also was a man who knew when to stop.
07:12As the Verdun battle went on, there came a time when the German high command still wanted
07:17to press on and on, but he said, enough is enough.
07:21There was a certain basic humanity and common sense about him, and he was actually liked
07:25by his men.
07:28The Crown Prince appreciated what Falkenhayn wanted was a limited offensive, not a breakthrough.
07:34The destruction of the French forces was to be brought about by bite-and-hold operations.
07:39Decimate the French as they defend their ground, and once it's in German hands, crush them
07:44when they attempt to retake it.
07:46The Crown Prince would have liked sufficient troops to advance on both banks of the Meuse.
07:52Falkenhayn wouldn't give him the troops.
07:54He said he didn't have them.
07:57He said it was essential to keep back one-third of the available German divisions in case
08:03of an Allied counter-offensive, which actually probably wasn't going to happen where Falkenhayn
08:08said it might happen.
08:10Ultimately, of course, we have the Somme offensive, but at the time, Falkenhayn is saying, the
08:15Allies will attack up on the north, I must keep the troops back.
08:19That was actually nonsense.
08:20The real reason was probably that Falkenhayn was worried that the Crown Prince might actually
08:25succeed in capturing Verdun.
08:27He didn't want that.
08:29There was, however, a note of discord in German planning.
08:33Here we see the difference between the strategist in his office in Berlin and the man commanding
08:39the soldiers on the ground.
08:41What Falkenhayn actually says in his operation order is that the Fifth Army is to develop
08:47an offensive in the Meuse area towards Verdun.
08:51Crown Prince Wilhelm knew you couldn't go and say to your soldiers, sorry, chaps, we're
08:55just going to waste your way, doesn't matter how many people you kill or how many people
08:59kill you, as long as the war keeps, the battle keeps going.
09:03He had to say to them, we are going to take Verdun.
09:05There will be a parade in Verdun in two or three weeks' time.
09:09He had to give them an objective to strive for, otherwise the soldiers would have just
09:12lost heart.
09:14So that was his shrewdness as against Falkenhayn's rather, what shall we say, academic ideas,
09:21which didn't work in terms of the practical reality of soldiers fighting a battle.
09:27Wilhelm reasoned that he could manage the offensive by making gains but not actually
09:31capturing Verdun, thereby keeping both the strategists in Berlin and the soldier on the
09:36ground happy.
09:40Just to concentrate his opening moves on the east or right bank defences of Verdun alone,
09:45the Crown Prince made his preparations for Operation Gericht, or Judgment.
09:50The 12th of February was assigned as D-Day.
09:54Villages behind his lines were cleared to accommodate troops.
09:58Brought in by about 1,300 trains, six days' supply of artillery ammunition, amounting
10:03to two and a half million shells, were stored in dumps.
10:09German barracks, large enough for hundreds of men, were built, several just a kilometre
10:13or so from the French front line.
10:20German gains in 1914 had given them control over the major railway centres and provided
10:25them with excellent lines of communication.
10:28In the new year of 1916, these lines were extended to the fringes of the Salient, where
10:33a network of narrow-gauge railways penetrated the forests, delivering supplies to the front
10:39lines.
10:42The Crown Prince assembled some 1,200 artillery pieces around Verdun, over half of heavy calibre,
10:48to support about 300,000 infantry.
10:51The awesome firepower that he would unleash at the beginning of the offensive was to eclipse
10:55anything the French then possessed.
10:59Their German superiority was in the heavy artillery, including the 13 Krupp mortars
11:03of 420mm, known as Big Berthers.
11:29The French, however, were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to
11:36win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not
11:43able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
11:48were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
11:53were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
11:58were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:03were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:07were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:10were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:13were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:16were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:17were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French
12:18were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle, as the
12:19French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:20as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:21as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:22as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:23as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:24as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:25as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:26as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:27as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:28as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:29as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:30as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:31as the French were not able to win the battle, as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:32as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:33as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:34as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:35as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:36as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:37as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:38as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:39as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:40as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:41as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:42as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:43as the French were not able to win the battle,
12:44the first principles of air combat and the first aces were established over Verdun.
12:53Among the famous names to fly over Verdun were the French aces Georges Guynemer and Jean Nevar,
12:59whose red colour scheme was later copied by Baron Richthofen.
