Battle of Verdun
The Start of the Battle of Verdun 11/08/2022
We arrived in Verdun last night and checked into the Les Jardins du Mess hotel, our home for the next two nights. This 19th century structure was originally the officers’ mess for the French Army. It suffered severe damage during the Battle of Verdun. After the war it was rebuilt and repurposed. It is an elegant hotel, located on the Meuse River, in the heart of the center of Verdun. A nice place.
We began the day by touring various sites where the Germans began their assault on Verdun. This battle was fought from February 21 to December 18, 1916. It was the longest battle of World War I. The French suffered between 379,000 and 400,00 casualties and the German casualties were between 336,000 and 355,000. The German strategy was to “bleed France white”. This was not to be the case. We visited the location where the first shots were fired on the French defenses, commanded by Lt. Col. Emile Driant. He commanded 1200 Chasseurs (light infantry). The first shell landed at 0700 on 21 February and the fight began. The Germans felt this fight would be over in a couple of hours. The Chasseurs were outnumbered and outgunned, yet they held the Germans off for two days. When the fight ended, the Chasseurs had 100 men left alive. Lt. Col. Driant was among the KIA. By stopping the German advance for two days, it gave the French enough time to bring reinforcements into the Verdun area and avoid a breakthrough by the German army. It is called the “Battle of Bois des Caures”. A very significant battle in WW I’s longest battle.
We went back into Verdun for lunch and then spent the afternoon touring Fort Douaumont and the Verdun Ossuary. The ossuary is a memorial containing the remains of both French and German soldiers who died on the Verdun battlefield. It contains the remains of at least 130,000 unidentified combatants of both nations. We entered Fort Douamont and learned the history associated with the fort. It changed hands several times in 1916 between the French and the Germans. There is a crypt inside the fort that holds the remains of a number of German soldiers that were trapped during an artillery barrage. You can read about this all day long, but until you walk the ground, you cannot imagine the magnitude of the battle and what the conditions were for the combatants.
We went back to Verdun, where we had a group meal at a very nice French restaurant. A good night’s rest and tomorrow we will travel to the Meuse-Argonne battlefield. Cudos to our tour leader, James White, and our historian Steven Girard. They make history come alive.
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