The French, faced with impending disaster, quickly adapted new techniques. Unfortunately for them, however, that familiar problem for artillery of both sides in this war – poor and unreliable communications – meant rigid attack timetables had to be followed, leaving little room for initiative and exploitation. However, the French defenders in the forward trenches were often simply obliterated by the ferocity of the artillery and the Germans had little trouble capturing their original objectives. Supporting the theory that the objective was the French Army rather than territorial gain, the attack didn’t involve all available troops: many of the line infantry units remained in their own defences. Leading the assault were assault pioneers, armed with flamethrowers in addition to their usual weapons. The rate of fire was so great it added a new word to the military lexicon: trommelfeuer (drumfire) where the sounds of individual guns and separate exploding shells were lost in one overwhelming noise.
Initially, the German attack was devastating. If so, then Verdun wasone of the few battles designed specifically around the killing power of artillery: arguably the antecedent of the air power theorists of today. There is much heated debate between historians about (the German Commander) Erich von Falkenhayn’s intended strategy at Verdun but many believe he planned a largely attritional battle in which the numerically and technically superior German artillery was to keep killing French infantrymen until the French Army was broken. The French were outgunned almost four to one and the problem was to be exacerbated when the German’s over-ran some of the immobile French heavy guns in the initial advances. (French intelligence failed to notice their arrival in the area!) Ammunition supply would not be an issue as the Germans had stockpiled over two and a half million shells and planned to expend half of that in the first nine hours of the barrage. Given they were attacking a known fortified position, the Germans had included a number of ‘super heavy’ guns, designed from the start to eliminate fortresses: seventeen 305mm and thirteen 420mm howitzers and three 380 mm guns for long range counter-battery and interdiction work. The Germans had amassed over nine hundred heavy guns and over six hundred field guns for the attack.
A German artillery barrage of unprecedented volume and intensity began at 0715 and continued until 1600hrs, heralding the attack by three German Corps against the single understrength French XXX Corps, along the twelve kilometre northern and eastern part of the front: two Corps attacking two understrength French Divisions, the 51st and the 72nd. On 21 February 1916, General Chrétien was proved right to be worried. Chrétien took little comfort from, and did not share, the views of his Commander-in-Chief, General Joffre, that the Verdun region was a strategic backwater, unlikely to be the target of a major German attack as it was of little strategic value to the Germans. Surprisingly, the forts that ostensibly were the principal defences of the entire zone were not under his command: perhaps just as well for his state of mind as they were undermanned with poor quality reservists and had been stripped of many of their guns. He was appalled by the state of the defences on the 65 kilometre front: artillery batteries were not dug in, telephone wires not buried, and barbed wire obstacles were flimsy to non-existent. On 21 January, French Général de Corps d’Armée Paul Chrétien arrived to take command of XXX Corps, part of the garrison of the Région Fortifiée de Verdun or RFV (Fortified Region of Verdun).
#BATTLE OF VERDUN OUTCOME SERIES#
This presentation – French Artillery at Verdun is part of the Royal Australian Artillery Historical Company’s Firepower: Lessons from the Great War Seminar Series and is presented by Doctor Roger Lee.įRENCH ARTILLERY AT THE BATTLE OF VERDUN ‘THE KINGDOM OF THE GUNS’
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