VERDUN
Rightly is the fortress of Verdun called the gateway to France. By reason
of its strategic position, it is absolutely essential that an invading
army have possession of Verdun before thought of a successful advance on
Paris can be entertained; and it was upon the capture of Paris that the
German emperor laid his hopes, in spite of the collapse of a similar
offensive launched in the first days of the war.
But Wilhelm II had learned a lesson. Verdun must be taken before he
ordered his armies upon the French capital; and so it was that, upon
February twenty-third, 1916, the German Crown Prince began a determined
assault upon the historic French fortress.
In sheer human interest the battle of Verdun surpassed all other
individual events of the war. For six months and more the defenders of
the gateway to France withstood a storm at the fury of which the world
stood aghast.
Foot by foot, almost inch by inch, the Germans forged ahead with a
reckless disregard of their lives, a tenacity and cool courage which was
only equalled by the cool determination of the French. Five months after
the opening of this great battle, the unofficial estimate of German dead
was a half million men. The assailants fought their way to within three
miles and a half of the fortress itself, but there they were finally
halted. It was then that the tide turned; and though the Germans surged
forward day after day in heavy masses they progressed no further. It was
the beginning of the end.
The Germans advanced confidently. The destruction of the fortress
presented no hard problem to them. The utter worthlessness of similarly
fortified positions had been proven in the earlier days of the war--in
the destruction of Louvain, Liège, Brussels and Antwerp, the latter the
most strongly fortified city in the world, with the exception of Paris
itself. The huge 42-centimetre guns of the Germans had battered them to
pieces in little or no time at all.
It was with the knowledge of the effectiveness of these great guns that
the Crown Prince opened the battle of Verdun. The fortress of Verdun and
the outlying fortifications, it was believed, would be shattered with
little effort. With these facts in mind, the German Crown Prince opened
with his big guns, first upon the fortresses guarding Verdun itself.
These approaches shattered, the Crown Prince ordered his infantry and
cavalry to the attack. But where the onrushing Germans, according to the
reasoning of the Crown Prince, should have found no resistance, they
encountered strenuous opposition. Abandoning the outlying artificial
fortifications, the French had thrown up huge earthworks and from behind
these received the German attacks coolly.
Against these great earthworks the heavy guns of the attacking forces
availed little. The force of even the great 42-centimetres was not great
enough to penetrate the loosely built mounds of earth behind which the
French reposed. The great shells struck the fresh earth, were embedded
there and did no harm. The French general staff had realized the
uselessness of fortresses as soon as had the Germans.
Therefore, while the Germans were able to destroy forts and fortresses at
will, almost, it availed them little. The defenders were secure behind
their breastworks of earth. True, German guns dropped huge shells in the
trenches, a veritable rain of death, but the gaps in the defending lines
were filled promptly.
There remained naught for the Germans but to try and carry the trenches,
under the support of their artillery.
Day after day the Crown Prince launched assault after assault. The French
met them bravely. But the Germans were not to be denied; and urged on by
the Crown Prince, and often by the presence upon the firing line of the
German emperor himself, they continued the herculean task without regard
to loss of life.
Gradually the French were forced back. Hand-to-hand fighting for
possession of the greatest strategical positions, fought daily, for a
time resulted in advantage to neither side. Among the chief objectives of
the German attack were two particularly important positions--Hill No 304
(so called to distinguish it from numerous other elevated positions) and
Le Mort Homme (Dead Man's Hill). This name, which was fated to become
historic, was gained only after days and days of constant hand-to-hand
fighting and is now recalled as one of the bloodiest battlefields of the
titanic struggle.
General Henri Phillip Petain, in direct command of the French operations
at Verdun, endeared himself to the hearts of all his countrymen by his
gallant conduct of the defense. While the decision of General Joffre, the
French commander-in-chief, to give ground before the German attacks
rather than to sacrifice his men in a useless defense of the fortresses,
was criticized at first by the people, the resulting value of this move
was soon apparent and censure turned to praise.
While the heaviest assaults of the Germans were launched in the
immediate vicinity of Verdun itself, the great battle line stretched far
to the north and to the south. When it appeared at one time that the
French must be hurled back, General Sir Douglas Haig, the British
commander-in-chief, weakened his own lines to the far north to take over
a portion of the ground just to his right and thus relieved the French
situation at Verdun somewhat.
General Petain thus was enabled to shorten his own lines, and from that
moment, with few exceptions, the French stood firm.
