Victory and Defeat at Verdun

 March 6, 1916

General Falkenhayn, now too invested in the offensive to admit it a failure, launched another massive attack. This time, it was directed at the French artillery bombarding the advancing German forces from the west side of the Meuse River. However, the German forces were unable to reach their objective. Instead, their advance bogged down in their attempt to take a ridge spanning from Le Mort Hommes to Côte 304, which was directly in their path. This highly contested ridge was fought over for weeks until the Germans finally took it in May, after an artillery bombardment so intense, it reduced the height of the ridge by 25 feet in some places. After this short victory, the Germans advanced forward, only to meet the next line of French defenses.

On the allied front, things weren't going too well, either. General Joseph Joffre was not a fan of Pétain's more defensive leniency, and soon decided enough was enough. He knew he couldn't outright dismiss him, as Pétain had become a national hero after his heroic defense of Verdun. Subsequently, Joffre promoted him to a higher position that took him away from the front lines, then bringing in officers who shared in his belief of attack over defense. 

Thus, the battle for Verdun became a bloody cycle of vicious attacks to costly counterattacks once again. Fort Douaumont, a point of pride for the French, was heavily fought over. It quickly turned to a killing ground for French and Germans alike. The battle also spread to the skies where the
first dogfights of the war took place. The French held the upper hand in that arena, while the Germans largely controlled the ground battle. On June 7th, they took the French-held Fort Vaux after a week of brutal fighting within its cavernous hallways. A month later, they advanced as far as just three miles from Verdun. By then, however, their attack had once again stalled.

This time it was the allied summer offensives that were being launched elsewhere. The Russian Brusilov Offensive in June forced the Germans to transfer some of their troops from Verdun to assist at the eastern front, weakening their forces fighting against the French defenders. Then, in July, when the British-led Somme Offensive was launched, keeping the German presence at Verdun went from difficult to impossible. With the German army now severely weakened, it was now France's turn to go on the offensive.

Over the following months, France began to slowly take back the ground lost early on in the German attack. Fort Douaumont was recaptured on October 24th, while Fort Vaux was retaken November 2nd. By December 18th, when the offensive officially ended, the French had nearly advanced to the positions they had held before the battle began. The dead numbered 300,000. The great offensives of 1916 had finally come to an end.

The Siege of Verdun (February 21 - December 18)

The Somme Offensive

July 1, 1916

With the siege at Verdun raging to the south, a new offensive was needed to lessen the strain on the French defenses. Thus, plans for a major assault at the Somme, a somewhat quiet sector of the front, were put into action.

The idea for this offensive on the Somme was first drafted up in December of 1915 at the Chantilly Conference. It was there that allied war strategy for 1916 was discussed. Their plan was to launch major offensives on multiple fronts in order to deny the enemy time to transfer their troops during lulls in the fighting. That strategy was later amended with the opening of the German offensive at Verdun. The allied offensives then became aimed at diverting German troops from their attack on the French. The Somme was originally going to be a French-led offensive with British support. However, with all of the French efforts directed at defending the fortified town, the responsibility fell upon the British to lead the offensive with limited support from their ally.

In preparation for the assault, the British began a massive seven-day bombardment. The plan was to have the artillery turn the formidable German defenses to ruble, then have the infantry move in and occupy them before the enemy could regroup. This, however, was not to be the case. Although over 1,000 guns were set up in preparation for the offensive, they were too spread out along the front to be sufficiently effective. Not only that, but the shells they were firing were hastily manufactured, and about a third of the total 1.5 million shells failed to explode on impact. To make matters worse for the British, the Germans had constructed 20 to 30 foot-deep dugouts all along their lines, so although they were shaken from the heavy bombardment, they were still very much alive when the shelling stopped, and the infantry emerged.

