Battle of Verdun

The Battle of Verdun, fought on the Western Front in northeastern France in 1916, became one of the longest and most punishing engagements of the First World War. Lasting roughly ten months, it cost the French and German armies around 700,000 casualties between them, a figure that historians treat as an estimate, since counts of killed, wounded and missing vary by source. For France in particular, Verdun came to symbolize national endurance and sacrifice.

By early 1916 the war in the west had settled into stalemate, with trench lines stretching from the Channel to Switzerland. The German chief of staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, sought a way to break the deadlock. According to his own later account, he aimed to attack a place France would feel compelled to defend at any cost, and thereby "bleed" the French army white. Verdun, a fortress city surrounded by a ring of forts on the Meuse River, suited that purpose because of its historical and emotional significance. Some historians doubt that his plan was quite so coldly attritional as he later described, and the question remains debated.

The German offensive opened in late February 1916 with an enormous artillery bombardment, followed by an infantry assault on the east bank of the Meuse. Early gains included the capture of Fort Douaumont, a major strongpoint, which stunned the French public. General Philippe Pétain organized the defense and the supply route known as the Voie Sacrée, or Sacred Way, a road along which trucks carried men and material to the front day and night. French units were rotated through the sector frequently, so that a large share of the army experienced the battle. Fighting ground on through spring and summer around positions such as Le Mort-Homme and Fort Vaux, in a landscape churned into mud and craters.

The German effort lost momentum in the summer, partly because the Allied offensive on the Somme, begun in July, drew away resources and attention. In the autumn French forces under generals including Robert Nivelle and Charles Mangin retook Douaumont and Vaux, and by December much of the lost ground had been recovered.

Verdun achieved no decisive strategic result, and the front line ended close to where it began. Its human cost, however, left deep marks. The French army suffered strain that contributed to the mutinies of 1917, and Falkenhayn was replaced in August 1916. The battlefield is now a memorial landscape, with the Douaumont Ossuary holding the remains of many unidentified soldiers from both sides, and large areas of the former front remain forested and scarred.