![]() ![]() Statistics differ as usual but we can reckon for both sides on at least a total of 714,000 losses (killed, wounded and missing). The whole battle was an unprecedented slaughter. The battle can be divided into four phases. Verdun was the longest battle of the First World War running from February to December 1916 – a total of 10 months. This made Verdun an almost ideal target even more so because the trenches there were in a poor state or in some cases non-existent. GHQ had decided after the rapid fall of the Belgian forts in 1914 and the great need of artillery for the French army in the field that forts were of no great use. In 1916 the fortress of Verdun was stripped of its guns and the forts manned only by token crews. The city lies on both banks of the River Meuse in North-eastern France. Most people know the battle of Verdun started on the 21st February 1916. The following article is based on the recollections of General Caloni and recollections of the authors’ grandfather’s experience of Verdun. Lanoe Hawker, VC: Pilot, Innovator and Inventor.The Cotton-Mill Worker, the Stockbroker and the Flammenwerfer: The 8th Battalion Rifle Brigade at Hooge.Every man for himself: The Loss of HMS Formidable 1 January 1915.Forever Friends: Laurie Denison and Clifford Thompson.FILM REVIEW : All Quiet on the Western Front.Tolkien’s “bitter winnowing” and the War Memorial at St.Addison Barnes Perrott Hadden MC - South Irish Horse in the First World War.Sussex Women at War: Iva Mary Harland and Fanny Amelia Kennaird.A bloody war or a sickly season: The East Yorkshire Regiment’s Regular Officers of August 1914 and the Great War.Hobkirk DSO as GOC 14 Australian Brigade, July 1916 Through a Glass Darkly: The Appointment of T/Lieutenant-Colonel C.J.'The Grave by the Roadside' : Remembering 2/Lt.A Cockney Soldier and the Great War: Corporal William Charles Blumsom MM.In the years that followed, the word Verdun came to represent carnage and heavy losses. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter ![]() And, despite its pivotal place in the history of World War I, it ended with the French and German armies in much the same position-at least on a map-that they had held before the whole thing started. The region had also been physically devastated. Though some historians have argued that what we call “Verdun” was in fact a series of battles with elements that not only filled 1916 but also stretched before and after that year, the importance of what Verdun means to 20th-century military history is hard to debate.īy Britannica’s estimation, about 300,000 were killed during the course of those brutal months, out of a total of 400,000 French casualties and 350,000 German. The idea wasn’t wrong: France was in fact willing to go to extreme lengths to repel the enemy at Verdun, successfully pushing back German advances at great cost. ![]() The idea was that France would spend too much effort on that goal, weakening its position and helping the German effort. With its strategic location, the German military determined that Verdun would not only be worthy of attack, but that French forces would go to great lengths to defend it. 18, 1916-100 years ago this weekend, after what TIME later called “the crudest ten months of World War I.” By that point, it had become the Great War’s longest fight. Fighting began at Verdun, named for the French town that was its focus point, on Feb. The 10 photographs seen here all bear the same basic place and date information: Verdun, 1916.īut that information hardly does justice to the battle they depict. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |