Verdun, February 21, 1916.
This is where the most iconic battle begins
of the First World War.
In the heart of one of the harshest winters in the region,
the German general staff is preparing to launch a major attack
on the Meuse valley.
Under the command of General von Falkenhayn,
chief of general staff of the imperial armies,
the Germans are determined to use all destructive power
of their heavy artillery
to drown the French lines under a deluge of fire.
What will remain of the soldiers crushed by this rain of shells of all calibers?
Nothing, hope the German soldiers
who will launch themselves into a completely ravaged landscape.
They are not entirely wrong!
In some sectors, the lead patrols will cross
the first lines without even realizing it.
There will be no more front lines.
However, on July 12, 1916,
after more than four months of fierce fighting,
General von Falkenhayn is forced to face the facts.
He will never take Verdun.
Worse still, in the fall, the French troops will have regained
part of the ground lost at the beginning of the battle,
gradually pushing back their opponents
to their starting position.
After 300 days, 300 nights of struggle and 300,000 deaths,
the fighting diminishes on the Verdun front.
What happened in the first months of this offensive?
How can we explain its failure, despite the profusion of resources implemented?
Journalist and historian, I wanted to know
what really happened on the Verdun front in 1916.
I collected testimonies.
We live in the cold, mud and humidity.
We live with vermin, we live with rats, we live with lice.
I collected some clues.
There, we fight mainly with grenades.
Living history enthusiasts have recreated me
the conditions of the fights.
I deciphered one of the longest and most devastating fights
of the Great War.
In collective memories,
This epic battle has become a symbol.
Better than mere military glory,
it is one of the founding myths of our national history.
Those who lived it will always remember it as the hell of Verdun.
Monday, February 21, 1916, seven o'clock in the morning,
all German artillery batteries are in position.
In 15 minutes, they will rain down a deluge of fire
on French lines.
The assault waves of the leading divisions are ready to launch.
The head of the German army, von Falkenhayn, is determined
to strike fast and hard.
In France, since the beginning of 1915,
the front is stabilized on a line of 700 kilometers,
from the North Sea to Switzerland,
passing through Nieuport, Compiègne, Reims, Verdun and the Nancy region.
The Allies failed to break through in Artois and Champagne.
They still dream of forcing enemy lines by launching
a major offensive.
Lieutenant Colonel Rémy Porte is a history advisor
and history reference officer for the army.
My Colonel, what is the strategic situation in February 1916,
on the eve of the Battle of Verdun?
The year 1915 proved to be rather favourable to Germany.
On the western front,
they managed to block, to stop
the two double Franco-British offensives
in Artois and Champagne in spring and autumn.
On the eastern front, against Russia, they managed to push back
of almost 300 kilometers the armies of the tsar
and to occupy Russian Poland.
To the south, in the Balkans, in the fall, they crush Serbia.
They occupy Serbia.
When the year ends,
Germany is still in a favorable situation
and Falkenhayn, who is at that time the chief of the general staff, thinks
that he can turn around with greater forces to the west
to get the decision.
So far, all offensives have been
particularly greedy for men.
How will Falkenhayn do it?
to make sure to launch this offensive
and that it is not a butchery?
On both sides of the French side as on the German side, gradually,
since 1914-1915,
and it becomes huge in 1916, it is the artillery which takes over.
It is artillery that becomes the queen weapon, practically.
In the mind of Falkenhayn, as of his generals,
a massive employment, a surge of artillery, will allow
to completely crush the French defenses
and their infantry will then be able to advance without too much difficulty.
Isn't this a change of doctrine at this point?
An industrialization of war? - It is not a brutal change.
It's an evolution over the months, but it's a fundamental evolution.
This is an extremely important development,
who brings, on the ground, tons, tons of scrap metal,
of shells, ammunition, steel.
Human chests are replaced with artillery ammunition.
On the French side, on February 21,
everyone prepares to survive a rainy day.
As usual, the night was freezing.
When I wake up, my fingers are numb, my faces are hollow
and bodies frozen with cold.
However, all this is nothing compared to the apocalypse that awaits the poilus.
At that time, what are the concerns,
of the general headquarters led by Joffre?
In the previous December, Joffre gathered around him
representatives of all allied armies
and they agreed to launch, at the beginning of 1916,
concentric offensives against Germany.
From January 1916,
the French headquarters works
in increasingly close cooperation with its British counterpart
to prepare for the Somme offensive in July.
Joffre's concern is therefore not particularly for Verdun.
No, she's not going to Verdun at all.
Especially since the Germans, in January, launched diversionary offensives
in different sectors of the front
and that Verdun has been, since the autumn of 1914,
a relatively quiet area.
In the winter of 1915-1916, Falkenhayn wanted to end it all.
He wants to avoid asphyxiation by making the war very unbearable
for the English, whom he considers to be Germany's main enemy.
The German commander-in-chief decides to intensify submarine warfare.
His U-boats are merciless.
They attack supply convoys,
then to all ships flying the Allied flag.
It aims to inflict a defeat on the French
such that France would be forced to accept a compromise peace,
thus forcing England,
who cannot wage war alone on the continent, to cease the conflict.
For several weeks,
German general staff are working on several hypotheses.