The attack began at 7:30 AM on July 1st. The British charged the German defenses, expecting little resistance. However, what they got was a merciless hail of gunfire. On the north side of the battlefield, the first day of the Somme was one of blood, carnage, and destruction. The British soldiers crossing no-man's-land on July 1st were met with torrents of enemy fire, and fields of barbed wire. The casualties were unprecedented. Nearly 60,000, with over 19,000 of them dead.

To the south, however, the British fared much better. With a greater concentration of artillery fire, as well as French support, the casualties they took were negligible in comparison to those taken in the northern sector. Not only that, but they were able to achieve most of their objectives, breaking through the German front lines and taking the town of Mametz. Because of these successes, and the failures farther north, Allied Command decided to focus their efforts and resources towards the southern the southern sector of the battle. North of the Albert-Bapaume Road, apart from the taking of La Boisselle and advancing as far as Thiepval, almost no further progress was made for the remainder of the offensive.

For the next two weeks, the British and French made piecemeal gains, all the while planning several offshoot attacks to take further German positions and hopefully achieve a breakthrough. No such opening would appear. The latter part of the offensive was made up of a series of costly attacks made by the British on well defended German positions. It was a bloody slog forward, with the Germans and British fighting tooth and nail for every inch.

On September 15th, tanks were introduced to warfare for the first time. Allied command hoped to gain significant ground with this new weapon, but their hopes were short-lived. The British tanks were slow, only moving around five miles per hour, making them tempting targets for artillery. They would also easily break down or get stuck in shell craters. It very quickly became clear that the tank was not going to help the British gain victory at the Somme.

As the offensive continued to drag on, the weather began to worsen. Dirt quickly turned to mud, yet the British attempts to break through the German lines continued. At this point in the battle, they were still trying to achieve some of the objectives set for the first day of the attack. The town of Beaumont Hamel was finally taken on November 13th, but by then, the first snows began to fall. The offensive was at last called off when General Haig saw there was no point in continuing. It was November 18th, and the battle had lasted four and a half months.

In the end, the British did not achieve their main objective of reaching the town of Bapaume. After months of brutal fighting, the farthest they advanced was 7.5 miles, which came at a cost of 1,120,000 casualties on both sides. Like many battles on the western front, despite overwhelming losses, a breakthrough could not be achieved. However, their main other main objective was a success: drawing the German forces from Verdun.

The Battle of the Somme (July 1 - November 18)

The Defense of Verdun

February 21, 1916

As the war on the western front continued to drag on, General Erich von Falkenhayn believed he saw a way to victory: by destroying the French army's will to fight. In order to achieve this, he selected a target: the historic fortress town of Verdun. This town was of special significance to the French. Losing it would be a devastating blow on their morale. Not only that, but Verdun and its surrounding forts represented a salient in the French line; one that threatened nearby German communication lines. Verdun had to fall.

In preparation for the attack, roughly 1,200 artillery pieces were transported to the eastern banks of the Meuse river. It was to be a massive offensive. Unsurprisingly, French intelligence got wind of the coming attack, despite their air reconnaissance being halted by German fighter planes. This early warning, along with General Falkenhayn's decision to postpone the offensive due to adverse weather conditions, gave the French a chance to send reinforcements to Verdun. Despite this, they were still outnumbered by the massive German force.

The attack began on the morning of February 21st with a merciless bombardment that lasted seven hours. 1,200 guns, all firing on the all but helpless French defenses. The result was devastating. Following this relentless barrage, the German infantry began their assault. They went in hard and fast with specially trained troops, using grenades and flamethrowers to clear French dugouts and bunkers of defenders.

By February 23rd, only two days after the German offensive began, the French forward defenses had lost over half their number, and the Germans still continued their onslaught. After a further two days, they reached and captured Fort Douaumont, the largest of the French fortresses surrounding Verdun. General Joseph Joffre knew the French defenses couldn't withstand the German assault for much longer. Verdun had to be saved, and he couldn't do it alone.

