List of World War I memorials and cemeteries in Verdun
This is a list of World War One cemeteries and memorials in Verdun.
List of World War I cemeteries and memorials at Verdun
One French Lieutenant at Verdun who was later killed by an artillery shell wrote in his diary on 23 May 1916
"Humanity is mad. It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad"
The Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun |
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Verdun was a fortified French garrison town on the River Meuse, 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Paris and in December 1915, General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of Staff of the German Army, decided to launch a major attack against it. The attack started on 21 February 1916, and a million German troops, led by Crown Prince Wilhelm, were to be faced by 200,000 French defenders. The following day the French was forced to retreat to their second line of trenches and by 24 February had moved back to their third line and were only 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from Verdun.
By early 1916 one could divide the Western front into the section from the North Sea to the Somme which was defended by French, British and Belgian forces and the section from south of the Somme to the Swiss border which was defended solely by the French. This section was subdivided into the Northern, the Eastern and the Centre sectors and were under the command of Generals Foch, Langle de Cary and Dubail respectively. The front line at Verdun was in fact around the edge of a salient, similar to those at Ypres and St Mihiel and this would have influenced Von Falkenhayn's decision to choose Verdun for this major attack; with a salient one can launch converging attacks from two sides. Another reason for the choice of Verdun was that it was cut in half by the River Meuse which would make it harder for the French to defend their position. He would also have been aware that the forts of the "Verdun Fortified Region", as the French called the area, were now badly organised, under-equipped and under-manned, this because the French High Command had lost faith in the virtues of permanent fortifications after the Germans had crushed and taken the forts of Liège, Namur and Manonvillers in 1914, and had stripped them of many of their artillery pieces and men. In 1915 many French troops and guns were moved from Verdun to the Champagne front. Finally Von Falkenhayn would have been aware of the advantage that the Germans were given by the major communications network in the Verdun region which involved seven railways and also the proximity of the fortified camp in Metz whilst conversely the French had only three supply routes into Verdun. These were the railway from Sainte-Ménehould, the small, narrow-gauge "Meusien" railway and the road from Bar-le-Duc to Verdun. The Sainte-Ménehould railway was to be cut off early in the battle. Verdun was also important for psychological reasons. On the German side, 14 February 1916 had seen the Kaiser issue a proclamation to his troops glorifying the imminent attack "I, William, see the German Fatherland forced to go on the offensive. The people want peace; but to establish peace a decisive battle must conclude the war. Verdun, the heart of France, is where you shall harvest the fruit of your efforts..." The morale of the French army at the time was a factor and Marshal Pétain was to write "Verdun's was not just a big fortress in the East intended to block an invasion, it was the moral boulevard of France" Verdun was France's soul. General von Falkenhayn's initial objective was to take the town in order to clear the way for an invasion of the area beyond Verdun and it is highly unlikely that he anticipated waging a battle of attrition as has sometimes been claimed, with talk of the intention being "to bleed France white" and it is much more likely that it was the failure of his first attempts to break through the French lines and the battle's overall conditions that were to lead to a strategy of "wearing down the enemy". At the beginning of the battle the Germans concentrated a huge amount of artillery in front of Verdun. These included the 5th Army's twenty-five 305 and 420mm mortars plus three 380mm navy guns and 1,200 cannons. The Germans were poised to release an unprecedented bombardment on Verdun. The first German attack lasted from 21 February to 5 March 1916, and took place on the right bank of the Meuse. At dawn on 21 February the Germans unleashed their guns and early that evening around 80,000 German soldiers stormed the French positions. The troops did not believe that the French troops could have survived such a fierce artillery bombardment but were to be surprised at the ferocity and strength of the French resistance. By 25 February, the French front line appeared to break and the Germans were able to advance and take Fort Douaumont. The Germans were now just 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Verdun and Joffre gave General de Castelnau full powers and sent him to Verdun to prevent a complete breakdown of the French lines and a catastrophic retreat. On 24 February he had ordered the right bank of the Meuse, north of Verdun, to hold out- "Any officer who under the present circumstances gives an order to retreat will be court-martialled" Joffre also replaced the existing Verdun defensive organisation with his 2nd army, which he put under the command of General Pétain, who was given the task of organising the defence of Verdun. Pétain based his headquarters in Souilly, 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Verdun and quickly looked at the possibilities