Finally, at the end of December 1915,
the decision is made, it will be Verdun.
Verdun is installed on a salient surrounded on all sides.
The Meuse complicates the defense of the sector,
but the citadel is surrounded by a belt of forts including Douaumont,
Vaux and Souville.
Since the destruction of the forts of Liège,
Namur and Maubeuge by German howitzers,
the French commander finds it useless to mobilize depots and troops
in isolated strongholds.
Some of the Verdun effort cannons were therefore withdrawn
from the summer of 1915.
For their part, the Kaiser's troops have complete confidence in the power
of their artillery,
and in particular their enormous cannon and heavy mortar,
including the famous Big Bertha, capable of sending a shell of 800 kilos,
including 140 kilos of explosive charges,
more than nine kilometers away.
Determined to hold on to the conquered ground,
The Germans do not skimp on the means.
They have set up very well-designed defensive positions.
The German trench is deep,
often concreted and dotted with machine gun nests.
Vast networks of barbed wire protect its surroundings.
In case of bombing, the soldiers take shelter in stollen,
deep shelters.
Running water is brought up to the second line
through deeply buried pipes.
If the area closest to the fighting is the focus of all attention,
the infrastructures located immediately behind benefit
of the best facilities.
In the Verdun region, a group of buildings has come down to us,
This is the Marguerre camp.
Native of the Verdun region, passionate about history
and heritage guide at the city's tourist office,
Maxime Baschirotto knows well the most secret places of the battle.
Maxime, it's still incredible to find structures
in a forest as dense as this one.
Absolutely !
The French, when they arrived in 1918, after the armistice,
they had the same reaction as you.
They first thought of a Negro village.
They even named it that thinking it was the natives
which were in these buildings, in the form of huts or traditional dwellings.
It was the Germans who built the whole structure we have here?
Yes, they made a real little village with different types of barracks.
Some that were well polished, others that were less so.
It was an experimental camp in which they tested their concrete,
the different types of formwork, to accommodate
between 2,500 and 3,000 men.
It varied enormously.
There was a rotation that took place between the units.
How many kilometers are we from the Verdun front?
We are about twenty kilometers from the front lines at the beginning of 1916.
Here, the objective for the Germans was to remain under cover of the forests.
The forest was as dense as it is today.
We were covered from aerial reconnaissance.
It was impossible to say that at this place,
the German troops had gathered there
with the aim of preparing an offensive.
When we think of cantonment, of military,
we see quite sober buildings.
This house, we have the impression that it is almost a village house.
Yes, it was the will of the Germans,
to be able to represent the traditional German family home,
the heightmap as they say.
It was necessary that the troubles that were stationed here could be felt
at home, just like at home.
That's why it was so polished.
and that we emphasized details and comfort.
For example, at your feet, you have the remains of flower boxes.
We were really in the decoration, in the pure artificial.
Above the roof, for example, there are false chimneys,
There is no fireplace, nor any hearths inside.
It was necessary to be able to represent a civilian habitat, purely civilian.
Above the windows there are pediments with inlaid pebbles.
Then also on the central pediment.
You have friezes everywhere.
Even inside, they really went as far as decorating the interior
with frescoes.
Frescoes that are still visible today.
Who have resisted after a century. - Completely!
There is a harmony in the curves that is impressive.
For buildings with a military purpose, this is not at all representative.
This is exceptional.
This camp is really...
The camp was structured like a village too?
It's not so anarchic.
There is really a paved, concrete system that crisscrosses the village
and which also separates, as a result, certain barracks reserved for officers
and others reserved for the troop.
And that building over there behind?
This is a little peculiarity of the camp.
Here too, we find this side of distraction, of pleasure.
This is what we called the casino.
There was a screening room,
a kind of cinema for the troops, so that they can have fun.
Right next door, a kind of delicatessen, a kind of military center
in which one could obtain a little bit of everything necessary
to improve his daily life.
The letter paper, I suppose. - That's it,
or tobacco, food products
which could fill the musettes
and thus improve everyday life a little.
In my opinion, it is a German specificity to have cantonments
as well provided, as well organized.
The Germans are really into sustainability.
The objective is to establish ourselves sustainably in the territory,
to build while the French, we remain in a war perspective
of movement, so we will really be on more ephemeral things.
On the attack front of the Meuse, from the village of Brabant to that of Ornes,
the head of the German 5th Army was amassing three army corps.
Six divisions in the first line, two divisions in the second line.
Opposite, two divisions of the 30th French Corps.
The Germans are preparing to use a devastating strategy:
the trommelfeuer, the deluge of fire.
The guns do not fire in salvos, but continuously on sectors
and objectives identified.
This pounding is very effective
to destroy all enemy defenses.
The German gunners have something to do.
More than 2,200 pieces will be made available to them
in this part of the front.
One thousand two hundred and twenty-five artillery pieces, including 542 heavy howitzers,
13 Krupp 420 mm howitzers,
17 Skoda 305 mm howitzers,
two 380-millimeter naval guns and 2,500,000 shells.
On February 21, 1916, for nine hours, German gunners pounded
the French lines in a sector 12 kilometers wide and four kilometers deep.
