CHAPTER THREE
VON FALKENHAYN'S ASSAULT
As 1915 drew to its close, the Western allies seemed to be no closer to breaking the German defences of the Western Front by frontal assault, nor to outflanking them at places like Gallipoli. Very major advances had been made in the theoretical science of trench warfare; but practical applications dragged sadly far behind. The total mobilization of industry remained incomplete, and the after-effects of the shell shortages would linger long into 1916. In France the production of heavy artillery was only just starting to come on stream, while in Britain the Kitchener armies of hostilities-only volunteers were only half complete. When they arrived at the front they found inhospitable trenches in the depths of winter, as well as a strenuous policy throughout the BEF of trench raiding and patrolling, in order to ‘blood’ the inexperienced new troops. This was deeply unpopular, since it often seemed to put the men in greatly increased danger for no good tactical purpose; yet from the perspective of the high command it was a necessary reassurance that these unusual soldiers really would fight. Throughout history senior regular officers have always been very suspicious of citizen militias, especially when their training programmes have been improvised on a large scale at short notice.
Despite their widespread unpopularity, repeated trench raids did at least establish a body of expertise for small-unit infantry tactics using the new generation of weaponry. Hand grenades (or ‘bombs’) were especially in evidence in this type of fighting, which spurred the creation of specialized bombing units and schools. Close and accurate artillery support was also much practised and studied, as were personal camouflage, face-painting and the use of soft-soled footwear. Perhaps more surprisingly, the truly vital importance of careful planning came to be understood. This included full-scale ‘dress rehearsals’ on mock-ups of the battlefield: a lesson that would eventually be passed back to the generals running much larger operations during the later phases of the Somme in 1916. It was only unfortunate that they had not already understood it during the earlier phases.
The plan for the spring was to use large sections of the Kitchener armies in the first really big British offensive, which they would share with equally large sections of the French army on the Somme sector, on either side of Albert, and almost as far south as Amiens. This plan was disrupted, however, when the Germans unexpectedly launched an offensive of their own on 21 February, against the French fortress of Verdun. In less than a week they had wrong-footed Joffre and made rapid early advances, drawing in major French formations from other sectors of the front.
Von Falkenhayn's sinister purpose at Verdun was to ‘bleed the French army white’, as he grimly expressed it: he was deliberately accelerating the pace of attrition. By early 1916 it was obvious to everyone that attrition had become a central feature of the war, even though tacticians still dreamed of breakthroughs, decisive victories and mobile operations. Yet attrition could come in two different forms. On one side there was an ancient military idea that one could ‘wear out’ an enemy by forcing him to deploy and keep a large army in the field, but always refusing battle when matters threatened to come to a head. This had been the successful policy of Fabius Cunctator to negate the tactical genius of Hannibal, or of Maria Theresa's armies against Frederick the Great. In German this technique was called Ermattungsstrategie. By contrast, what von Falken- hayn was now embracing was an attempt to ‘grind down’ the enemy by Zermerbungskrieg or, in brutal terms, to kill more of his men than he could stand. This idea, which seemed scientifically innovative in one perspective but horribly primitive in another, depended upon the Germans being able to maintain a favourable ‘rate of exchange’ with the French in terms of casualties given and received.
In the battles of 1914–15 the French had normally been the attackers and had lost many more men than the Germans which, according to conventional wisdom, was exactly what an attacker had to expect. In German eyes, however, this result had less to do with their defensive posture than with their superior weapons, tactics and general military culture. It did not seem to them that an attacker was necessarily doomed to lose more than a defender, even though the great Schlieffen had worked on that assumption and had tried to make outflanking or encircling movements rather than frontal assaults. The first few days at Verdun seemed to demonstratethat it was indeed possible for an attacker to prosper, if he enjoyed superior weapons and tactics as well as the benefits of surprise.
On the other hand von Falkenhayn could scarcely have chosen a more formidable target than Verdun, which was one of the most advanced fortress complexes in the world at the time. In common with Ypres on the allied side and St Mihiel on the German, it was a salient and a bastion that had held out heroically during the phase of mobile war in 1914, thereby shaping the whole layout of the Western Front for the next four years. Together with Arras and Reims it was also a significant city close to the front line that remained in French hands. It therefore held a great symbolic importance that von Falkenhayn well understood. It was politically unthinkable for the French to lose Verdun, so the Germans knew that it would certainly be reinforced heavily if threatened, and that the French army would come crowding into the killing ground that had been chosen for it.