of reinforcing the forts, issuing an order which forbade surrender in case of an enemy attack. He also mobilised the artillery, which was to relieve the infantry by concentrating its fire on the German positions but also play a defensive role by crushing the enemy's attacks. Throughout the Battle of Verdun, Pétain never stopped saying "the artillery must give the infantrymen the impression that it supports them and that it is not being dominated" He also tried to address the problem of access to Verdun and the means of replenishing supplies. The road from Bar-le-Duc to Verdun now became known as the "Sacred Way" and in order to keep 2,900 lorries moving on the road in both directions every day, Pétain had quarries opened up alongside it. Teams of territorial troops and Indochinese auxiliaries ceaselessly threw shovelfuls of stones under the wheels of the lorries, which passed by at the rate of one every five seconds. Some 70,000 tonnes of stones were used without interrupting traffic. Replenishing Verdun's supplies on the Sacred Way was a huge undertaking: every day the 300 officers, 8,000 men, 2,000 cars, 200 buses and 800 ambulances of the Commission Régulatrice Automobile carried an average of 13,000 men, 6,400 tonnes of equipment and 1,500 tonnes of munitions, consuming two tonnes of grease, 20,000 litres of oil and 200,000 litres of fuel. The little "Meusien" railway also supplied the 2nd Army. Every day the Saint-Dizier regulating station sent 21 trains of foodstuffs, 7 of munitions, 9 of equipment and 2 of troops to Verdun, as well as evacuating 5 to 7 trains of wounded. Altogether, 119,000 railroad cars travelled the route between 21 February and 1 June. All of this foiled Falkenhayn's plans and on 5 March 1916, he halted his offensive on the right bank but the French were given little time to celebrate and now the Germans were to launch a massive attack on the left bank of the Meuse. Now the battle of attrition was under way. From 5 March to 15 July, the Germans remained in strategic control of the battle by regularly alternating their offensives between either the right bank or the left bank of the Meuse. On the left bank, German troops took Goose Hill, Avocourt, Malancourt and Béthincourt in their 6 March attack. On 9 April, the German army dug in on the northern flanks of Hill 304 and Mort-Homme. On 1 May, Joffre replaced Pétain as commander of the Second Army by General Nivelle and made Pétain head of the group of armies of the Centre and some have argued that he wanted to distance Pétain from making direct daily decisions. The Germans were still in control of the terrain and thwarting the French army's deep counter-thrusts, such as the one on 22 May, when General Mangin's 5th Infantry Division stormed Douaumont Fort but did not have the resources they needed to take it and taking heart from that failure, the Germans pursued their offensives and began a five-day siege of Fort Vaux Fort which they totally encircled. The Germans were ruthless and after Major Raynal's men ran out of munitions, food and water, with some being so thirsty that they were said to have drunk their own urine, the Germans attacked them with gas and flame-throwers and the fort surrendered on 7 June. For the rest of the summer the Germans launched various offensives and in June they took Thiaumont, the village of Fleury and the Froideterre defence works They were now just three kilometres from Verdun and the French had to send in a steady stream of reinforcements to hold the front but these encounters undoubtedly exhausted the 5th German army who had lost nearly as many men as the French. On 11 July the Germans launched what was to be their last offensive but this failed in front of Souville Fort and now Falkenhayn had to move regiments and artillery to the Somme, Russia and Romania. The German's exhaustion at Verdun and troop transfers to other fronts caused them to halt their offensive in mid-July and General Ludendorff was to describe Verdun in his memoirs as "a gaping wound that ate away at our forces". In early September, Nivelle and Pétain developed plans to break through the German positions on the right bank and focused on strengthening their artillery power, in particular by using French 370 and 400mm howitzers for the first time at Verdun. The French pounded the right bank area from the 20th to 23 October and at dawn on the 24th, four divisions commanded by General Mangin stormed Douaumont and the colonial infantry regiment of Morocco and parts of the 321st Infantry overran the ruins and held onto them. A week later the Germans evacuated Fort Vaux, which was then reoccupied by the French and on 15 December a new thrust pushed the German front to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north of the Côte du Poivre-Louvemont-Bois des Caurières-Bezonvaux line. By late 1916 French troops had taken back the ground lost since 21 February on the right bank of the Meuse north of Verdun and the town was relieved.[2] There are many French and German cemeteries throughout the battlefield and several memorials and some of these are described here. |
Fort Douaumont
Fort Douaumont |
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Verdun was ringed by 19 defensive forts and Fort Douaumont was both the largest and highest of them. These forts had protected Verdun since the 1890s but having seen the Belgian forts fall to the power of the German 420 mm (16 in) Gamma guns the French High Command judged Fort Douaumont and the other Verdun forts to be less important that they were previously thought to be, and they were, as a consequence, often left seriously under-manned and many guns and munitions in them were moved elsewhere.
