![]() And communications was not able to support larger, more mobile armies. Air support was in its infancy and unable to play a major role. Both sides were experimenting with poison gas. Machine guns had also come into use, which magnified the killing potential. One reason for this was that artillery, while much improved and more deadly than ever before, was difficult to direct in an effective manner. In fact, since the end of 1914, the front lines in France had changed remarkably little, despite and tremendous loss of life. Casualties on the Somme managed to exceed even those of Verdun, for a very modest gain of ground. It had been eased in part by the commencement of the other major western campaign of 1916, the offensive by French and British troops on the Somme, just east of Amiens. The bulk of the fighting at Verdun was over by November 1916. According to Alistair Horne in The Price of Glory, “the compressed area of the battlefield became an open cemetery in which every square foot contained some decomposed piece of flesh.” For this reason Verdun today has not only one of the largest war cemeteries in Europe, but a huge “ossuaire” where some 150,000 unidentified and unburied corpses - or fragments of corpses - are interred. Bodies which had been buried were disinterred by shelling, chopped to pieces and reinterred again. As in other First World War battles, nearly 70% of the casualties were caused by artillery. Estimated German and French losses on the Verdun battlefield are 420,000 dead, 800,000 gassed or wounded nearly a million and a quarter casualties. The pockmarked surface of the battlefield, although green again, can still be seen today at the battlefield. Forests had been reduced to splinters, villages had disappeared, and the surface of the ground had been so pockmarked by explosions that shell hole overlapped shell hole until the ground resembled the surface of the moon. The landscape had been permanently altered. By the time the battle settled down in the fall, over 20 million shells had been fired into the battle zone along a front of just 15 miles. Robert Nivelle, counterattacked in October, retook both forts as well as much of the ground lost earlier in the year. The Germans, through flukes more than though military force, were able to capture Fort Douaumont, just outside Verdun, and then laid siege to Fort Vaux, which was eventually forced to surrender in early June from lack of water. In fact the battle bled both sides white, with the French ceding some ground at the front lines, but tenaciously holding on to the city. ![]() Despite the shelling and the bitter fighting which continued at Verdun in 1917, the major battles there (except for the final offensive, which would be supported by the Americans) had already been fought the year before.īeginning in February 1916 the Germans had launched a major offensive with the objective of either taking Verdun, which they felt would have a devastating effect on French morale, or by “bleeding France white” through a battle of attrition.
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