13:04For the Germans, there was Oswald Boelcke.
13:08Flying for France in the volunteer American squadron,
13:11later renamed the Escadrille Lafayette,
13:13were Victor Chapman and Raoul Loughbury.
13:20For the opening offensive,
13:22Germany had collected together the largest force of aircraft yet seen in the air war.
13:28They gathered in 168 machines,
13:3114 observation balloons called Drachen
13:35and four Zeppelin airships.
13:38The Germans had the world's first true single-seat fighter at Verdun.
13:43The Focke E1, Eindecker, had a high kill rate,
13:46by virtue of its machine gun being linked to an interrupter gear,
13:49which fired through the wooden propeller without damaging the blades.
13:55After less than two weeks though,
13:57the French, in the guise of the Groupe de Ségurnier, the Stork Squadron,
14:00with their Skil and Elan,
14:02took control of the skies over the salient.
14:05120 French aircraft had quickly been flown in.
14:09The initiative then passed back and forth
14:11between the two pioneering groups of aviators,
14:13until mid-May,
14:15when the French built up their squadron strength to over 220 machines,
14:19including the new Newport 11, Bebe.
14:26The Germans were unable to match these numbers at Verdun.
14:30While Joffre was busy redeploying forces
14:33and planning the 1916 Allied offensive on the Somme,
14:36one man was mindful of the threat
14:39the German forces posed to the vulnerable salient.
14:43In the Bois-des-Corps, on the right bank,
14:45a French front-line soldier and parliamentary deputy,
14:48Colonel Emile Drian,
14:50had been worried by the lack of preparation for what he saw ahead.
14:54He wrote of his concerns,
14:56and his letter was passed to General Gagliani, the War Minister.
15:27Joffre, furious that one of his subordinates had gone behind his back,
15:31and not through proper channels, refuted Drian's charges.
15:35However, he was soon forced by events to revise his opinion.
15:40Joffre finally accepts that Verdun really is under threat,
15:43and on the 12th of February,
15:45he gives the garrison two more divisions.
15:48Now, he was very lucky,
15:50because the 12th of February was the day the attack was supposed to start,
15:53but because of terribly bad weather and snow,
15:56it's actually postponed until the 21st of February.
15:59So once he accepts that there's a problem,
16:02it takes him a long time, but once he does accept there's a problem,
16:05then he starts to move.
16:10For nine days, the Germans had waited in snow, frost and fog.
16:14The morning of the 21st dawned bright and clear.
16:18At 7.15am, a shell from a 38cm naval gun
16:22exploded in the courtyard of the Bishop's Palace in Verdun.
16:26More shells followed, hitting the railway station and the town.
16:33The principal heavy artillery action, though,
16:35took place on the French first lines of defence,
16:38in the woods and hills facing the Germans.
16:41The West Bank also received its share of shelling,
16:44so that the French would not be sure where the assault, when it came, would take place.
16:49Between 7.15am and 4pm
16:52lay nearly nine hours of the most severe and sustained bombardment yet seen in warfare.
16:58850 guns were dedicated to wiping out the French positions
17:02on the right bank sector of only 12km.
17:07That morning, Colonel Drian gave his wedding ring to his batman for safekeeping,
17:12and made his way to his bunker, R2, in the Voie des Corps.
17:18As he was giving his orders, the world erupted around him,
17:21and from his bunker he saw the defences,
17:24which were so important to the security of his wood, obliterated.
17:30In the first hour of the bombardment,
17:3280,000 shells fell on the Voie des Corps alone.
17:36Drian's devastated vista was repeated across the whole 12km of defences on the right bank.
17:43People used to describe the artillery bombardments of Verdun
17:48as though there were sort of great hands striking down at the soldiers.
17:52It was a terrible presence.
17:54Artillery became feared and hated at Verdun.
17:59In fact, soldiers on both sides of the infantry
18:03had more sympathy for each other than they had for their own gunners.
18:06The French and the German infantry were, as it were, in the same boat,
18:09being pounded into the ground by this terrible weight of artillery.
18:16By 8 o'clock, those French gunners who had escaped the German artillery
18:20and intense gas barrage,
18:22could do little to help their infantry by counter-battery work.
18:27The few French spotter planes to get through the German scouts
18:30reported that it was impossible to spot individual batteries,
18:34as there were so many.
