Verdun 105 (5): Book Review "Verdun 1916 The deadliest battle of the First World War"

On reading the first page of this book I was struck with two aspects. Buckingham commences with a wonderfully vivid and descriptive word-picture of the town of Verdun and surrounding geography. This immediately demonstrates the high-degree of readability of the book, thanks to Buckingham's excellent prose, and also the details of the content, so helpful to understanding the battle and providing useful information for wargaming-related activities.

The remainder of the first chapter is a pocket history of Verdun from settlement in 450 BC to the end of the Franco-Prussian war, including developments of the fortifications and the first two significant sieges of 1792 and 1871. The chapter concludes with a brief history of the Franco-Prussian War, setting up a changed France at the end of the 19th century.

The second chapter picks up from end of Franco-Prussian war and how it influenced French military thinking. Initially in construction of a new defensive line, including the camp rétranche de Verdun, at huge expense; up to 60–78 million francs once it had been updated several times in response to changing military technology. He describes how the French were at the forefront of military technology in terms of machine gun, field artillery and aircraft (although not so in heavy artilllery), but were stuck in a former age (revolutionary zeal and Napoleonic glory mixed with post 1829 ‘tradition’) when it came to uniforms (les pantalons garances) and particularly philosophy. His telling of the ‘battle’ over military philosophy and the victory of exponents of the attaque à outrance (including one General Joffre, appointed in July 1911 as chief of staff of the army making him head of the army in peace and supreme commander in time of war) is astounding in hindsight, but also given developments in other nations. Buckingham concludes, in a salutary note “…an operational philosophy tailored to solve the problems of 1870… attaque à outrance and Plan XVII were set to provide an equally updated method of feeding manpower into the maw” (p. 53).

Chapter three: It is war! From the declarations of war to the mobilisation and initial attacks of French troops. I'd not read nor heard perviously the amazing statistic of how hugely successful French mobilisation was in 1914 with only 1.5% (or about 1 600) failing to report (as opposed to the expected 13%). Buckingham praises Joffre’s organisation for this, but I suspect that the bravado of the populace in supporting the war in August 1914 was also a contributing factor. Initial diversionary attacks by the French into Alsace-Lorraine and Ardennes met with some success, but were soon blunted. We learn of the first of the French general’s to suffer from Joffre’s limoges (his tendency to sack generals who were unsuccessful and transfer to Limoges so as to not have disgruntled generals in Paris). The statistics of the first weeks' fighting for the French; 260 000 casualties, 75 000 dead, 27 000 killed on 22 August. The dead included 4 778 officer (1/10th of the army’s officer corps). This was not, however, really related to attaque à outrance or gaudy uniforms as German casualties were similar. Rather it was due to the killing power of rapid firing artillery, rifles and machine guns and the power of defence over attack. In leading us to Verdun, Buckingham describes the bombardment and capture of Fort Manonviller in some detail, the incorrect conclusion of the French that it was destroyed by artillery, when in fact blown up after capture to prevent use by French—was an important lead in to Verdun (an important note that I had also read in "Verdun 1916: renaissance of the fortress"). Having until  now focussed chiefly from French perspective, Buckingham now switches to introduce German plans for war.

He describes the Schlieffen Plan and its implementation by von Moltke and how it contradicted French expectations, thinking and planning. The logistics of the planned movements are astounding, but, of course, it did not quite go according to plan and was adjusted due to needs in the east and revisions of von Moltke. He briefly covers the Battle of The Marne, race to the sea and establishment of the lines of the western front, pointing out that Germans held the most advantageous geography, leading to wasteful French and British attacks in 1915. The exception to this was the Verdun salient. Buckingham goes back to describing its formation along with the Saint-Mihiel salient. The chapter ends with the German destruction of two of the three railways feeding Verdun, leaving a “30-mile long narrow gauge military railway and parallel road running south-west to Bar-le-Duc as its line of communications. This rather tenuous link was to become more vital than its builders could ever have imagined” (p. 80).

In chapter 4 he describes events leading to the Battle of Verdun. Changes at German HQ after the failure of Schlieffen plan, defensive strategy in the west by Falkenhayn to allow attacks in the east. The fruitless French and British attacks in 1915 in attempts to wrest the high ground. This demonstrated clearly the power of the defence and that, while they would not lose war, Germany could not win by defense alone. So we have the development of Falkenhayn’s plans for attack in the west. The choices of Verdun or Belfort. Settling on Verdun. Buckingham describes the planning and logistics of the operation in great detail which, thanks to his fine prose, makes for easy, interesting and impactful reading.

From chapter 5 on Buckingham describes the battle in detail, comencing with the initial Geramn attack of 21–28 February 1916. As with Kaufmann and Kaufmann in "Verdun 1916: renaissance of the fortress", Buckingham provides an overview of the entire front, but he focusses more on the actions of smaller formations with more detail of sections of the battle. This includes units involved down to regiments, battalions and sometimes companies. This is complimentary and helps with the building picture of the battle that I am getting. His details of the unit numbers of men and locations are particularly useful to understanding events but also in planning any sort of re-fight (once again this compliments Kaufmann and Kaufmann which provided insights into the more detached outlook of the C-in-C (wargamer) for whom the lowest level of formation of note is the division).

Above and below, two of the double-pages of plates showing contemporary and modern images of the battlefield.