The bombing is so intense
that its echo is heard as far as the Vosges, 150 kilometers away.
Back from an observation mission,
The French aviators are formal,
the front is nothing more than a strip of smoke,
an uninterrupted line of fire.
As soon as operations begin,
the city of Verdun is severely affected,
including the basilica and the episcopal palace.
Maxime, can we imagine the power
of the preliminary bombardment of the Germans on Verdun
and the bombing that took place afterwards,
during the 300 days of the battle?
Yes, in terms of numbers, the Battle of Verdun,
over the 300 days it lasted, that's nearly 60 million shells
of all calibers that will fall on the French positions
and also on the city of Verdun, which will be 50 percent destroyed.
In particular, in this courtyard of the episcopal palace,
the first shell of 1,400 German artillery pieces will crash
in the courtyard and damages the facade, behind us there,
as well as roofs.
Verdun will benefit from aid after the war,
to rebuild damaged buildings, especially along the Meuse.
We will rename part of the quays of the Meuse the London quay,
due to British funding for reconstruction.
Were other places in the city also affected?
Yes, especially the Buvignier chapel,
whose bell tower, and the building still exists,
have been hit hard.
We can still see the impacts a little everywhere on the facade.
It was very violent on Verdun, these bombings
damaged a good part of the city.
German planes have shot down the balloons and have control of the skies,
which makes the French artillery blind and almost incapable of acting effectively.
For a few weeks,
the Germans will take advantage of their air superiority.
They have a particularly efficient and fast aircraft,
the Fokker.
For their part, the French use a less efficient aircraft,
the Nieuport.
At the beginning of the war,
the French Raymond Saulnier and Roland Garros have developed
the first machine gun capable of firing through the blades of a propeller.
However, this device was quickly recovered by the Germans, who improved it.
They also define a strategy for using the devices.
In some areas,
they will saturate the sky to deny access to the French.
From either side,
the best fighter pilots, the aces, stand out
and are highlighted by the press,
including a certain Hermann Göring,
future supporter of Adolf Hitler.
At 4:30 p.m. on February 21, 1916,
the first German patrols begin to advance.
In total, there are more than 90,000 Germans
against less than 30,000 French on a front of seven to eight kilometers.
They are equipped with modern equipment, wear the steel helmet, the Stahlhelm,
and a terrifying weapon used from the summer of 1915 to clear enemy trenches,
the flamethrower.
On the Meuse front, from the village of Brabant to that of Ornes,
one of the first obstacles of the Germans is a wood held
by 1,300 foot hunters under Colonel Émile Driant,
the Caures wood.
The German assault troops attack.
They reach the first French line, pulverized by artillery.
Progress is difficult, however, because the deluge of steel has broken up the ground.
All the landmarks have been erased.
The Germans infiltrate between the resistance lines,
but they are progressing more slowly than expected.
Incredibly, despite the fury of the bombardment,
the hairy ones are still there.
They come out of the shell holes, make contact with a neighbor,
organize themselves with an officer, a surviving non-commissioned officer, to resist
and hold the ground.
In the Caures woods,
the 1,300 men of the 56th and 59th battalions
Lieutenant-Colonel Driant's foot hunters resist.
They are alone facing two German divisions.
At 5:15 p.m., there were only 400 left.
Galvanized by their leader, this handful of survivors counterattacks.
The Caures wood is still in their hands.
The day seems lost for the Germans.
On the evening of February 21, after nine hours of crushing the French lines
by artillery,
the Germans took the Haumont wood and the north of the Caures wood.
They advanced only one kilometer on a five-kilometer-wide front.
The expected progress did not take place.
The next day, February 22, it was a general assault.
German assault columns strike everywhere.
It's a massacre.
The French sometimes fight one against ten.
But incredibly,
in the positions upset by the shells, survivors resurface.
The ground is plowed, unstable and dangerous.
Soldiers must avoid obstacles.
A German column can be slowed down by a few poilus with
grenades or by the crew of an effective machine gun,
the Hotchkiss, nicknamed the coffee grinder by the soldiers.
In the Bois des Caures, the hunters have lost 80 percent of their numbers.
Their leader, Colonel Driant, died around 4 p.m.,
but 110 survivors manage to retreat.
These fights which are multiplying in all sectors
from the attack front will allow the French high command to transport
the first reinforcements positioned for a few days
between Verdun and Bar-le-Duc.
On the evening of February 24,
the French are pushed back to their third line.
The fighting rages, but already
the first reinforcements arrive gradually.
The battalions are launched into a molten volcano.
These reinforcements must block any German expansion.
It is time, because the French trenches have been shaken
by the first days of the offensive.
The trench system is a complex set of combat positions,
of waiting, relative rest and more or less protected communication routes.
From front to back, three successive lines are theoretically arranged,
each consisting of two or three roughly parallel trenches.
Ahead of the first line,
several meters deep, rolls of barbed wire are deployed.
On the front line, where they must not park
that the minimum number of soldiers, firing positions and makeshift shelters are set up.
In the second line, stand the first alert units
to counterattack immediately and slightly deeper shelters.
On the third line, we find the first aid stations,
the first command posts,
the first reserves,
the first artillery pieces.