On the very same day Fort Douaumont fell, General Philippe Pétain was appointed to command the defense at Verdun. Straying from the conventional belief that the greatest advantage lay in attacking, Pétain opted for an entirely defensive approach. He immediately put a stop to costly French counterattacks, and instead focused on utilizing their artillery to halt the German advance. This was no longer a conventional battle. It was a siege, and one that Pétain was determined to be the victor of.

With the German advance slowed, only two significant dangers remained. The first danger, his army running out of supplies, was quickly remedied by making a road for French troops and supplies to be safely transported into the besieged town. The second danger, his men losing their morale under the fierce strain of almost constant bombardment from enemy artillery, was avoided by instigating strict troop rotation. This made it so no soldier would spend more that eight days at the front.

With these new effective strategies combined, Verdun, which had been deemed indefensible, was now a tough nut to crack. Despite German reserves being sent in to assist in a major attack to break through the French defenses in March, the line held. Verdun was saved. However, the battle was not over yet.

The Battle of Verdun (February 21 - December 18)

The Battle of Loos

September 25, 1915

As the ghastly stalemate on the western front continued to drag on, General Joseph Joffre feared his men would begin to lose their morale in the face of a seemingly endless war. In order to remedy this, he decided it was time to launch a new assault in an attempt to break the German lines. To help him achieve this, he recruited the help of Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. It would be a joint assault, with Joffre's men striking around the towns of Artois and Champagne, while French's men would launch the attack farther north, directed at the town of Loos.

French's attack began on the 25th of September with the release of chlorine gas. This horrific method of war, only recently criticized by the British, was now a means they were all too ready to exploit. Nonetheless, there was one underlying problem with their plan to release the gas: it didn't work. At least to a large extent. The Royal Engineers, who were tasked with releasing the chlorine gas, noticed that the wind wasn't fully blowing toward the enemy trenches. They reported as much to allied command, to which their superiors replied with a go-ahead to release the gas, regardless of the changeable wind. As a result, the gas that was released not only blew into the enemy trenches, but their own trenches as well, resulting in higher British casualties than German.

Despite this unfortunate occurrence, the attack was still launched on
schedule at 6:30 AM. However, because of chlorine gas lingering in no-man's-land, many of the British soldiers charging the German trenches were unable to see the enemy lines. Not only that, but in many places, the barbed wire just ahead of the enemy trenches had not been cut, leading to increased British losses from German machine guns and artillery. Notwithstanding all of this, the British were still able to break through some of the weaker parts of the German line. This was due to numerical superiority above anything else.

Just as it seemed their troubles were over, there arose another major dilemma. The allied troops that were able to break through the enemy lines had no support to continue the attack. The only reinforcements they could receive did not arrive until the next day, and by then, the German forces were able to launch a counterattack and push them back to their own lines. The situation is best surmised by Major-General Richard Hilton:

"There seemed to be nothing ahead of us, but an unoccupied and incomplete trench system. The only two things that prevented our advancing into the suburbs of Lens were, firstly, the exhaustion of the 'Jocks' themselves (for they had undergone a belly-full of marching and fighting that day) and, secondly, the flanking fire of numerous German machine-guns, which swept that bare hill from some factory buildings in Cite St. Auguste to the south of us. All that we needed was more artillery ammunition to blast those clearly-located machine-guns, plus some fresh infantry to take over from the weary and depleted 'Jocks.' But, alas, neither ammunition nor reinforcements were immediately available, and the great opportunity passed."

When the British reinforcements finally arrived the next day (their late arrival due to poor-constructed roads, as well as poor management), the allies were right back where they started. With fresh troops, they decided to launch another attack, but now the Germans were ready for it, and responded with a hailstorm of shells and bullets. It was a massacre. Without artillery support, the British suffered an 80% casualty rate in just four hours. There was such a concentration of mangled corpses, that the German gunners reported feeling nauseated at seeing the countless bodies, and ceased firing to allow the British to retreat with their wounded.

