Talk:Battle of Verdun

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Contents

[edit] General statements and questions

The horrifying aspect about this battle is that the Germans never intended to overrun Verdun. Their primary goal was to win through a war of attrition. The German calculus was that they had one number of men coming to military age each year and France had a smaller. Eventually, the theory went, after both sides fought for long enough, France would be the first to run out of fighting men.

At Verdun there is now a memorial to the battle. Aside from the graves there, the bones of soldiers who could not be identified were removed from the battlefield and put in a massive Ostuary. Visitors can walk around the outside and see these bones piled inside through low windows.

I don't have a lot of details, how many soldiers' bones are there? How many graves? What were those numbers in the German calculus?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 171.75.4.159 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Battle box?

Most other battles have a box with info but this doesn't. Should it?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.12.24.105 (talk • contribs).

What box? Is it the sidepare? It should be there. It is like a quick reference to what happened, who took part, when and how many versus how many. Dogmanice 23:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Casualty figures and other problems

The article had considerable confusion about the size of the battle and the casualty figures (probably due to the usual way in which total casualties — killed, wounded, prisoner, missing — get reinterpreted as killed only). In particular there was a claim in the opening that the battle caused a million deaths. This seems rather unlikely given the official French figures of 162,308 killed or missing. There was also a claim that it was the bloodiest battle in history, which also seems very unlikely: [1] makes it the twelfth bloodiest in the 20th century. I changed the numbers and claims accordingly.

there was about a quarter million killed in all and a half million wounded.

It would be nice to be able to estimate the maximum numbers of troops on each side in the battle. Gdr 13:31, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

[edit] Outcome

Just wanted to mention that the outcome of the battle differs according to which version of Wikipedia you read (ie German, Spanish, French etc). The Germans think it was a draw while the French think they won. Surprising? Who's right?

The French. At the end, they held the battlefield. The Germans may have been willing to concede this, but the exchange ratio wasn't nearly what Falkenhayn had hoped for. He was dismissed afterwards. I'm having trouble even imagining what the German POV is. Maybe they killed a few more Frenchmen? French army goes whack a year later? French stay on the battlefield, don't go home to make kids, and 24 years later there is no one to defend the Ardennes? Haber 01:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
actually you can add to it the Battle of Somme, the Second Battle of the Aisne (Le Chemin des Dames trauma: French troops sent waves after waves as fodder to get 1 meter of hill that will be lost the day after, this was probaly the biggest strategical disaster for the french army and it revealed the absurdity of war and the inhumanity of the officers- might be some BBC doc outhere check in and you'll get what i mean!), the First Battle of the Marne and the Second Battle of the Marne and yes sadly you have "no one to defend the Ardennes". Shame On You 16:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible changes/additions

A few notable things:

-Falkenhayn was an overly cautious commander, and devoted to secrecy to a tragic degree. As a result, the attacking marshals and generals (notably Crown Prince Wilhelm) were unaware of the "bleeding white" policy, and made plans not for an attrition battle but rather for the taking of Verdun. Falkenhayn thus held onto much needed reserves, confounding the German commanders on several occasions when such reserves would have undoubtedly resulted in huge successes.

-Several times the Germans come extremely close to breakthroughs, notably in the opening days when the French defenders were in utter chaos, as well in the successive taking of Fort Douaumont.

-Although problebly more suitable in the Fort Vaux article, the desperate defense of this fort by the French should be recounted. The Germans had successfully taken the superstructer, but an odd situation developed where the germans had control of the top, and the defenders had managed to hold up under the fort for several days without water; and indeed so stiff was the defense that all that eventually drove them out was the unbearable thirst. The defenders were also reduced to using carrier pigeons for communication, the last of which, mortally afflicted by a German gas attack, barely managed to reach its destination before falling dead. The poor creature was given military honors, the only of its species to have ever done so.

-While the Germans indeed needed to withdraw troops/artillery to the Somme battlefield, as the article states, so too did the French. The desperate defenders of Verdun probably were worse off in this situation. Also, because of Verdun the some 40 divisions of French Haig requested for the Somme offensive was scaled back to just under 20.

There's more, but I'm not entirely sure of the detail or scope this article is meant to convey, and will leave it up to the community to discuss.


[edit] Battle Box Oddity

I notice in the battle box it says that the French had 30,000 troops and suffered 310,000 casualties. That doesn't make any sense.

Only the French could manage that. ;-) Seriously though, looking through a half dozen sites on Google, there are none that estimate the size of the French army at Verdun, it's probably impossible to know exactly how many troops were actually involved in the battle. PBS is a reliable reference for the casualties though http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/maps/maps_verdun.html.
Well the battle was almost a year long, the strenght of the french and german forces most have changed many times. Carl Logan 14:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
"Only the French could manage that" sure and only stupid kids cannot figure the 30,000 are the original troops the first day of the battle. 310,000 being the total loss as the battle did not lasted one day and a battle includes reinforcement waves joining days, weeks or months later after the beginning as they are freed from other cleared fronts. so next time use your brain a little more einstein. Shame On You 17:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect number of casulties etc.

I think that the exact numbers of casulties, killed or wounded is incorrect from various sources because the troops at Verdun were continually rotated. In my history text book (The Great War: Third Edition. Mark McAndrew, David Thomas & Philip Cummins, Published by Cambridge University Press it states:

"it has been estimated that almost the entire French army served in the defence of the town at some time during 1916."

because of this information I conclude that most figures about this battle are estimates.

Yes, I think so. In the Battle of Moscow, the table also indicates an incorrect number of German Deaths, but the numbers are closer. And I don't think German troops deployed 1,200,000 soldiers at the same time in front of Moscow.
Better solution for Battle of Verdun would be the same than Battle of Stalingrad, only with the name of the armies involved. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.57.69.176 (talk) 15:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] They shall not pass

The Battle of Verdun popularised the phrase "Ils ne passeront pas" ("They shall not pass") in France, uttered by Robert Nivelle, but often incorrectly attributed to Philippe Pétain. Can we get a source for this? What I've heard (from a source that I would consider quite reliable - but not available on the web) is that Petain said that.. 74.108.47.35 10:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

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