These different elements are reinforced by linked machine gun positions
between them by perpendicular communication conduits.
Now the objective of the 5th German Army is becoming clearer.
General Falkenhayn wants to take the forts covering the north of Verdun.
In his sights, Douaumont,
whose capture would warm the hearts of his men.
Built during the second half of the 19th century,
Douaumont Fort has been modernized,
but in 1915,
most of the artillery and men were therefore withdrawn
of the work.
However, its dominant location north of Verdun makes it
a strategic position.
A moat, a counter-escape with grilles and a surrounding wall protect
the surroundings of the inner barracks.
At each corner, artillery pieces can be installed,
and in particular 75 millimeter cannons.
On the barracks, turrets can accommodate machine guns
and even a 155 millimeter cannon.
Different observatories are set up, allowing the enemy to be seen arriving.
Finally, the fort of Douaumont is well hidden,
because it is perfectly integrated into the configuration of the landscape.
All day February 25,
The Germans launched numerous offensives in the areas near the fort.
At 5 p.m., they are only 700 meters away.
They are still unaware that the fort is only defended by 58 French soldiers.
They then advance to the barbed wire, open a breach
and descend into the ditch using tree trunks.
Seeing the turrets of the empty fort, not receiving any shots,
they enter the building.
As they enter the central courtyard, they come across a handful
of French soldiers, unarmed and completely astonished.
The work is now in German hands.
In the evening, more than 300 soldiers came to settle there.
Fort Douaumont fell practically without a fight
in just two hours.
The sad news arrived quickly in Verdun.
Maxime, what was the climate in Verdun when the fort was taken?
It's the panic.
On the German side, the bells begin to ring in all the villages
and from there,
French propaganda will try to minimize the facts a little,
or even try to silence them completely.
From this date, February 25, 1916,
the French will have only one thing in mind: to retake Fort Douaumont.
Until October 24th and its resumption, there will be multiple attempts
to try to clear this fort, since it constitutes a base
essential starting point to continue the offensive.
As of February 25, 1916, the German advance is now
from five to seven kilometers.
The Kaiser's troops hold one of the bends of the Meuse
and the Douaumont fort.
To protect the citadel of Verdun, the French cling to two forts.
Thiaumont and Vaux.
The first phase of the battle is over.
Despite the capture of Douaumont,
General Falkenhayn was countered at the cost of terrible losses.
In five days, 25,000 French people died,
injured or missing.
Some French infantry divisions lost more than 60%
of their workforce.
The situation is serious.
General Joffre then called on General Philippe Pétain.
When General Pétain took command on February 25, 1916,
the French army is in a difficult situation,
but the Germans did not break through.
Will Petain succeed in redressing the situation
and to strengthen the morale of his troops?
Philippe Pétain is first an infantry officer,
a colonel close to retirement at the start of the war.
He will reorganize the French lines.
But for the front to hold,
it must be constantly replenished.
General Pétain then launched pharaonic works in order to modernize
the supply system put in place before his appointment.
Verdun is only served by a narrow-gauge railway line
and a simple winding departmental road.
Every day, tons of stones
and embankments are brought on this road to keep it in good condition.
The traffic regulations there are draconian.
No parking,
broken down vehicles are immediately pushed into the ditches.
Driving must be done bumper to bumper.
The flow must not be interrupted under any circumstances.
There is a truck every 14 seconds and in a few months,
two million soldiers will take this route to reach the front.
This umbilical cord will become the sacred way
under the pen of the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès.
By oar of 30,
thousands of vehicles use the Bar-le-Duc-Verdun axis every day.
In March 1916,
two thirds of the trucks of the French army are used
in this sector.
Among them, the most robust and the best known which will remain in service
until 1932,
the Berliet.
The sappers of the 5th engineer regiment develop and improve the narrow gauge
of the little Meuse and above all succeed in the feat of building in three months
a new standard gauge railway line.
The army uses locomotives, cars and wagons from
from all over France.
Paternalistic and authoritarian, he is nicknamed Précis-le-Sec,
General Pétain already has a reputation for being relatively economical
of the lives of his men.
Pragmatic,
he is especially aware of the meager resources of the French infantry.
With the agreement of the GHQ, the general headquarters,
which regularly brings fresh divisions into line,
it adopts a simple, but effective, principle,
the turnstile.
The soldiers spend two days on the front line,
then two days in second
and finally, two days in the back.
This rotation is absolutely necessary,
because the living conditions in the trenches are inhumane.
Henri Desbordes is the president of the living history association,
The hairy man of the Marne.
Henri, are the French trenches also well established?
than the German trenches?
The French trenches are not as well established
than the German trenches, Serge, quite simply
since, in the French patriotic spirit,
we absolutely must go and reconquer this land
that we lost at the beginning of the conflict,
during the Battle of the Marne and until the first setback of the war.
So the goal is to move forward, unlike the Germans who,
once stabilized and we moved to the war of position, decided
to solidify their trench and stay put.
In the Verdun sector itself, what are the trenches like?
In the Verdun sector, the trenches are not very elaborate.
Rather, we are seeing troops of varying sizes in different places.
The facilities are not up to par.
They connect the forts.
