Thirty-one years ago on my first trip overseas I visited Verdun in France. Specifically to see the battlefield of Verdun, where von Falkenhayn sought to bleed the French white. From 21 February 1916 to 18 December 1916, 9 months, 3 weeks and 6 days I’d written my senior’s honor thesis in history on Verdun and felt it was right to visit.
Fallen Lion of France at the Verdun Battlefield
I’m not going to go into too much detail. You can read about it in its fullness here. I only want to add a few things. First, this was the first time any general attempted a strategy of attrition. Von Falkenhayn knew he could not break through the ring of forts surrounding the Meuse Heights and the medieval city of Verdun. His aim was to take the heights and dig in and then take the strategic defensive, forcing France to regain her honor at any cost. He succeeded at forcing France’s hand, certainly. In the end his strategy was a failure and he was dismissed by the Kaiser and replaced by Ludendorff and Hindenburg. Needless to say that over a million men–French and German–died fighting in the trenches along and up the heights and into the forts Douamont and Vaux trading them back several times. 50 German divisions squared off against 75 French.
Fort Douamont on the Meuse Heights
If the Miracle on the Marne was the most important battle of the 20th century–and it was. To paraphrase Churchill, it was the French’s finest hour. Then the Battle of Verdun was their last stand. And to a man they stood and died in the mud, the filth, the lice, the decaying bodies and the artillery shells shattering overhead all day long, every day for almost a year.
When I visited in 1994 I walked from the city of Verdun all the way up the heights along the single supply route the French called the “voie sacrée” – the sacred way. It was ten miles there and ten miles back. A long day. I walked through trenches, both forts Douamont and Vaux and at the end of the day I walked, rather solemnly through the hallowed arches of the Ossuary, which holds the bones of over 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers. There was no entrance fee for anything and I was free to roam just about anywhere I wished, except when I saw signs that declared, “Non! Munitions non explosées!”
Ossuary of Verdun
This morning I watched a video made by a young French woman of the battlefield and its environs. A lot has changed. There is a new, modern museum, and to walk the grounds and see the museum cost about $20. The young woman does an admirable job of walking the viewer through the most important parts of what I now guess is a monument park of sorts. She’s tactful, sincere, respectful and cognizant of the sacrifice the men made for her. She honors them in her own way. I was pleased to see their sacrfice is still remembered. (As some of you may recall, I had the good fortune to befriend an American WWI veteran in the 1990s before he passed away. So, WWI is important to me.) She also pays her respects to the Germans who fell during the battle (part of the site was re-dedicated in the 50’s after the Franco-German rapproachment after WWII). She even visited the graves of the doughboys–American boys–who fought in the area in 1918.