The first world war by Hew Strachan

Author:Hew Strachan [Hew Strachan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Histoire
ISBN: 9781435292666
Published: 2008-05-29T07:00:00+00:00

The embodiment of the defence of la patrie, a poilu (hairy one) literally as well as in name His lined features testify to the army’s reliance on its middle-aged reservists On his chest, he wears the Croix de Guerre

On 21 February, one week after Haig’s meeting with Joffre, at 7.12 a.m., a German 38cm long-barrelled gun signalled the opening of a bombardment by 1,220 guns on a 20-km front straddling the two sides of the River Meuse north of Verdun. In the Bois de Ville, at the apex of the French front line, forty heavy shells fell every minute. Within an hour almost all telephone links between the forward positions and brigade headquarters were cut, and the long-range German guns raised their elevation to seek out the network of fortifications that protected the city of Verdun itself, symbol of France’s resistance since 1914. The German field guns and trench mortars continued firing on the French forward positions. ‘The trees are mown like straw; individual shells disengage themselves from the smoke; the dust produced by the earth that is thrown up forms a fog which prevents us seeing very far’, reported G. Champeaux, an artillery liaison officer with the 164th Regiment of Infantry at Herbebois, on the right of the Bois de Ville. ‘All day, we hunch our backs ... We have to abandon our shelter and go to ground in a large crater; we are surrounded by wounded and dying whom we cannot even help.’29 At 4 p.m., as the light was fading, the German infantry patrols left their trenches, probing for the soft spots in the French defences, and identifying where there was still resistance. That night and into the following morning, amid falling snow, the German artillery renewed its bombardment. On the afternoon of 22 February six divisions attacked on the east bank of the Meuse only, on a front almost half that on which the artillery had opened up. Again patrols preceded the main assault formations, establishing where the artillery had not done its work and where it had. The latter points were hit by groups of storm-troopers, selected infantrymen, equipped with grenades and flamethrowers, and trained to re-establish the links between fire and movement which trench warfare had sundered. The principles had been developed in the front line by Captain Willy Rohr in 1915 and were disseminated throughout the army on Falkenhayn’s instructions: a clear case of tactics being developed from the bottom up. Behind the storm-troopers came reserve sections carrying the equipment to consolidate the ground won. By 25 February, the French 51st and 72nd Divisions, holding the line from Herbebois west to the banks of the Meuse, had suffered over 60 per cent casualties. Lack of artillery support was undermining the morale of the infantry: 150 km of wire were needed for telephone repairs on 21 February alone, and communication failures prevented both the infantry from calling up fire support and the gunners from demanding more shells. At 3.30 pm on the 25th, Fort Douaumont, the heart of the Verdun defensive system, fell without a shot being fired.

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