We are counting on the forts, which have been stripped of their strength
a lot in men and material.
They will be all the more rugged, all the more impassable
by the heavy bombardments and the first attacks of the battle.
What are precisely, under these bombardments,
the living conditions of the poilu and the German soldier,
in the trenches?
The living conditions of the time,
in one camp as in the other, are execrable,
as they can be over the whole of the war.
We live in the mud, we live in the cold, in the humidity.
We live with vermin, we live with rats, with lice.
We live in lack of everything.
We live in a lack of water rationing.
We live in the lack of food supply
which often does not arrive or arrives cold.
We live in the lack of also human contact in part,
even if camaraderie comes to take an important place.
What you're talking about is more about survival than life.
How did the soldiers manage to survive in such conditions?
I think we couldn't answer for them,
but there is still a fairly strong mental part.
It was also all the patriotic indoctrination
which has been done since long before, even before this war,
and with the rancor of 1870.
This patriotism.
The German is criticized to the face,
just as the German can do towards the French.
The second part is also that we don't give up
the friend next door.
We're holding on for our friends.
At the beginning, we started in this spirit of...
We stand for France,
but we also care for the friend who is next to us.
Are there still links with the rear or is there a gap?
There is this interesting part, the paradox with the back.
The hairy part is offset from the back.
The rear ignores the life of the poilu and the poilu no longer recognizes
life from the back.
All French soldiers feel it rawly
the chasm that has opened up with those behind.
All those civilians who neither wish to see nor hear their suffering.
A soldier returning from leave in Paris wrote in 1916:
"You would never believe that we are at war.
The longer it lasts, the more fun they have.
Brightly lit shops, superb cars, chic women with little hats,
big boots, rice powder, muffs and small dogs,
and ambushers with beautiful jackets in fine cloth, fitted breeches
and yellow things much shinier than our officers.
Sad return from leave.
Permissions shouldn't be.
To immerse oneself in the life that should be our life.
Life that we should have forgotten forever,
life found a few hours ago
and which leaves us with a horrible nightmare that we call the blues.
It is the joy that disappears, the energy canceled, life without hope."
Yet the rear provides all the essential sustenance
to the survival of the troops.
The rear will provide him with everything he needs in the trench,
everything necessary, including important supplies
such as what we call wine,
so wine, which was an important part at the time and which has increased a lot.
Tobacco is also important.
Many will start smoking to kill time
and also to hide, unfortunately, the very difficult smells of the trenches.
Then comes the mail also, the correspondence.
Millions of letters will be exchanged during the conflict.
That's really what keeps men going.
It's the little link with the rear and the families.
The life of the Poilu, ultimately, hangs by a thread.
We can sum it up a bit like this.
General Pétain knows that if he wants to counterattack effectively,
he must know the enemy's slightest movements.
On February 28, 1916,
he says to the commander of the 5th air army:
“Sweep the sky for me, I am blind.”
Coming from all sectors of the front, famous or anonymous pilots flock
towards the Verdun region.
The French fighter squadrons have priority
to allow other airmen and observers
to be able to inform the general staff.
Among the most famous,
Navarre earns the nickname of sentinel of Verdun.
The days of solitary battles of the sky knights are over.
More and more, pilots are flying together,
in training, floor and altitude.
Their mere appearance boosts the morale of the soldiers.
Private Louis testifies.
When he found no game,
Lieutenant Navarre did not want his flight to be in vain.
On his way back, he would entertain the soldiers who were languishing in the trenches.
He had a real cult for them.
If he were asked why he did not keep count of these victories,
he would just reply, "Do the guys downstairs do it?"
No.
Will I be more than them?"
When he came back from a cruise, he liked to give them meetings.
He put his whole soul into it, using the full range of his virtuosity,
to show these afflicted people that he was thinking of them and that he was trying to distract them.
Since February 21, the Kronprinz's troops have advanced
of eight kilometers and hold a line going from Vacherauville
to Vaux-devant-Damloup via the Pepper Coast and the Douaumont fort.
The French artillery takes them to task from these positions on the left bank
and the Germans relaunch the offensive
to seize the line of the heights of Mort Homme and hill 304.
In June, at the insistence of the chief of staff
of the 5th German Army,
the soldiers regain the initiative in the direction of Fort Vaux
on the right side.
German artillery hammers the French lines non-stop.
Eighty percent of the losses were due to this deluge of iron and fire.
As early as March 1916,
entire areas are transformed into desert.
No more trees, no more grass, no more birds.
A field of end, a huge open-air cemetery
where buried bodies are constantly desecrated.
Private Louis Corti of the 30th Infantry Regiment testifies:
"It rained and the mud invaded the whole area.
A man seeking shelter threw himself into the trench and the mud rose
up to his belt.
He asks for help.
Two men held out their rifles, but slipped and quickly,
they took their places in the column that passes nearby,
deaf to the pleas of the stuck person who sinks without help.
Because we die from mud like bullets.
Wounded people are swallowed up in this treacherous swamp.
Here, it is the mud that obsesses.
The slippery and liquid mud, the horrible Meuse mud, raised, trampled,
packed by hundreds of thousands of men, horses, cars.
A sea of yellow mud that penetrates to the skin.