It was no surprise then that on 25 February 1916, Fort Douaumont was entered and occupied without a fight by a small German raiding party comprising only 19 officers and 79 men. This caused the French High Command great dismay and the Fort was only recaptured by three infantry divisions of the French Second Army, during the First Offensive Battle of Verdun on 24 October 1916 after which the Verdun battle slowly ground to a halt[3] |
Fort Souville
Fort Souville |
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Fort Souville, located to the south of Fort Douaumont, played a most important role in Verdun's defences and was never taken by the Germans. As part of the Thiaumont-Fleury-Souville ridge it dominated the combat zone and for the Germans, possession of the Fort would have literally put Verdun in their sights.
It was Captain Gustave de la Taille who built this fort and gave it the name of the Loiret village, Souville, in which his ancestor, Bertrand de la Taille, groom to the Lord of Souville, had been laid to rest in 1319. Fort Souville was 388 metres above sea level, the same altitude as Fort Douaumont, and built between 1875 and 1879 from limestone covered with 3-5m of earth. The ditches that surrounded it featured built-in scarps and counterscarps, flanked by caponniers armed with revolver cannons and 12 tonne breechblock cannons and in 1889, the whole thing was wrapped in barbed wire 30m thick. It was one of the Séré des Rivières belt's "first generation" forts, like those at Belleville, Saint Michel and Tavannes. In 1888, the gunpowder magazine was reinforced with 2.5m of concrete and a 1m thick layer of sand. Connecting passageways were built, as well as six 18m by 5m shelters, each protected by an 8m thick layer of blocks made from rock, marl, and loose stones. The fort housed the district's telephone exchange, consisting of two underground lead circuits that connected it to Fort Douaumont and the fortification at Thiaumont, plus two overhead cables linking other forts and the Verdun citadel exchange. Before conflict began, there were plans to establish a communication system for clear days, using lights, with the fortified town of Longwy, more than 35 kilometres (22 mi) away. Criss-crossing alleys formed a communication network that can still be seen all over the fortification and this ensured that relief soldiers could reach the fort and the injured could be taken to safety. The network of alleys began both at the Marceau barracks (one of the entrances to the battlefield) towards Souville and at the village of Fleury, then headed for the river and the village of Vaux (the Carrières alley), the Vaux Régnier, Fumin woods and Fort Vaux. The fort was badly damaged in 1916 and it was restored in 1917.[4][5] |
Fort Vaux
Fort Vaux |
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Fort Vaux became the second Fort to fall in the Battle of Verdun but unlike Fort Douaumont, it was fully garrisoned when it was attacked on 2 June 1916, by German assault troops and its defence was marked by the heroism and endurance of the garrison, including Major Sylvain-Eugene Raynal. Under his command, the besieged French garrison fended off repeated German assaults, including fighting underground from barricades inside the invaded corridors of the fort. The Fort finally surrendered on 7 June but was recaptured by French infantry on 2 November 1916. |
The Douaumont Ossuary
The Douaumont Ossuary |
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The Douaumont ossuary[7]) is a memorial containing the remains of soldiers who died on the battlefield during the Battle of Verdun in World War I. It is located in Douaumont, France, within the Verdun battlefield and has been designated a "nécropole nationale", or "national cemetery".[8]
