5/16/2023 0 Comments Battle of the verdun![]() ![]() As one German soldier wrote, “There could be no end to it until the last German and the last French hobbled out of the trenches on crutches to exterminate each other with pocket knives or teeth and finger nails.” The battle took over everything with the generals powerless to stop the slaughter. There were even reports that some French troops made bleating sounds like sheep as they were transported to the front lines. Scott Fitzgerald was correct when he said, “This western-front business couldn’t be done again…This took religion and years of plenty and tremendous sureties and the exact relation that existed between the classes.” The end result was young Frenchmen and Germans being led, day after day, to their deaths by incompetent, myopic generals. It’s truly impossible to imagine such an unnecessary event as Verdun. I just finished reading Alistair Horne’s classic, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. One of the commanders, the German Crown Prince, wrote in his memoirs, “The mill along the Meuse has ground down the hearts of the soldiers, just as it did their bodies.” It didn’t take long for a soldier to break down under such conditions. To die from a bullet seems to be nothing parts of our being remain intact but to be dismembered, torn to pieces, reduced to pulp, this is a fear that flesh cannot support and which is fundamentally the great suffering of the bombardment… Everyone had to share their quarters with huge rats that thrived in the subhuman conditions.Ī French solider described what really made Verdun so terrible, Others drowned in their trenches or suffocated from newly designed gasses. Human beings were literally torn to shreds by shells. ![]() The horror at Verdun is beyond our comprehension. Overall, there were almost 300,000 total dead and missing over the course of the fighting. Lasting ten months, it became the longest battle of all time with the highest density of dead per square yard of any battle in history. The Kaiser approved the plan and the Germans launched an offensive against the French at the historic fortress town of Verdun on February 21, 1916. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death - as there can be no question of a voluntary withdrawal - whether we reach our goal or not. Within our reach behind the French sector of the Western front there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw every man they have. Erich von Falkenhayn, Germany’s Chief of Staff, described his thinking just two months before the battle of Verdun, Above all we have helped the French immensely by relieving the pressure on Verdun’.The German strategy was chilling in its cold-bloodedness. will smash him in his deep dug outs… Anyhow we have shown the Bosche that we can rush his line on a wide front and I think we shall penetrate the second line if the ammunition holds out. We are going to beat the Germans by heavy howitzers and trench mortars as they. I was promised 200 of these but have only received 25. We are not too well off for ammunition for our heavy howitzers and we require more heavy trench mortars, which have performed invaluable service to the French in this attack. It speaks well of the courage of the New Armies, but had they had more time to devote to training they would have been able to hold on to many points from which they were driven by a few enterprising German machine-gunners. ![]() 29 Brigades (about 100,000 men) were taking part in the first assault the percentage is not so high… I cannot speak too highly of the spirit and self-sacrifice of the rank and file. ‘The casualties have of course been heavy and the figures look large, but when one considers that. ![]()
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