She managed to slip under the boards and blankets.
We live under the mud.
We see mud everywhere, and corpses, corpses,
and more mud, and more corpses.
We learned to live in the earth before we died."
Since taking command,
Pétain requests additional reinforcements from General Joffre,
but the commander has other concerns,
he is preparing the great offensive of the Somme.
Until May,
reinforcements are arriving en masse.
In every family in France, the myth is on the march.
The Verdun sector had 150,000 soldiers in February 1916.
There were 525,000 of them in April.
Unfortunately, these are sometimes young conscripts,
too young to face the hell of war.
The infantryman Franck Roi of the 266th infantry regiment confirms:
"There are in the ranks of the young people classes 16 and 17 too young
to endure such trials.
When the leaders make their rounds, it happens that they find the lookouts asleep,
even when the snow falls.
They are there, half covered in snow, half congested
and yet sleeping soundly."
In April and May 1916, the front moved slightly from side to side due to
of an alternation of attack and counter-attack.
Pétain speaks out, tries to galvanize his troops.
He drafted an agenda that would remain famous.
April 9 is a glorious day for our weapons.
The furious assaults of the Kronprinz's soldiers have all been broken.
Infantrymen, artillerymen, sappers, aviators competed in heroism.
The Germans will probably attack again.
Let everyone work and watch to achieve the same success as yesterday.
Courage, we will get them.
It takes courage.
One in two soldiers in the line at Verdun is wounded or dead.
Captain Lisbon of the 154th Infantry Regiment remembers:
"At my feet, a sergeant that I do not recognize,
broken spine, screams that he can't feel his legs anymore
and does not cease his pitiful complaint.
'My captain, finish me off!
Lend me your revolver.'
I went up on April 13 with three lieutenants,
two warrant officers and 200 men.
I came back down on April 26, wounded with a warrant officer and 53 soldiers."
Between February 26 and April 30, 1916, French losses were considerable.
58,000 injured and 49,000 dead.
On the Verdun front, will and resignation are combined
to allow the soldiers to hold out.
The hairy Jean Meunier,
soldier of the 174th infantry regiment, testifies:
"We are going up in line, somewhere between Douaumont and Vaux, on April 26.
My first impression was that the occupants were giving up their place to us
with eagerness and enthusiasm.
Here is the dialogue that began with the soldier I was relieving:
Is this place bad?
My friend, yes it sucks.
Where are the Germans?
My old man, they are in front,
then sort it out yourself!'"
On February 25, 1916,
Fort Douaumont had fallen into the hands of the Germans.
Since then, the French high command has continued to try to recapture it,
but Pétain has strong reservations.
He thinks that the moment is not ideal, that he lacks the means
and that this counter-offensive must be prepared very meticulously.
In Paris, the President of the Republic,
Raymond Poincaré, far from the reality of the front, does not understand
why the areas taken back from the enemy are so tiny.
At his insistence,
a counter-offensive is planned for May 22.
Victim of his outspokenness, General Pétain was sidelined
on May 1st and immediately appointed head of Army Group Center.
General Nivelle replaces him, and he immediately asks General Mangin
and his colonial troops to retake Douaumont from the Germans.
The fort is already only a shadow of itself.
The work seems to have been leveled by the multiple bombardments it suffered.
Seen from the sky, it is nothing more than a pile of ruins,
a vulgar sandcastle trampled by children.
Between May 18 and May 24, 1916,
three French divisions tried to seize the fort, in vain.
The fighting, once again, is terrible.
The Germans suspected that a counter-offensive was
in preparation for.
They had strengthened their defense.
The French forces assembled had been largely underestimated,
insufficient artillery preparation.
From May 18 or 24, to retake Douaumont,
General Mangin's 5th Infantry Division lost
130 officers and 5,507 men,
or half of its workforce.
For the moment, hopes of retaking Fort Douaumont are over.
The French must now try to maintain their position
and preserve the fortified works still in their possession.
They are right.
Falkenhayn still has his eye on Fort Vaux,
east of the Verdun front.
In June 1916, the Germans knew that a major offensive was going to be launched
further north on the Somme,
and they need to achieve success quickly.
The 5th Army launches an attack on a five-kilometer front,
between the Pepper coast and Vaux-devant-Damloup.
Objectives: seize the forts of Vaux,
of Thiaumont, Froideterre and Souville which constitute
the last defensive barrier before Verdun.
Built at the same time as the Douaumont fort, at the end of the 19th century,
Fort Vaux is of a more modest size.
The design of this fort is simple.
A moat and a surrounding wall protect the inner barracks.
In the center of the courtyard, there is an observatory and a turret which allows
to accommodate a 75 millimeter cannon.
Two other observatories are arranged on the sides.
The entrance to the fort is from the southern part.
What were the living conditions of the 400 soldiers who were locked up
here, at Fort Vaux?
We'll go into a casemate right away and I'll explain.
Is this a chamberie?
It's a chamberie.
Here, we sleep four to a bed.
The metal beds here were not at Fort Vaux.
At the time, we had wooden chalets, so much more rudimentary,
with a simple straw mattress, so very little comfort of life.
Around you, you see that the walls are still white.