18:36They said the woods hiding the German guns
18:38were enveloped in one continuous sheet of flame.
18:44In that first hour, most of the French field telephone lines were destroyed,
18:48making communications with other units and headquarters impossible.
18:52Runners, men on foot carrying urgent messages and reports, were sent out,
18:57most never to be seen again.
19:01The artillery bombardment switched to the French front lines,
19:05and it rolled to the second line, the third line, then back again,
19:09every 15 minutes until 12 o'clock.
19:12Suddenly, all shelling stopped.
19:15The French got out of their shelters,
19:17because they assumed an infantry attack was coming in.
19:20But then the artillery started again,
19:22and caught many French soldiers out in the open.
19:25The bombardment went on until about 4pm.
19:28Then the infantry did move in.
19:30Initially, small patrols.
19:32Groups of 10 to 12 German soldiers,
19:35bypassing any strong points that they came upon.
19:38They were accompanied by pioneers,
19:40combat engineers to assess the obstacles.
19:43The main infantry attack is going to come in the following day.
19:47So it's just patrols, really, on this first day.
19:50One of the corps commanders actually decides
19:52that the boss's orders don't make any sense,
19:54and he decides he will send his infantry in.
19:57And he does.
19:59The result is that by the end of that day,
20:02although the resistance has been more severe than the Germans thought,
20:06and although the artillery bombardment
20:08hadn't been as successful as they'd hoped,
20:11nevertheless, they had made up quite a bit of ground.
20:14They were well poised to crack on the next day.
20:17Losses had been severe.
20:19One end of Drian's R2 bunker had been hit.
20:22To his left, bunkers R4 and R5 were smashed by direct hits,
20:27killing the platoon in each one.
20:30The trench lines were a shambles.
20:33Of Drian's 1,300 men, half were killed or wounded.
20:41Despite the destruction up and down the line,
20:44Despite the destruction up and down the line,
20:47despite the losses, and despite the horror of a new weapon,
20:50flamethrowers, the line had more or less held.
20:56Drian addressed his men.
20:58We are here.
21:00This is our place.
21:02They shall not move us out of it.
21:08Day 2 of the German offensive at Verdun began at 7am,
21:12with another huge and terrifying bombardment.
21:15When it lifted at noon,
21:17the German infantry attacked along the entire right bank front.
21:24In the Bois de Corps, the whole weight of the 18th Corps
21:27moved forward against the ragtag remnants
21:29of Drian's two battalions of chasseurs.
21:32Pushing through on both his flanks,
21:34they opened fire from his rear.
21:37Distress rockets were sent up,
21:39imploring the French gunners to unleash a defensive barrage,
21:42but none came.
21:44Twice the Germans were repulsed,
21:46but dwindling numbers of chasseurs
21:48meant that the forward lines and R2 could no longer hold out.
21:53Dividing his men into three groups, Drian retreated.
21:57As they scrambled back,
21:59the fire of three German regiments converged on them,
22:02and many were gunned down.
22:06Leading the second group,
22:08Drian stopped to give first aid to a wounded chasseur in a shell hole.
22:13As he moved to continue the retreat, he was hit.
22:18Those in the shell hole tried to pull him to safety,
22:21but they saw he was dead, shot through the forehead.
22:26Because of Drian's stand in the Bois de Corps,
22:29the Crown Prince's objectives for the 22nd of February
22:32could no longer be attained,
22:34and German confidence was shaken.
22:38The Germans buried Drian near where he fell.
22:42After the war, he was reinterred under a memorial to him and his chasseur,
22:47a few metres from his bunker.
22:50Colonel Drian held the Bois de Corps.
22:53He holds it still.
23:00There were other losses too on that second tragic day.
23:03The village of Aumont, the Bois des Champs-Neuvilles,
23:06and the Bois de Brabant, all taken.
23:12On the 23rd, Erdbois, Wavrille, and Brabant village,
23:17Samognon was lost, retaken, and lost again.
23:24The French artillery firing on the village,
23:26thinking the Germans were still in possession,
23:28destroyed their own men
23:30with what is now ironically called friendly fire.
23:37These first days of fighting saw the destruction of nine villages,
23:41which would never be reconstructed,
23:43and are known as Villages Détruits.
24:00And the sluggishness of the French leadership,
24:03which had spoken out for a long time about the strengthening of this section,
24:07can be explained.