The Germans were also confident that they had sufficient weapons and tactics to do the job. In the first place they still had the superheavy artillery train that had broken so many modern fortresses in August 1914. Admittedly it was now suffering from worn barrels which reduced accuracy, but it could still deliver 210mm, 305mm and 420mm shells (or 8.25 inch, 12 inch and 16.5 inch respectively). These proved ineffective against a select few of the Verdun forts; but against the rest they were as deadly in 1916 as they had been in Belgium in 1914.
At a lower level, a few German assault pioneers had been trained in ‘stormtroop tactics’1 with a full range of trench weapons, now for the first time including flamethrowers. Their initial impact was strong enough, especially when co-ordinated with a mainly successful plan to achieve surprise, and an unprecedentedly heavy hurricane bombardment. During the first three days the French front line was overrun and suffered very heavy losses; yet the German follow- through was not pressed with adequate urgency or reserves. Even so, one forward patrol was allowed to saunter almost unopposed into the mighty Fort Douaumont on 25 February. Douaumont was a crucial point in the French defensive layout, and its apparently effortless capture has often been taken as proof that ‘German stormtroop tactics’ were already decisive in early 1916. In fact this is misleading, since it would be two more years before they became either a widespread or a reliable method of advancing speedily against opposition. And then again, it must be said that Douaumont had been stripped of most of its garrison and armament during the previous twelve months. It had been felt that a fortress over three miles behind the front line would never be called upon to defend itself.
The French would suffer enormous casualties before they finally recaptured Douaumont on 24 October, to the extent that it became hallowed ground, symbolizing the whole sacrifice of Verdun, and indeed of the entire war. In the 1920s a gigantic ossuary and cemetery was built nearby as a focus of national remembrance and pilgrimage, equivalent to the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot cemetery at Ypres for the British. Yet perhaps the more important fact was that after they had captured Douaumont on the fourth day of their offensive, it took the Germans four whole months to advance a further two miles; nor did it greatly help them to expand their attack front to the west bank of the Meuse from 6 March. The French consolidated their positions and called in reinforcements. General Pétain took over command, eventually to be hailed as Verdun's saviour. Of particular note was the heroic defence of Fort Vaux, the next serious fort behind Douaumont, which, although it was smaller, put up a great deal more resistance. At Vaux an isolated garrison held out for almost a week, causing some twenty-seven times as many casualties as it suffered, and in the process inspiring a certain Corporal André Maginot to design a whole new post-war generation of fortifications along the Franco-German frontier.
Another pointer to the future was the Voie Sacrée, the ‘sacred road’ by which the French were supplied. Because Verdun was a salient commanded by German guns on three sides it meant that, apart from one light railway, all the logistics required by her garrison were channelled up a single road. This meant that the maximum possible use had to be made of it, which in turn meant collecting a previously unheard of number of motor lorries, since horsed transport would not be adequate. The trucks would move bumper to bumper in a never-ending crocodile up to the city, alongside a second crocodile coming back. Thousands of men worked night and day to keep the road repaired against the weather and enemy shelling. Altogether it was not only a major achievement of logistics and engineering, but it marked an important milestone in the application of the internal combustion engine to warfare.
The Germans yet again raised the ante on 22 June by introducing a new type of poison gas into the mixture of horror around Verdun: phosgene (or ‘Green Cross’). It could defeat the French gas masks of the time, although that particular advantage would soon be eliminated by the introduction of improved masks. The Germans had also perfected the technology of firing gas in artillery shells, rather than simply releasing it from cylinders in the hope that the wind would carry it to the intended target. This was a much more effective way of delivering gas, especially to silence the enemy's artillery lines. Since none of the armies on the Western Front had yet perfected the science of delivering really accurate long-range fire against the enemy's gun batteries, an indiscriminate area weapon like gas made an ideal stopgap until they did.