It was a warm, bactericidal milk that was brushed
on the walls in order to eliminate some of the vermin.
As you can feel now, the temperature is very cool.
There, we are at 10, 11 degrees.
We are in the cold, we are in the humidity
with water infiltrations beginning to appear,
quite less now, but there were some.
We are really on a very approximate comfort.
It's rudimentary.
In terms of water supplies, they are under siege.
Do they have contact with the outside world?
It's difficult to do.
They are cut from the first day, in 1916.
The garrison commander believes there is enough water
to last about 15 days.
Alas, under the bombardments, the concrete tanks will crack
and all the water will flow out.
Which will deprive the garrison of water during the last days of the siege.
This is what, it seems, will be fatal to this garrison.
When did the capture of Fort Vaux really take place?
and in what circumstances?
There you tell me that the cisterns are cracked.
There was a big bombing.
Are these men being hammered by German artillery?
We're not going to let them go at all.
That is to say that on June 1, 1916, the Germans approached
in small groups from the outskirts of Fort Vaux,
which has already been damaged by the bombing.
On the morning of June 1st, there was a bombing.
The fort is completely assaulted by shells of all calibers.
The guys inside are thrown against the walls.
The bombing will succeed in cracking and above all,
to open breaches in the chests.
In fact, it is the defenses of the ditches that will be completely opened
and, unfortunately, it will leave
a niche for the attackers to enter the galleries.
They will succeed in returning, to the northwest chest
and in the northeast chest, you will see,
the fighting conditions were absolutely appalling.
Let's go!
You can see a little bit the damage from the 380 shells.
They took off a huge part of the vault.
However, here the vault is concreted.
The irony of the thing is that the French have taken
quite a bit of rubble to barricade yourself in afterwards.
There, we enter a little into the belly of the fort.
We are really starting to head towards the combat blocks,
If you want.
There, we are really in places that suffered first,
of the bombing.
It's getting narrower and narrower.
You will see that it really continues for about twenty meters.
It shrinks even further to reach 80 centimeters wide,
about 90 high.
These are traces of...
These are bullet and shrapnel impacts.
Do you want me to hold your hand? - Yes, I want, please.
Heavy grill!
THANKS.
Watch your head!
This is really the area where we fought.
Here we are in the heart of the gallery of fights.
All that's on the walls are impact marks.
These are impacts. - We fought until here.
We've fought so far.
The noose is tightening.
Attention !
That's impressive.
This is where you see the full dimension of the violence of the fighting
when you see the three gallery tests.
Look, on the left side, you have the effect of the blasts of deflagration.
It is very impressive.
We fight in the dark in these corridors.
Total darkness, since the lighting originally,
it is done with the system of acetylene lamps, candles.
The fighting will create a lot of dust, a lot of smoke,
the atmosphere will get heavier
and it will be practically impossible to illuminate the work.
Yes, we are fighting blindly.
There, we will come out onto the steps.
The steps of the staircase that pass under the ditch.
Be careful, there is a lot of rubble.
These are really rat fights.
That's it.
At the end of these 40 steps or so,
you have a width of 80 centimeters and a height of 90.
The Germans came this way?
Yes, they came that way first.
This is the north-eastern chest of Fort Vaux.
The breaches that were opened allowed them, in fact,
to gradually introduce oneself into the gallery.
Immediately, the French, obviously, they reacted immediately.
They barricaded certain places of this descent, at the bottom, at the top,
and they will try to cling to these few bags on the ground which are blocking
the passage and try to throw grenades.
The gun costs are unthinkable.
At point blank range, imagine its effect.
This can backfire very well on the shooter.
There, we only fight with grenades and flamethrowers.
The flamethrower is a flaming liquid, launched about twenty meters long.
It's a real furnace.
The flames sweep through the galleries, so the guys inside are charred.
How long will it take the Germans to be able to invest the fort?
For seven days, continuously, the Germans attacked night and day.
They really rekindle the fights.
The French defenders have absolutely not a second of sleep,
a second of respite.
The atmosphere is also very heavy.
Everything is depressurized.
There is little air.
All the vents have been intentionally blocked
to prevent the Germans from introducing gas.
They found another way out.
In addition to these grenade fights,
we will also be confronted with gas.
There, you can imagine the tenfold effect that this can have
in such confined spaces.
How does it end in the end?
We will arrive, from June 4 or 5, 1916,
to a kind of status quo and at that point,
the French find that their water reserves are dwindling
and are even practically zero.
There, something terrible happens, because the French army is forced
to drink their urine, for some.
From there, there are serious problems with dysentery within the ranks.
This also has a big impact on morale.
We don't sleep, we are in the humidity.
We walk in urine and excrement.
These are truly atrocious conditions, from what we are told.
So forced to surrender.
Alas, the outcome of this terrible siege was the French surrender.
In short, the garrison commander, Rénal, who is already quite old,
but who has truly led his men to the furthest reaches of their sacrifice, will take
this extremely serious decision to surrender since, it would seem,
water reserves are no longer sufficient.
At that time, the French troops delivered
the fort to the Germans
after seven days of uninterrupted fighting, night and day.
Now, the Germans are very close to Verdun,
from which they can see the towers of the cathedral.