24:10The progress made in the first two days
24:14were among the most spectacular
24:17that had been achieved on the German side since the start of the war.
24:30Originally conceived as the linchpin of Verdun's defences
24:33when construction began in 1885,
24:35it was taken by one sergeant and a small group of men.
24:42Finding themselves unopposed,
24:44they slipped in through an embrasure in the wall,
24:47and taking the four elderly gunners by surprise,
24:50they stopped the fire of the 150mm gun,
24:53the largest in the fort.
24:56Fort Douaumont was the flagship fort of Verdun
24:59and was known as such to the French populace.
25:02What they hadn't, the High Command hadn't told the French,
25:05that Douaumont had been reduced in its garrison
25:08from five officers and 500 men in 1914
25:12to one warrant officer and 50 territorial gunners in 1916.
25:17So when on the fourth day of the battle Douaumont was taken,
25:22the shock to the French was terrific.
25:27Fort Douaumont was undoubtedly the most powerful fort in Europe.
25:31It was feared by the German General Staff.
25:34Its capture was almost theatrical
25:36as the fort was very little guarded
25:38by about 50 ill-armed and ill-prepared territorial gunners
25:41to defend such a vast ship.
25:43Nevertheless, the capture of Fort Douaumont was celebrated
25:46all over Germany as the announcement of a decisive victory.
25:49It wasn't.
25:51As a result of the French losses on the first four days,
25:55Joffre finally took decisive action
25:57and appointed the 58-year-old General Henri-Philippe Pétain
26:01to command at Verdun at midnight on the night of the 25th.
26:19As a commander, he was cautious, painstaking.
26:23He believed in really thorough preparation.
26:26He understood the importance of artillery
26:29long before most of his contemporaries.
26:32He understood the common soldier.
26:34He understood logistics, which not all French generals did.
26:38On his arrival at his headquarters at Suis,
26:41Pétain telephoned his generals commanding units
26:44in the right and left banks.
26:46Now everything is going to be all right, one replied in relief.
26:51In the morning, Pétain awoke with double pneumonia.
26:55Despite this, he began to plan and issue directives from his sickbed.
27:01He planned lines of defensive resistance
27:04using the neglected major and minor forts.
27:07Pétain also set about carefully coordinating
27:10the defensive artillery bombardments.
27:13On the last day of February,
27:15a conference was held between Falkenhayn and the Crown Prince.
27:19Wilhelm demanded three things.
27:21That the left bank of the Meuse must now be attacked
27:24because French artillery fire was disrupting his units on the right.
27:28That the high command would give him enough material on a large scale
27:32to continue the offensive on both banks.
27:34Thirdly, he wanted all offensives by his army stopped
27:38should they find themselves losing men more heavily
27:41and becoming exhausted more rapidly than the French.
27:45On the 6th of March, the Germans attacked on the left bank of the Meuse.
27:50This was no surprise for Pétain.
27:52In fact, he had wondered why they had not done so before.
27:55He had packed the left bank defences with artillery in anticipation.
28:00After a fierce opening barrage, the German infantry attacked.
28:04There was no probing as on the first day.
28:07The battle ebbed and flowed,
28:09the ground being taken and then retaken many times.
28:13German losses were so high
28:15that they could advance no further than their small early gains.
28:19The front stabilised,
28:21from a line just north of Cote 304 and Le Mur Homme,
28:25both of which saw furious fighting, to the Meuse.
28:31The weather now interfered with German plans,
28:34plans that depended on artillery.
28:36The thaw set in,
28:38making movement of heavy guns forward to new positions through the mud,
28:41very difficult and time-consuming.
28:44The terrain was pitted with shell holes,
28:47the roads had been obliterated,
28:49and the destruction of the woods removed any cover.
28:52The German guns in the open were now vulnerable to the French artillery.
28:57Even when they managed to get the guns in position,
29:00their troubles were not over.
29:02Shells exploded in worn barrels, killing crews,
29:05or dropped short, killing their own infantry,
29:08and getting enough ammunition up to the guns proved impossible.
29:12Fighting continued on the right bank,
29:15and on 2nd April, the village of Vaux fell to the Germans.
29:21On 9th April, both banks were assaulted.
29:24Next day,
29:26General Pétain's famous message to his troops was dispatched.