THE FRENCH COUNTER-ATTACK
Despite their local surprise with phosgene gas, the Germans' renewed attack soon lost impetus. Joffre intervened to stiffen Pétain's resolve, and it became clear that the French had steadfastly refused to give way. There would be no pushover at Verdun, and General Robert Nivelle's ringing phrase ‘Ils ne passeront pas’ (They shall not pass) entered the international consciousness. For their part the Germans were soon having to divert resources to both the Eastern Front, where General Alexei Brusilov's Russian offensive was achieving a runaway success, and to the Somme, where Haig's great push was imminent. When von Falkenhayn attempted to revive his attacks on Verdun in early July, he found he could make little headway. By that time he was starting to recognize that his offensive had finally run out of steam, and he was soon forced to revert to the defensive. Thus the Verdun operation, which had started more brilliantly than any seen in 1915 (with the possible exception of the German gas attack at Second Ypres), finally ended no more decisively than any of its predecessors. There can be no doubt that it did indeed become the ‘grinding down’ battle that von Falkenhayn had planned; but it soon became clear that the Germans were grinding themselves down almost as much as they were grinding down the French.
In most estimates of the battle as a whole the French continued to lose rather more casualties than their opponents, and particularly while they remained on the defensive. There was thus some evidence to corroborate the idea that, given strong artillery, an attacker could now lose fewer men than a defender. However, it was never a dramatically big difference. After the first few days the attacking Germans did not enjoy any decisive advantage in terms of relative attrition. By the end of the battle in late December, each side is thought to have suffered something like 350,000 casualties, of which perhaps 150,000 were dead or missing, although there can be no certainty about the exact figures.2
Much depended on artillery. At Verdun the initial German bombardment had been heavier and more comprehensive than anything previously seen on either side, and it went far towards creating the early successes. In later days the French in turn would manage to concentrate far more heavy and medium guns than they had in 1915, with ever increasing supplies of ammunition, so they were at last able to fight back on terms much nearer equality. Especially in their great counter-offensives in the autumn and winter of 1916, they finally achieved a virtuosity in this field that represented a very significant advance over their earlier practice. The late October operation to recapture Douaumont was an object lesson in methodical offensive tactics, which clearly showed that the Germans no longer held the upper hand in that department. It also made the name of General Nivelle, who had been in tactical command at Verdun since 1 May and who now organized the spectacularly successful creeping barrages which carried forward the counter-offensive.
The politically plausible Nivelle was almost instantly hailed as the new man. On 27 December he replaced Joffre as French commander- in-chief, jumping over the head of the more experienced Pétain to plan the disastrously over-optimistic offensive for April 1917 which would forever carry his name. Essentially his attack would be on a greater scale than any seen since 1914; but despite all the experiences of 1915–16 it would reject the proven techniques of ‘bite and hold’ tactics, and revert to the now discredited hope of a quick breakthrough. Meanwhile on the German side von Falkenhayn had only too obviously run out of ideas, and had been dismissed on 28 August. The command team of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich von Ludendorff were brought in from the Eastern Front to replace him, and they would remain in post for the remainder of the war. Ludendorff, in particular, would make himself the most powerful man in Germany, so no small part of his country's final defeat must be laid at his door.
If the battle of Verdun marked the ‘changing of the guard’ in the high commands of the two sides, it was also a watershed between the tactical fumbling of the first half of the war, and the more focused and effective tactics of the second half. Before it, the generals had been feeling their way in a very novel military landscape, and usually with very inadequate material means. If they could then be condemned as ‘butchers and bunglers’, they did at least have the excuse that they lacked the necessary resources, and in any case no one else knew any better. There was, of course, plenty of necessary bluster to the effect that everyone in authority knew exactly what they were doing; but in reality they did not and could not possibly have done. After Verdun and the Somme, by contrast, the shape of modern tactics had become considerably less mysterious. New techniques had been tried and proved, such as intense rehearsals before any attack, the widespread use of gas shell, and the creeping barrage. A new generation of middle-ranking officers was also being promoted who had seen modern warfare at close hand, bringing fresh ideas about how it should be tackled. There were therefore fewer excuses than there had been for ignorance or bad practice. The higher commanders now had a pretty good idea of what they were supposed to do, even if they were not always able to carry it off successfully.
Outside the narrow confines of the Verdun battlefield, the various campaigns against Turkey were all in the doldrums, and there was stalemate and trenchlock on the Italian front, where numerous offensives against the Austrians were blocked on the river Isonzo. In the North Sea the long-expected great naval battle between the British and German fleets was finally fought at Jutland from 31 May to 1 June 1916. It ended in a draw, which was deeply frustrating to a British public that was avid for a new Trafalgar; but it was actually still more frustrating to the Kriegsmarine, whose surface fleet could not, after all, break out of the allied blockade. It found itself confined to its bases for the remainder of the war, thereby inexorably increasing both the disaffection of its sailors and the strategic demand for unrestricted submarine warfare.