Battle of Verneuil

“ The dangerous proximity of the Germans was apparent. At the time that Stubbs viewed the battlefield the armies of the Kaiser held a goodly portion of these crests, though the battle of Verdun was less than two weeks old.
An intermittent bombardment was in progress from Fort Tavennes, Fort Soueville, Fort St. Michael and Fort Belleville, which were barking steadily and giving off jets of black smoke. The German cannonade sounded like a distant roar. The shelling of Verdun was continuing. ”

“ The deep thunder of the guns, the tumult of fighting men, have never ceased to sound at one point or another along those five hundred miles for nearly two years. Verdun, with all its passion and slaughter, its six months’ wrestle of guns and infantry, is a mere episode in this tremendous siege-battle; a score of Waterloos and Marengos have been fought during its progress, and have scarcely found a record.
The most brilliant chapter in British military history before the present war was certainly Wellington’s campaigns in the Peninsula. ”

“ It is not often in France that one sees so striking a landmark, which must have been vastly more significant still in those battleworn years of the middle ages when Verneuil was for so long an important post on the frontier between France and the territory held by the English. ”

“ In the manner in which he conceived the trooper, Vernet stands between the Classicists and the moderns. He did not paint ancient warriors, but French soldiers: he knew them as a corporal knows his men, and by this respect for prescribed regulation he was prevented from turning them into Romans. But though he disregarded Classicism, in outward appearance, he did not drop the heroic tone. He always saw the soldier as the bold defender of his country, the warrior performing daring deeds, as in the “Battle of Alexander”; and in this way he gave his pictures their unpleasant air of bluster. ”

“ General Pétain declared in his order of the day dated the 10th, “the furious attacks of the soldiers of the Crown Prince broke down everywhere. The infantry, artillery, sappers and aviators of the 2nd Army vied with one another in valour. Honour to all. No doubt the Germans will attack again. Let all work and watch, that yesterday’s success be continued. Courage! We shall beat them!”
[Pg 17]
General Nivelle, taking over the Command of Verdun Army in May, 1916. ”

“ For us the battle passes in silence, the noise of one's motor deadening all other sounds. In the green patches behind the brown belt myriads of tiny flashes tell where the guns are hidden; and those flashes, and the smoke of bursting shells, are all we see of the fighting. It is a weird combination of stillness and havoc, the Verdun conflict viewed from the sky.
Far below us, the observation and range-finding planes circle over the trenches like gliding gulls. At a feeble altitude they follow the attacking infantrymen and flash back wireless reports of the engagement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Long live France!” Nevertheless, the fort continued to hold out and refused to surrender. On the night of the 6th reinforcements tried to relieve it and reached the moat of the counter-scarp, but after losing nearly all their officers they were compelled to fall back. The Germans gained a footing in the ruins of the superstructure, and eventually succeeded in driving the French out of the casemates by lowering baskets of grenades with retarded fuses and by using liquid fire and poison gas. Driven back into the underground passages, the French continued the fight with grenades and bayonets. ”

“ THE HARVEST OF THE FUTURE Vaux is lost, for the time being, but Vaux will be regained, and the battle of Verdun is being won day by day. Day by day the meaning of the Verdun battle grows clearer. The infantryman who only knows his trench mates is an atom of a vast army distributed over all the fronts: his blood and sweat will mingle in history with the blood and sweat of his unknown and remote brothers. A scrap of disputed territory, which seems to the men involved an end in itself, is really nothing but a point in the vast shifting front where the two great forces of the world are at grips. ”

“ For neither modern tactics nor modern cannon admit of the prominence of the individual as it is to be seen in Vernet’s pictures. The soldier of the nineteenth century is no longer a warrior, but the unit in a 98 multitude; he does what he is ordered, and for that he has no need of the spirit of an ancient hero; he kills or is killed, without seeing his enemy or being seen himself. The course of a battle advances, move by move, according to mathematical calculation. ”

“ In reality, in the course of eleven months, eighty-two and a half German divisions (nearly 1,800,000 men) , took part in the attacks on Verdun, which they had expected to crush in a few days with ten to twelve divisions. The contrast between this formidable effort and the meagre results obtained is striking, and is a splendid testimony to the courage and tenacity of the defenders.
This battle, by using up the best troops the Germans could put into the field, had serious strategic results for the enemy. ”

“ To defend oneself against them is a sign of war mania; to prevent them from robbing is to be oneself a robber.”
The German historians of a later day will find matter for indignation in the breakwater at Verdun, against which so many waves of their soldiery have dashed themselves in vain. Let us hope at least that our own historians, in recounting the superhuman efforts put forth in a carefully planned resistance—destined, by the way, to be changed into an offensive in the course of the Verdun battle—will enhance among future generations their pride in being sons of France. ”

“ THE ENEMY’S EVIDENCE I have spoken, without hiding anything, of the hard life led by our soldiers in the region of Vaux, the terrific assaults and the appalling bombardment that they had to endure, the difficulty of obtaining rations and reliefs, the lack of shelter, the lack of water, the lack of sleep. But in war it is not enough to suffer, to resist, to hold out. One must strike the enemy and drive him back. The task of the army of Verdun is to wear out the German Army before Verdun. Does our artillery fire work serious havoc in his ranks? ”

“ Meanwhile, the balloon was happily approaching the earth; but when one is falling, the danger is as great at a hundred feet as at five thousand.
"Do you recall the battle of Fleurus?" resumed my companion, whose face became more and more animated. "It was at that battle that Contello, by order of the Government, organized a company of ballonists. At the siege of Manbenge General Jourdan derived so much service from this new method of observation that Contello ascended twice a day with the general himself. ”

