#Battle of verdun location series

The Germans had seen the troops assembling from their high positions in Fort Douaumont. On the 25 March the French finally launched their first counterattack. In late march the French had still been yet to move and the Germans were beginning to grow impatient and so had the French high command Petain was finally order to attack as he had now been given a large number of troops and artillery. A war of artillery starts between the two sides with the French performing better than expected but still outclassed by the Germans. They start bombarding the French positions from an uphill position and hit French artillery on the opposing banks. Both sides dug into their new positions while German artillery after three days of slogging through the mud manages to take it positions on the Meuse heights. The battle had gone well initially for the Germans and the French were surprised that they did not continue with their attack. High command decided to stop pushing forwards at this point since they had almost all objectives and to dig in and wait.French artillery battered the enemy positions as they tried to dig in causing casualties. The artillery was taking a while to move forwards and the French were moving into their positions. On the 27th February the snow thawed and the ground turned to a swamp stopping any chance of an advance. The advance continued to move forward steadily until the 27th February where they had reached the ground overlooking the Verdun city. The advance went quite quickly with the Germans advancing deep into French territory moving 8km into Verdun.Fort Douamont was taken amazingly easy as only a small force was defending it. The next day the Germans push forwards hard to try and take the high ground. The Germans suffered only 400 casualties on the first day and the first offensive was a good success. When they went forwards to storm the trenches storm troops were used for the first time to a great success. The first part of the attack was a ten-hour long 800 gun bombardment which stopped at around mid- day to allow an attack to occur. The attack started on the 21st with major German numerical superiority. Though the Germans original plan had been to attack on the 12th February the attack had to be delayed due to bad weather until the 21st when they were finally ready for the war- winning offensive. They also would struggle to supply Verdun due to a lack of transport. They planned to use conventional trench defences but with news of also a Italian offensive they moved troops and resources down to that front. He also believed that large forts were now useless and he stripped countless guns and men from the Verdun forts. The French had know roughly what Falkenhayn had been planning but Joffe struggled to understand what the Germans were planning and failed to believe it was anything more than a diversion. His plan was simple to advance against the east bank of the Meuse wait for the reserves to arrive and then for the artillery to destroy them. He planned to draw the French into a battle they would have to fight and wipe them out.Īfter studying French history in detail he decided Verdun would be France's graveyard. His plan was based on battles last year where the Germans had inflicted disproportionate casualties. By now Falkehayn had given up trying to achieve a break in the deadlock and came up with a new strategy 'bleed France white'. The Germans after victories in the east the year before turned their attention back to the west to defeat the French once and for all. Mass casualties had been taken by all sides with every side wishing for an end. The war had raged back and forth across the continent for years with up and downs in the east and west. In 1914 the Great War had started with the Central Powers of Europe against the Entente. It is finally on 27th of June the Germans counter attack as a large French attack not only fails to retake parts of Verdun but allows the Germans to move forward and attack the French front-line hard causing a collapse and end to the war.

#Battle of verdun location series

With divisions diverted to Italy the German advance against Verdun goes swiftly and they then have time to dig in and prepare and are in late march subject to a series of counter offensives. It involved taking parts of Verdun and then waiting for an eventual counter attack which would be driven off followed by a German attack while in the midst of a French attack. In early 1916 the new focus for the year's campaign was to defeat France. 350,000 dead or wounded and 110,000 captured