The Great War - WW1
Verdun
In the winter of 1915 the attention of the German Chief of Staff, Von Falkenhayn, turned to the French fortress system at Verdun, which had been virtually stripped to its guns and permanent garrisons. By forcing the French high command to defend this historic bastion to the last man, he hoped to 'bleed France white' with guns rather than men.
On the 21st of February 1916 the Germans opened their Assault with a bombardment of unparalleled ferocity. Four days later, the virtually undefended Fort Douaumont fell to a patrol of German Brandenburgers.
During the next three months no fewer than 78 French divisions went into the mincing machine at Verdun, fed down the only road not closed by German artillery, the 'Sacred Way', along which 6'000 trucks passed every day. The French stabilised their defences and the Germans began to substitute men for munitions. Now they were being bled white. By the end of April their losses were exceeding those of the French. The German effort was halted at the end of June when the British bombardment began on the Somme and the Russians attacked on the Eastern Front. In autumn, when the fighting at Verdun seemed to be over, General Robert Nivelle, who had replaced the promoted Patain in April, launched a series of lightning counter-strikes which regained all the lost ground with very few casualties. Small consolation, perhaps, for the 500'000 men the French had sustained in the defence of Verdun.