The disaster at Loos was only accentuated with the French failures at Artois and Champagne. In both cases, the French forces made early gains, breaking through the enemy front lines. However, their small victory was short lived when they came up against a second line of trenches with concealed machine-gun posts. Unable to advance any farther under the barrage of artillery and machine-gun fire, the French offensives both ground to a halt. 

In the end, the allies lost over 320,000 men in their combined offensives, advancing only as much as three miles in some places. In others, almost no ground was taken whatsoever. The German losses numbered around 150,000. The failure at the Loos was blamed almost entirely on Sir John French, as he was the one in charge of bringing the British reinforcements to the front at that critical moment. He was consequently dismissed as Commander-in-Chief, and was replaced by General Douglas Haig. Whether or not French was solely responsible for the allied failure at Loos is debatable. However, one can imagine the impact those British reinforcements would have made on the offensive, and possibly the war itself.

The Battle of Loos (September 25 - October 13)

The Second Battle of Ypres

April 22, 1915

It was 5:00 PM. The French Algerian and Moroccan territorial forces were stationed, defending the trenches, at the Ypres salient. All was silent. A yellowish-green cloud slowly appeared across no man's land, gradually gaining size. The French colonial troops watched as the cloud of unknown origin crept closer and closer to their position, leaving them wondering what it could be. As the mist descended into their trenches, their curiosity quickly turned to panic, and was soon replaced by sheer terror. They scattered in all directions, their ranks falling into utter chaos, the men driven mad by the effects of the toxic fumes filling their lungs. "...haggard, their overcoats thrown off, running like madmen, directionless, shouting for water, spitting blood, some even rolling on the ground making desperate efforts to breath." A massive 4 mile-wide gap was opened in the allied lines, and the eager German forces poured into it.

The toxic fumes that created so much chaos in the allied lines was known as chlorine gas. It was manufactured by German scientists to be a tool to turn the tide in Germany's favor. Their preparations for the gas attack at Ypres was slow and somewhat clumsy, however the allies were taken completely by surprise when the attack came. This was due to allied military intelligence not taking the testimonies from German prisoners and deserters seriously. When the gas was released on April 22, no one suspected a thing.

If not for allied reserves brought up to block the Germans from fully exploiting their new-found advantage, they most likely would have won then and there. Instead, they dug in after advancing as far as the villages of Langemarck and Pilkem. The British organized multiple counterattacks, but sustained heavy losses. The most notable of these was in Kitchener's Wood, when the 10th Battalion of the 2nd Canadian Brigade was ordered to counterattack the German forces who were advancing into the gap in the allied lines caused by the first gas attack. This being their first real experience with combat on the western front, they were unprepared, and suffered heavy casualties. In the end, they were able to complete their objective through sheer determination.

The Germans launched multiple gas attacks, and made some
breakthroughs, however just days after the battle had begun, the allies found an improvised way to ward off the effects of the poison gas: a wet pad, soaked with urine, placed over the mouth. Although disgusting, it offered some protection from the deadly gas.

The Germans continued to make gradual gains, and the salient began to shrink. Although the primitive protection the urine-soaked cloth provided was better than nothing, it was insufficient in stopping all the effects of the poison. It was all the allies could do not to simply retreat and leave Ypres to the attackers, but Sir John French would not let that happen. However, some necessary tactical withdrawals were made.

Fierce fighting continued for a following three more weeks, with the Germans inching their way closer to their target, until Ypres lay a mere two miles from them. Then, on May 25, the fighting once again bogged down, and the front stabilized. In the end, the allies were only pushed back three miles. The Germans had lost over 35,000 men, while the British had nearly 60,000 casualties. The French casualties are widely disputed, with it ranging from around 2,000, to tens of thousands. It was clear the poison gas the Germans used as a tool to hopefully break the deadlock only increased the horror of the war, a war that had no end in sight.