It seemed that the Germans, beaten off time after time as they were, must
soon abandon the attempt to break the French lines at Verdun; but each
repulse brought a new assault mightier than before. The Germans raced
across the open ground under a veritable hail of lead. They fell by
hundreds and thousands, but what few survived hurled themselves against
the barbed wire entanglements of the French or into the trenches, there
to die upon the points of the foes' bayonets, or to be shot down as they
tumbled over the breastworks.
The German general staff drew heavily from its forces on the east front
and added these new legions to the already large army occupied before
Verdun; but the result was always the same. So far they could progress
and no farther.
After almost five months of defensive tactics, General Petain began to
launch assaults of his own. At first the Germans put these down with
regularity, but at last the effort began to tell. The French made
headway. Much of the lost ground was recovered. The French moved forward
a bit day by day, occupied new positions and consolidated them. It was
terrible work, but the French persevered.
Around Hill No. 304 and Dead Man's Hill the fighting was especially
severe. There men died by the hundreds and by the thousands that one of
the opposing armies might advance a few yards. Gains even were counted by
feet--almost by inches. Gain of a few yards was accounted a day's work
well done.
Not once did the French troops falter under fire; nor did the Germans,
for that matter. Never was there greater bravery, loyalty and devotion.
Called upon for tasks that seemed well nigh impossible, the men did not
hesitate. They met death in such numbers as death was never met before.
Almost daily, after the French had taken a brace three and a half miles
from Verdun, it seemed that the Crown Prince must give up the effort. It
appeared incomprehensible that the useless sacrifice of men could
continue. But the attempt was not given up; rather, it was pressed with
greater vigor each succeeding day.
But, after five months, the fury of the German assaults gradually
lessened. They were not delivered with the same effectiveness as before.
The great guns continued to rage, scattering death over the field for
miles, but the massed attacks of infantry, and cavalry charges, became
more uncommon.
Then came a day when the Germans failed to attack at all. For more than
twenty-four hours there was a lull. Weeks passed with the Germans
launching only occasional drives. The same held good for the French. It
appeared that each side was content to rest on its laurels, biding the
time when a grand assault could be delivered with some degree of
effectiveness.
The fighting was intermittent. It came spasmodically. Each side had
fought itself out and had paused for breath. What advantage there had
been, all things considered, rested with French arms. The losses on both
sides, in killed and wounded, had been enormous--almost beyond
comprehension. The number of prisoners taken by the French was large.
Many French troops also had been captured, but not so many as Germans.
Also, the French having been the defenders for the most part, they had
suffered less in killed and wounded than had the foe.
This, then, was the result of the battle of Verdun six months after it
had begun. There had been no decisive victory. Each side retained its
positions, but each was ready to strike whenever the opportune moment
presented itself.
Even while the fighting at Verdun was at its height there came the
whisper of a grand offensive to be launched by the Allies. The whisper
became louder as the days passed. There was more talk of Roumania and
Greece throwing their armies to the support of the Allies, thus forming a
steel cordon around the Central powers and their smaller allies, Bulgaria
and Turkey, and forcing the Germans to shorten their lines. In the
eastern war theater the Russians again were on the advance and were
pushing the Germans and Austrians hard, threatening for a second time to
invade Galicia and the plains of Hungary. It began to appear that the end
was in sight.
Italy, too, had launched a new offensive with Trieste as the objective
and the driving power of the Italian troops was beginning to tell. It
began to appear that the Central powers must before long be placed upon
the defensive in all war zones.
The world waited impatiently for the opening of the grand allied
offensive that, it was expected, would be delivered simultaneously on all
fronts. It was felt that it would not be long coming. There was talk of a
new great field gun perfected by Great Britain--a gun that would be more
effective than the German 42-centimetres--but so far it had come to play
no part in the struggle.
But of all battles, land or sea, that had been fought in the greatest war
of history, the battle of Verdun stood head and shoulders as the most
important. It was the greatest and bloodiest struggle of all time, up to
that period.
And it was in this battle that Hal and Chester, with the friend Anthony
Stubbs, war correspondent, and other friends, old and new, were to play
important roles. While each realized, as the three made their way to
General Petain behind the French officer who had interrupted their wild
automobile ride, that an important engagement was about to be fought,
neither had, of course, means of knowing that they were to take part in
one of the greatest of all battles.
It was with the satisfaction that they had arrived in time to prevent a
surprise attack that they made their way to General Petain's quarters.
But, as it transpired, they had arrived a trifle too late. For even as
they reached the general's tent the German guns spoke.