Imagine the hilt of a medieval broad sword plunged into the earth and that is Douaumont! The ossuary is a memorial containing the remains of both French and German soldiers who died on the Verdun battlefield. Through small outside windows, the skeletal remains of at least 130,000 unidentified soldiers of both nations can be seen filling up alcoves at the lower edge of the building. On the inside of the ossuary building, the ceiling and walls are partly covered by plaques bearing names of French soldiers who fell during the Battle of Verdun plus a few names of those who died fighting during World War II, as well as for veterans of the Indochina and Algerian Wars. In front of the monument, and sloping downhill, lies the largest single French military cemetery of the First World War with 16,142 graves. It was initiated in 1923 by Verdun veteran André Maginot, who would later create the Maginot Line. The ossuary was officially inaugurated on 7 August 1932 by French President Albert Lebrun. The architects of the ossuary were Léon Azéma, Max Edrei and Jacques Hardy and George Desvallières designed the stained glass windows. The tower is 46 meters (151 ft) high and has a panoramic view of the battlefields. The tower contains a bronze death-bell, weighing over 2 metric tons (2.0 long tons; 2.2 short tons), called Bourdon de la Victoire, which is sounded at official ceremonies. It was offered by an American benefactor Anne Thornburn Van Buren, in 1927. At the top of the tower a rotating red and white "lantern of the dead" shines on the battlefields at night. The cloister is 137 meters (449 ft) long and contains 42 interior alcoves. Inside the cloister are 18 shelters each holding two granite tombs and each of these tombs represents an exact section of the battlefield and underneath, burial vaults hold the bones of the unidentified dead. The setting up of the ossuary was organised by a committee led by the Bishop of Verdun who collected subscriptions not only throughout France but internationally and around the outside of the building you can see the coats of arms of all the cities which donated money towards it. In the gallery below are some further photographs of the ossuary and cemetery. [9] |
The Soldat Du Droit
The Soldat Du Droit |
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This memorial comprises the sculpture of a reclining soldier, the work being entitled "Le Soldat du Droit" (The Soldier of Justice). It is dedicated to Andre Thomé, a French politician, who was killed at Verdun on 10 March 1916. His parliamentary occupation meant that he was not obliged to serve in the army but he volunteered nonetheless and was to make the ultimate sacrifice. |
The monument at Mort Homme and that to the 40th French Infantry
The monuments at Mort Homme | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This quite haunting memorial is the work of the sculptor Jacques Froment-Meurice and was erected by the veterans of the 69th French Infantry. The skeleton of a French soldier is draped in the flag for which he has sacrificed his life. He carries the flame of victory and the monument is Inscribed "Ils n'ont pas passé" ring out the declaration of resistance. The inauguration ceremony took place on 10 September 1922, in the presence of Generals Nivelle and Berthelot, Boichut, the Governor of Verdun and Mon.Taufflieb, the senator for the Bas-Rhin, who had commanded the 69th. 100 metres from this monument is the granite monument to the soldiers of the 40th French Infantry. A photograph is shown in the gallery at the end of the article. Both monuments stand on Cote 304 which was yet another piece of high ground that had to be fought over and the memorials are dedicated to more than 10,000 French Soldiers who were to perish there. The hill was first attacked by the Germans on 20 March 1916 and again on 9 April 1916. Neither of these two attacks were successful but finally on 29 June the Germans took the hill and less than two months later the French were able to re-take it. On the right hand side of the memorial to the 40th are listed the divisions who fought here in 1916 and on the left those divisions who fought in 1917, when further fighting took place. Jacques Froment-Meurice was born in Paris in 1864 and died in 1947. He was a pupil of Chapu. In 1925 he worked on the war memorial at Saumur.[11] Memorial to Moslem soldiers
Memorial to 137th Regiment of Infantry/The Bayonet Trench
The Memorial remembering Fleury. The village that died for France
Mémorial de Verdun. The Verdun museum
The wall of the Israelites at Fleury-devant-Douaumont
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