Buckingham continues this approach over the remaining five chapters, combining a strategic and tactical overview, with detailed descriptions and plenty of eyewitness accounts/recollections. These cover events of 6 March–29 May, the escalation of the attack to include the west bank (chapter 6); 29 April–1 June, attacks on both banks (chapter 7),; 1 June–8 June the German capture of Fort Vaux (chapter 8);  8 June–12 July final German attacks (chapter 9). The book's final chapter describes from the effective end of German offensive operations, the recapture of Fort’s Douaumont and Vaux in October-November 1916 through to the final recapture, in October 1918, of all territory lost in those ‘five days in February’. Along the way Buckingham tells us of the fate of the generals of both sides post-Verdun; the transfer to lesser fronts and eventual fading into obscurity of Falkenhayn, von Knobelsdorf and Joffre, the eventual reconciliation and interment in Les Invalides of Nivelle and Magnin (despite their leading part in the disastrous Battle of Aisne and mutiny of the Chemin des Dames in May-June 1917) and the sad tale of Pétain’s ‘transformation’ from hero and saviour of '16–'18 to villain and scapegoat of '40–'45. He concludes by telling us of the post-war clean-up (or covering) of the battlefield, establishment of memorials, shrines and visitor’s centres and dedication of Verdun as the World Capital of Peace, Freedom and Human Rights by the United Nations.

The anecdotes/recollections and detail in the chapters provides numerous interesting, moving and/or amazing pieces of information for the reader. A few examples will serve to illustrate this point

This from Feldwebel Karl Garner Infanterie  Regiment 243 on 4th March:

All I have told you, dear mother, is false. We have been badly informed by our officers. We are just maintaining our position on the ground we have won after fearful losses and we must give up hope of taking Verdun. The war will continue for an indefinite period, and in the end there will be neither victors nor vanquished (p. 158).

For the bombardment of Fort Vaux, the Germans gathered 2 200 guns, but

…their performance had been severely downgraded by this point because the gun barrels were approaching the limit of their useful life, having had more shells put through them than the manufacturers envisaged (p. 191).

Despite this,

…the intensity of the German preparatory bombardment did much of the assault troop’s work for them. The 28e Régiment d’Infanterie’s 3e Bataillon manning the Ravin de Bazil sector of the front line was virtually wiped out in the course of the night for example, and the unrelenting shelling reduced the 1er Bataillon to just eight men when it attempted to counter-attack the position from the support trench line (p. 192).

The description of the German attack and eventual capture of Fort Vaux in June is particularly engrossing, awe-inspiring. The combat above the fort and in the tunnels was described in some detail by Kaufmann and Kaufmann, but Buckingham dedicates an entire chapter to it and so tells the tale of this horrible and heroic fight in more detail, with numerous quotes. The word-picture is astounding. Men inside the fort, resisting desperately against attackers also in the fort’s interior, others outside and on top, desperately trying to break-through, while repulsing French counter-attacks. The deliberate calling down of ‘friendly fire’ upon the fort so as to try to dislodge or at least to disrupt the attacker s without. Then, the eventual surrender of the beaten but unbroken, wretched and parched survivors of the garrison who were well treated by their captors, despite the latter having suffered some 2 742 casualties in seven days of desperate fighting to wrest the fort from its 300-odd strong garrison (support from Fort Souville and under-manned relief attempts).

 

A final example on the state of the battlefield not long after the capture of Ft Vaux:

… the physical state of the battlefield, which constant shelling had ploughed into a cratered, milky brown desert bereft of foliage or shade. Water was therefore a key requirement but had to be brought forward by hand with the limitations and risk that entailed; only twenty-eight of ninety-five water bearers from the Bayerische Leib Regiment despatched to Fleury during the night of 23/24 June got through, for example (p. 227).

One of the maps in appendix 1, this showing the front lines before the initial German offensive and the firing lines of the German batteries.

Book includes two appendices. The first contains six maps showing the Verdun front, city of Verdun, initial German offensive with locations of gun batteries and firing lines, supply lines of Verdun, area of the initial German attack indicating the front line on each day, and both the east and west banks with German lines in March. All of these maps are clear and sufficiently detailed, but, amazingly, only the map of Verdun has a scale! The second appendix is a listing of the approximate strengths of different levels of formation in each army, from section/platoon to division. 

Each chapter has a large number of notes on the text. These relate chiefly to the sources used which, in Buckingham’s case, are mainly secondary sources. They are well-respected histories all, but nevertheless indicate that he has not returned to archival or other primary sources himself. 

I began by praising Buckingham’s prose. The book is a most readable account. Unfortunately though, some repetition occurs around the middle of the book. I am not sure whether this is proof-reading fatigue, poor editing or related to the deadline of having it published in the centenary year, but it is both annoying and disappointing. For example, on page 174 we read that “… Nivelle and Magnin started as they intended to go on”, only to be told on page 175 that “Nivelle and Magnin had begun as they intended to continue…”. Then, on page 180, regarding the General Magnin's planning of the (failed) French attack to retake Fort Douaumont in May, we learn that Magnin was “…less than impressed when the fort’s [Fort Moulainville] commander, Capitaine Léon Harispe, respectfully pointed out that the 370 mm howitzers were likely to prove inadequate as Moulainville had withstood two weeks of regular bombardment by more powerful German 420 mm pieces without suffering significant damage. Magnin was reportedly less than impressed with the news.” There are a few other examples in the chapter, though mainly words repeated in a sentence so not as bad, and I did not detect such poor proof-reading in any of the other chapters.

Overall, this is a fine book about ‘the infamous western front battle’ (to cite the promo. on the back cover) and one which provides the reader with copious detail and richness in a most readable account. On opening the book I was surprised to see that the chapters began back in ancient times, but it became clearly evident why Buckingham had provided this level of background and it is in fact critical to the reader’s understanding of the epic struggle of 1915.

I borrowed this book courtesy of the State Library service through our ever-helpful local library. I would not have been disappointed in the least had I purchased a copy.

Rating

Reference

Buckingham, WF (2018) Verdun 1916 : the deadliest battle of the First World War. First Published 2016. Amberley Publishing, Merrywalks, Stroud, England. 320 pp.