“ On the 14th, after a five-hours bombardment with shells of every kind and size, sometimes at the rate of 120 a minute, the enemy’s Infantry attack on Mort-Homme began. The Germans took and kept Hill 265, but the French Infantry and Zouaves, after a magnificent defence, held their ground on Hill 295—the key to the entire position—and in night counter-attacks drove back the assailants to the N.W. counter-slopes. ”

“ On the 10th, Corbeaux Wood was taken by the Germans and the French withdrew to the line Béthincourt, Mort-Homme, south of Corbeaux and Cumières Wood and Cumières village. The battle continued in the village and in front of Vaux Fort, strongly held by the French. The enemy temporarily ceased his massed attacks. In reality their offensive had failed, while their losses in men and munitions had been exceptionally heavy. On March 10th Joffre was able to say to the soldiers of Verdun: “For three weeks you have withstood the most formidable attack which the enemy has yet made. ”

“ The choice of this battlefield was perhaps less paradoxical than has been said. For the German High Command to take Verdun was to crush the French right, capture an important strategical position and secure an immense moral effect. Moreover, the enemy feared an Allied offensive and was disturbed by the continued increase of their strength in men and material. To forestall this offensive was to make it fail and keep the initiative of the operations. Moreover, the Germans desired to impress the public opinion of the world, which had begun to doubt their ultimate victory. ”

“ But meanwhile the French fleet was concentrated off the coast of Hispaniola, and until it should be dispersed the commanders dared not undertake any operations against the Spanish Main. It is true that France and England were not at open war; but this, as shall presently be seen, was no reason why the fleets and armies of the two nations should not fight each other. When, therefore, the fleet at last sailed from Jamaica on the 7th of March, Vernon was fully resolved to attack the French if he should fall in with them. ”

“ On one of those foremost wagons was scrawled in big chalk letters: "Nach Verdun!"
"Nach Verdun!" that was the Leitmotiv underlying all the intense military activity that filled the town and, as they shot out beyond the houses, the countryside also. Every road was choked with columns of marching infantry, with endless trains of wagons, of limbers, of ambulances. Even cavalry was in evidence, riding with tall lances and saddle-hung rifles on wretched-looking horses. "Nach Verdun!" The German colonel, though he warily gave no information, could talk of nothing else. ”

“ The huge numbers of troops which the Germans were compelled to engage brings out very clearly the immensity of their effort and the different phases of the struggle.
The first and shortest phase (February 21st–March 1st) was that of the surprise attack by a large concentration of specially trained troops.
To the six German divisions which had been holding the Verdun sector since the Battle of the Marne, were added nine full divisions, rested and trained for attack. ”

“ At the beginning of the battle, the first French lines were on the left bank, from Avocourt Wood to Forges, via the slopes in front of Malancourt and Béthincourt; on the right bank, from Brabant-sur-Meuse to Fromézey, via Haumont, Haumont Wood, Caures Wood, La Ville Wood, Herbébois, Ornes and Maucourt. On the morning of February 21st and simultaneously with a bombardment of the entire French front, the enemy began the systematic shelling of Verdun, whose last residents were evacuated on the 25th at noon. ”

“ The eyes of the country are on you. You belong to those of whom it will be said: ‘They barred the road to Verdun.’ ”
[Pg 14]
THE GERMAN GENERAL ATTACK ON BOTH BANKS OF THE MEUSE. The Central Attack which was to capture Verdun and force back the French wings failed. The Germans, caught on the flank by French artillery posted on the left bank of the Meuse, attacked alternately on both sides of the river. The struggle continued desperately at Mort-Homme, Hill 304, Cumières, Fleury, and as far as the approaches of Souville Fort—extreme limit of the German Advance in June, 1916. ”

“ From March 15th to the end of December, 1916, the Germans launched at least fifteen particularly violent attacks against Hill 295, sacrificing countless men and huge quantities of munitions. On March 16th, 17th and 31st, and April 9th and 10th, French Chasseurs and Infantry repulsed the enemy in terrible hand-to-hand fighting. On April 22nd, 23rd and 24th the French 40th D.I., by its resistance and brilliant counter-attacks, broke up as many as three enemy attacks in one day, and re-established the French front as it was on April 5th. ”

“ While a member of Parliament, he declared that Porto Bello could be taken with only six ships of war, and when put in command of six vessels and sent to the West Indies, he took the city in one day, with the loss of only seven men. The English people were wild over the victory; Vernon's birthday was celebrated in London with public illuminations; and 130 medals were struck in his honor. With a larger fleet he attacked Cartagena, but failed to take it. In the invasion of the Pretender, Vernon's fleet had command of the coasts of Kent and Sussex. ”

“ Meanwhile Admiral Vernon's squadron in the West Indies attacked Porto Bello, and having blown up the defences returned triumphant to Jamaica. This piece of work was undoubtedly well done, but the exploit was magnified in England as though Vernon had captured [59] the whole of Spanish America. When a nation goes to war with a light heart it must needs exaggerate the most trifling success; and Vernon became the hero not only of the hour but of the whole war, once again with disastrous results. ”

“ As the Federal columns advanced without hurrah or battle-cry, their entire lines were swept by a heavy artillery fire, which poured canister and shell and solid shot into their ranks from the front and on both sides with frightful results. The ground was so thickly strewn with dead bodies as seriously to impede the movements of renewed attack. These repeated assaults in such good order caused some fear on the part of General Lee that they might eventually break his lines, and he conveyed his anxiety to General Longstreet, but his fears proved groundless. ”

“ By sacrificing men and material on a lavish scale the enemy counted on rapidly overcoming all obstacles, level the French trenches, crush the centres of resistance under a deluge of 17-inch, 15-inch and 12-inch shells, isolate them with barrage fire from 8-inch guns and poison-gas shells, [Pg 9] and occupy the destroyed positions—such were to be the German tactics. ”