29:30Courage! On les aura! We will get them!
29:38To save Verdun from the German assault in February 1916,
29:42the first priority was to organize the defense,
29:45especially around the forts that had been disarmed by Joffre in 1915.
29:49It was also necessary to move the troops
29:51towards this huge trench,
29:53this huge volcano that was Verdun,
29:55and the only road that could be used was the Holy Way,
29:58the Noria,
30:00that is, the paths of men and troops,
30:02ammunition and artillery
30:04that would lead them back to Verdun.
30:09After Pétain established the Sacred Way and the Noria system,
30:13the Holy Way continued to sustain the defenders.
30:17Pétain's turnstile was working flat out.
30:2090,000 men and many thousands of kilograms of materiel and supplies
30:24were reaching the battered town of Verdun every week.
30:28And like so many generals of the First World War,
30:31he cared about his men,
30:33and therefore he made sure
30:35that they weren't just put into Verdun to waste away.
30:38He made sure that units went in and units came out.
30:41The Germans tended to put them in and leave them there
30:44until all their officers lost half their men.
30:47Pétain realized that what he had to do
30:50was to make sure to keep up the morale of the men,
30:53to give them their best shot,
30:55to make them feel that they were being cared for.
30:57Take them in, but bring them out.
31:00To maintain the vital lifeline from Bar-le-Duc,
31:03through snow and ice, then the muddy thaw,
31:06territorial army road gangs
31:08shoveled huge amounts of stones and gravel
31:11under the wheels of the convoys of lorries.
31:14In the busiest periods, one lorry passed every 14 seconds or so.
31:19Though they had three squadrons of aircraft capable of bombing,
31:23the Germans failed to hamper or destroy this lifeline.
31:27They could, if they had wanted to,
31:29with a couple of decent bombing raids,
31:31close the Voix Sacré down,
31:33but the probability is that Falkenhayn
31:36wanted to keep the Voix Sacré open.
31:38Otherwise, how would he keep on bleeding France white?
31:41The point was that France had to keep on sending up her troops
31:45and her guns and her supplies and so on,
31:48and therefore more and more people were brought up into
31:51what the Crown Prince rather succinctly called
31:54the Mill on the Meuse.
31:59After seven weeks of confused fighting,
32:02with huge losses on both sides,
32:04first Cote 304, then Le Mort Homme,
32:07were taken by the Germans.
32:09However, this was as far as they reached on the left bank,
32:13and assaults switched back to the right.
32:17On 1st May, the impatient Joffre
32:20promoted Pétain to command Army Group Centre
32:23and gave the task of recovering lost ground
32:26to General Robert Nivelle.
32:41Once the front at Verdun is stabilised,
32:44Joffre feels that Pétain is too defensively minded.
32:48He's now stabilised the front,
32:51but what Joffre needs is somebody who will go on the offensive
32:54and regain the lost territories.
32:56And Nivelle then takes over from Pétain,
32:58and Nivelle, by skilful coordination of artillery and infantry,
33:03does recapture a lot of the lost territories.
33:07With him, Nivelle had his favourite subordinate,
33:10General Mangin.
33:12The butcher, the drinker of blood, the eater of men.
33:17Mangin came from Lorraine,
33:19most of which had been taken by the Germans in 1870.
33:22This may contribute to his hatred of Germans.
33:25Mangin just wanted to kill people.
33:27Germans if possible, but if there weren't any Germans, anybody would do.
33:30He would frequently, passionately take a rifle,
33:33go into the front lines and have a pop himself.
33:36He was wounded three times.
33:38He was very much the soldier's general,
33:40but inevitably, because of his belief in constantly attacking,
33:43casualties in units under his command tended to be pretty high.
33:49Nivelle, as impatient as Pétain had been careful,
33:52entrusted Mangin with the recapture of Fort de Douaumont,
33:55which the leadership now considered
33:57to be of great importance to the French nation.
34:01Nivelle's security was so lax, however,
34:03that the Germans soon learnt every detail of his plans.
34:08On the 22nd of May,
34:10Mangin, watching from the top of Fort de Souville,
34:13saw his attacking force taking huge casualties.
34:16One French battalion to the right of the fort was surrounded
34:20and, having taken 72% casualties and run out of ammunition,
34:24was forced to surrender.