The Second Battle of Ypres (April 22 - May 25)

The Battle of Neuve Chappelle

March 10, 1915

Now that the stagnant fighting of trench warfare had gripped the western front, the only goal the allies had was to break the deadlock. In the opening months of 1915, the allied leadership launched multiple offensives, trying to break through the German lines to win a quick victory, still somehow believing that a possibility. However, soon after any breakthrough the allies achieved, the Germans would immediately launch a fierce counterattack to take back their position. This was a constant for almost every allied offensive attempted. 

One assault in particular that followed this pattern was the British attack at Neuve Chappelle, where the objective was to take a tactically significant ridge occupied by the Germans. The attack was led by General Douglas Haig, a highly successful leader who was promoted after exceptional performance as a corps commander during the First Battle of Ypres.

The assault at Neuve Chappelle was well planned and initially well executed. The British, for the first time in history, used aerial photography to effectively map out the German defenses, which were found to be poorly manned and constructed. Haig's men, with their equipment, were moved under cover of darkness, so as not to alert the German sentries. Everything was in place.

The attack began at 7:30 AM, on March 10th, with a massive artillery bombardment. The Germans were taken completely by surprise. They were overrun with extreme ease. In fact, in some places, the attackers barely took any losses taking the German front lines. It seemed everything was going perfectly. Haig envisioned his forces breaking through the rest of the German defenses and flooding into open country. The battle was his! However, there was one small problem.

Communication between Haig and his men had been cut off. Any order he gave took hours to reach them, likewise, any report of the events on the battlefield took just as long to reach him. Not only that, but some of the surviving Germans set up a small number of machine guns at one of the British flanks, inflicting heavy casualties, and causing mass confusion and panic. Additionally, many units lost their way in the difficult terrain of the war-torn battlefield. 

The time they lost milling around in confused masses was time the Germans spent moving their reserves in to strengthen their lines, blocking the British from their goal of reaching open countryside. The Germans then mounted a fierce counter attack. The fighting continued until March 13, when the fighting once again bogged down and both sides went back to hiding in their trenches. It was a disaster. The British had lost around 11,700 men, and they had only advanced a total of one square-mile.

This tragic loss of life was a constant during the allied spring offensives of 1915. Despite all of this, the British and French forces were unable to break through the German defenses in any significant way. The entire western front was still gripped with a savage and inescapable stalemate.

The Battle of Neuve Chappelle (March 10 - March 13)

The Christmas Truce

December 24, 1914

Rifleman H.C. Brazier was manning his position in a British trench, when the Germans opposite him began calling out to him and his companions. They were shouting in English, saying things like "A Happy Christmas" and "English means good". A few of the British soldiers climbed over the parapet  and began making their way towards the German trenches. A group of four Germans met with them halfway, and said they wouldn't shoot at the British on Christmas Day if they did not. This remarkable event, witnessed by Brazier and his British counterparts, happened in many other parts of the western front on December 24 - 25. In fact, some 100,000 British and German soldiers took part in the unofficial truce.

Brazier recounts this miraculous event: "I went out with some more of our fellows and we were met by about 30 Germans, who seemed to be very nice fellows. I got one of them to write his name and address on a postcard as a souvenir. All through the night we sang carols to them and they sang to us and one played 'God Save the King' on a mouth organ.

"On Christmas Day we all got out of the trenches and walked about with the Germans, who, when asked if they were fed up with the war, said 'Yes, rather'.... Between the trenches there were a lot of dead Germans whom we helped bury....

"A hundred yards or so in the rear... there were old houses that had been shelled. These were explored... and we found old bicycles, top hats, straw hats, umbrellas, etc. We dressed ourselves up in these and went over to the Germans. It seemed so comical to see our fellows walking about in top hats with umbrellas up.... We made the Germans laugh.

"No firing took place on Christmas night and at four the next morning we were relieved by regulars."

The series of ceasefires that took place during Christmas of 1914 were nothing short of a miracle. It portrayed, like nothing else, the humanity of the soldiers fighting and suffering in this terrible war. Sadly, when the short cease-fire ended early morning on the 26th, the fighting resumed just as before. 

The Christmas Truce (December 24 - December 25)