Falkenhayn's chief of staff manages to persuade him
that victory is within reach and that a final assault must be launched.
But at what cost ?
On both sides, human losses are considerable.
The landscapes are changed forever.
Some villages, taken and retaken more than 15 times, have simply been erased
from the menu.
Located near Verdun, Orne is one of the nine villages
from the region declared dead for France.
Totally destroyed by war, emptied of their populations,
they will not be rebuilt after the war.
A mayor, appointed by the prefect
and a municipal administrative commission, maintain
these places of memory haunted by the ghosts of the Great War,
true silent witnesses of the immensity of the losses caused by this conflict.
The German army advances like a steamroller.
All means are good, flamethrowers and chemical weapons,
including phosgene shells.
June 18,
the Fleury coast area is violently bombed,
70,000 Germans wait for the gas to dissipate before setting off.
On June 23, the objective was achieved:
The Kaiser's troops are now only a few kilometers from Verdun.
Except that an event will come to disrupt Falkenhayn's plans
and turn the tide of the battle.
The Franco-British offensive, wanted by Joffre
and prepared by Foch, finally begins
July 1 in the Somme.
The British and French will attempt to break through the German lines
on a 45 kilometer front,
in a triangle between the towns of Albert, Péronne and Bapaume.
On July 1, 1916, after a week of artillery preparation
during which the British guns fired more than 1,700,000 shells,
Allied forces are moving forward.
It's carnage.
If the German lines have been overturned,
The underground concrete shelters, refuges of the Kaiser's soldiers, are intact.
Once the storm has passed,
they wait for the attackers behind their machine guns.
30,000 men fell in the first six minutes of the battle.
In the French sector, however, operations are going better.
In 10 days,
the French Sixth Army took 12,000 prisoners.
On a 20 kilometer front,
the poilus advanced sometimes ten kilometers
in the German defensive system.
It is the greatest French military success since the Battle of the Marne
and this success will have an almost immediate consequence.
Thirteen divisions are first withdrawn from the Meuse sector
to reach the Somme.
In total,
there will be no less than 35 divisions, numerous artillery batteries
and several seasoned German squadrons
which are transferred from Verdun.
The capture of the Meuse citadel is no longer the priority.
Despite everything, on July 11, 1916, Falkenhayn authorized a final offensive.
He wants to bring down Fort Souville at all costs.
After three days of artillery preparation,
On July 11, 1916, at 4:30 in the morning, the German troops attacked.
The Souville fort was then nothing more than a pile of ruins.
On the morning of July 12,
the Germans approach the foothills of the structure.
A hundred of them even manage to gain a foothold on the superstructures
before being pushed back by the defenders.
On the same day, at 9:30 p.m.,
the fort is cleared and the Germans retreat.
They deplore considerable losses.
They must now stick to a defensive attitude.
This final attack is again a failure.
For the French, the time for reconquest is approaching.
Reinforcements are pouring in to recapture the lost ground.
Eight divisions are sent to the front.
The first objective is imposed on everyone, it is the recapture of Fort Douaumont.
My Colonel, how is the reconquest phase going?
by the French army?
Efforts will resume
from the moment when, after July and August,
the German vice loosens around Verdun.
Because of the Somme offensive. - Yes.
Direct consequence of the Somme offensive.
The French are getting back to a slightly more solid foundation.
There are fights
for example for the village of Fleury, in the immediate vicinity of the fort.
The month of September and the beginning of October are dedicated
to prepare the offensive, in particular with very strong artillery support.
Now, it is the French who have material superiority on the ground.
The offensive allowed the reconquest of the fort on October 24,
with, in particular,
the entry into line of the colonial division,
of the colonial infantry regiment of Morocco,
riflemen and a battalion of two Somali companies.
It doesn't all end at that point.
and, very quickly, the offensive is relaunched
to retake the neighboring Fort Vaux,
which will be resumed at the beginning of November.
When can we consider
that the battle of Verdun is definitively over?
There is an official date, let's say, which is that of the battle of 1916.
It began on February 21, and the general headquarters considers
that it ends on December 18.
On December 18, things calm down on the ground,
but the battle continues.
There are always bombings, artillery,
skirmishes, strikes, etc.,
until the major offensive of August 20, 1917,
which will effectively allow General Guillaumat
to bring the Germans back practically to their starting position.
Of the 95 divisions of the French army,
70 participated in this terrible battle.
The soldiers who returned proudly stated:
“Verdun, I was there.
The others remained there, forever."
In December 1916,
the results are impressive.
Strategically, the Battle of Verdun achieved nothing.
Falkenhayn could say after the war that he had tried to ruin
the French army.
These arguments are seen as the pathetic justification
of a bitter failure.
In the little game of morbid calculations,
Verdun wins the prize for mind-blowing results.
300 days and 300 nights of fighting for 300,000 dead,
162,000 French and 140,000 Germans.
More than 1000 deaths per day.
It is this mass, industrial death that will leave its mark.
On the Verdun front, one in three soldiers was killed or wounded.
After this battle,
the First World War was to last almost two more years.
More bloody battles would take place before the invader was countered.
The land of France had not finished seeing white crosses grow.