34:26Although some French troops managed to reach the top of the fort
34:30and a brave few inside, the attack was repulsed.
34:46It was on the plateau of Douaumont that we must leave our skin,
34:50a well-known and dramatic French song of the time.
34:53Attempts to recapture the fort of Douaumont
34:56were almost constantly failed.
34:58The men were fighting under the superstructure,
35:00but the fort, well-armed and well-defended above all, did not give in.
35:05Within sight of Douaumont,
35:07the Germans next had their eyes on Fort Vaux,
35:10which remained in French hands at the end of May.
35:13The defence of this fort was entrusted to the thrice-wounded,
35:1649-year-old commandant, Reynal,
35:19who volunteered to take command on the night of 30 May.
35:23The next night, following a massive bombardment,
35:26the exterior defences of the fort were taken
35:29and the Germans established themselves on the roof.
35:32For the next seven days,
35:34fighting took place in the galleries and passageways of the fort,
35:37some of it hand-to-hand, all of it at close quarters.
35:43As if the onslaught wasn't enough for the defenders to contend with,
35:46supplies of drinking water were running dangerously low,
35:49and soon Reynal's dehydrated men
35:52were reduced to licking the condensation from the walls.
35:56Although efforts were made to relieve the fort,
35:59it was now virtually surrounded,
36:01and early on the morning of June 7,
36:04besieged, heavily shelled,
36:06attacked not only by flamethrowers and grenades,
36:09but gas as well,
36:11only thirst conquered Reynal and his gallant band.
36:15Amid scenes of old world courtesy,
36:18the fort was surrendered.
36:24Taken before the Crown Prince,
36:26Reynal was congratulated on his defence
36:29and on the award of the Légion d'honneur.
36:32The Germans were so impressed by the defence of Fort Vaux,
36:36when its commander handed over his sword,
36:40as a symbol of surrender,
36:42the Crown Prince gave him his sword back again.
36:45He was honoured by the Germans for the tenacity of his resistance.
36:48It was one of the great heroic stories of Verdun 1916.
36:55The siege of Verdun reached its crisis at the end of June
36:58and the beginning of July.
37:00The Germans now used a new, sophisticated poison gas,
37:04phosgene, hoping to panic the French front line,
37:07now only four kilometres from Verdun.
37:10On the 22nd of June,
37:12phosgene gas shells followed yet another huge bombardment,
37:16and at 7am, storm troops attacked in mass formations.
37:23The Thurmond Redoubt on Foix-de-Terre Hill eventually fell,
37:27but only after fierce fighting
37:29were the defenders outnumbered ten to one.
37:32The delay in capturing Thurmond
37:34gave the French time to bring up a battalion of chasseurs,
37:37who, using bayonet and grenade,
37:39cleared the Germans from their next objective,
37:42the Foix-de-Terre Redoubt.
37:45In front of Souville, the French 407th Regiment
37:48slowed down the German attack with machine guns,
37:51then counterattacked.
37:53Throwing everyone they could gather into this,
37:55including an improvised reserve of telephonists,
37:57orderlies, cooks and stretcher-bearers,
38:00the Germans were forced back.
38:04This makeshift force had halted the German advance,
38:07and they reached no further than this on the right bank.
38:12This second failure at Souville
38:14marked the effective end of the German offensive,
38:17if not the fighting.
38:19Mongin, using Pétain's creeping barrage, counterattacked,
38:23retaking Fort-les-Durmons on the 24th of October.
38:27The French mounted a strong and powerfully prepared attack
38:31on Fort-les-Durmons.
38:33They got some very large guns themselves,
38:35400-centimeter guns, which were really big guns,
38:39and they brought those into action too,
38:41and they hammered Fort-les-Durmons
38:44into the ground, as it were.
38:46But the Germans had done the same as the French had done.
38:49They had evacuated their troops
38:51so that not too many Germans were killed,
38:54but the French were able to storm into Durmons,
38:57seize it, claim it, and say to the world,
39:00we have reclaimed our fort.
39:02We have reclaimed Fort-les-Durmons.
39:04Even though the cost was colossal,
39:06the achievement was great also,
39:08and was lauded around the world.
39:10It became the great French achievement of 1916.
39:14To the French public, this was a great victory.
39:18Durmons was a symbol.
39:20It was of no military significance whatsoever,
39:22but it was a symbol. It had to be recaptured.
39:24And it was seen in France as being a great victory.
39:28In Germany, it was seen as a terrible defeat.
39:31The reality is, it didn't matter tactically.
39:35It was all about perception.
39:40The capture of Fort de Vaux followed on the 2nd of November,
39:43and the Germans were driven back
39:45five kilometres from Souville in December.
39:48On the 1st of July, the British and French
39:51had opened their offensive on the Somme,
39:53turning Joffre's Allied plans for 1916 into reality.
39:57The Battle of the Somme slogged on until the middle of November,
40:00inextricably linking it with Verdun.
40:04Verdun had now become a holding action
40:06for Joffre and Haig's Somme offensive,
40:09and the Somme became a relief action
40:11for de Mille on the Meuse.
40:13By July 1916,
40:16the Germans are losing almost as many men as the French.
40:21The Crown Prince doesn't really have any further faith in it.
40:26Once the Somme starts, he's told there are no more reserves,
40:31he's got to make do with what he's got,
40:33and quite a lot of his heavy artillery is removed
40:36and sent up to the Somme to face the British.
40:40When Falkenhayn is dismissed in August
40:43and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff,
40:46they both say, no more attacks at Verdun.
40:49Close it down.
40:51It also, of course, means that the Somme,
40:53which was originally going to be an Anglo-French offensive,
40:56with the French providing most of the troops,
40:58because of Verdun there are, of course,
41:00less and less French troops available,
41:02so it now becomes very much a British affair.
41:05And although this wasn't the original aim of the Somme offensive,
41:09the Somme offensive has to take place,
41:11and it has to keep going on to relieve the pressure on Verdun.
41:17Whilst they had inflicted huge casualties on the French,
41:21when the Germans wound down their offensive at Verdun,
41:24their victory was incomplete.
41:27Despite their appalling casualties,
41:29the French claimed victory at the end of the year.
41:34Remarkably, considering the death and destruction that surrounded them,
41:38the beleaguered French forces stuck to their task,
41:42and morale was maintained.
41:46Surprisingly, perhaps,
41:49French army morale wasn't too badly affected by Verdun.
41:55They seemed to become resigned to it.
41:58There was a stick-it-out-at-all-costs attitude.
42:02Resigned, glum, dure, but they went on doing it.
42:07They seemed to accept slaughter, death, destruction all around them.
42:15Nivelle had famously ordered,
42:17Ils ne passeront pas.
42:19They shall not pass.
42:21Nor did they.
42:46The wider effects of Verdun were the fall of Joffre,
42:49due in part to his neglect of Verdun's defences.
42:53His successor, Nivelle,
42:55buoyed up by his triumphs at Verdun in the last three months of the year,
42:59formulated a grand plan to sweep his way to victory in 1917.
43:04Nivelle's overconfidence and continuing lack of security
43:08was to prove costly,
43:10with a crushing defeat on the Chemin des Dames in April.
43:18Over the ten long months of battle,
43:20four-fifths of the French army had served at Verdun,
43:23sustaining over 377,000 casualties.
43:28It cost the Germans over 337,000.
43:32In total then,
43:34over 700,000 men were killed, wounded or missing during the siege.
43:44In a sense, Verdun was one of the great, terrible, appalling battles
43:49of the First World War,
43:51just as Stalingrad became one of the terrible great battles
43:55of the Second World War.
43:57In fact, the two have been compared
43:59as examples of terrible sacrificial battles,
44:02which went on and on and on,
44:04which were a new hallmark in terms of the awfulness of war.
44:33After the war, on Tuamon Ridge, an ostuary was built
44:38to house the bones of approximately 130,000
44:42unidentified French and German troops
44:45collected from the former battlefield.
44:52The French and German troops,
44:54who had been forced to leave their homes,
44:57lay on the former battlefield.
45:03On the other side of the road,
45:05in the beautifully groomed cemetery,
45:07lie 15,000 graves.
45:28Other battles, of course,
45:30such as the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of the Marne,
45:33but Verdun, for the first time in the history of France,
45:36sacrificed, showed how a whole people could unite
45:40to face a terrible ordeal.
45:49At the ostuary in 1984,
45:51the French president and German chancellor, holding hands,
45:55came to pay their respects to the dead of both nations at Verdun
45:59and set the seal on European reconciliation.
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