Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened . This is the 239th instalment in the series .
4 February 2025: Germans Capture Fort Vaux
The Frenchfailureto recapture Fort Douaumont in May 1916 was accompanied by more devastating losses , as the Germans lastly wrested command of Cote 304 and Mort Homme , two key hills on the west bank of the Meuse , amid unspeakable gore . self-command of these two James Jerome Hill gave German artillery the fall on French fort around the bastion of Verdun , sort out the way for a new offensive on the eastern savings bank .
On June 1 the Germans unleashed “ Operation May Cup , ” an all - out offensive along a comparatively narrow-minded three - mile - recollective front , target the last French defenses standing between the Germans and the côtes de Meuse , or “ hills above the Meuse ” – their originalobjectivein round Verdun . From this strategical position look out on the town their big artillery would threaten the bridge over the Meuse and the citadel of Verdun itself , which in turn would either squeeze the French to throw off away their remaining reticence in ineffectual counterattacks or abandon the symbolic fortress . Either way of life , if the German Fifth Army come through in capture the stock running approximately from Fort Tavannes to the small “ ouvrage ” or defensive whole kit and boodle at Froideterre , directly north of Verdun , victory would be theirs ( see mapping below ) .
The first main obstruction was Fort Vaux , a small but formidable Gallic redoubt which had managed to hold off repeated attacks over the first three months of the battle ( below , an airy survey ) . Shaped like a trapezoid and just a quarter the size of it of its counterpart Fort Douaumont , Fort Vaux had been stripped of most of its heavy weapon before the battle began , leaving the lonesome 75 - millimeter gun enclosure to be demolish by an tremendous 420 - mm German shell which set off demolition charges ( foolishly left in place after a program to abandon the fort was delete ) . As a final result Vaux was protect only by machine guns and it garrison of infantry , swollen to 650 valet including injure being regale in the infirmary . Although still basically intact , the structure had also suffer intemperately from German blast over the grade of the battle , including seven breaches in various places , all plugged with sandbags .
Memorial - Verdun
Operation May Cup meet with surprising success from the root , as the Germans blasted away two out of three entrenched stead protecting the approaches to the fort and arrive beneath its walls on the evening of June 1 , fully three days out front of schedule ( top and below , German soldiers outside Fort Vaux ) . An anon. French military officer manning one of the entrenched positions recalled the initial bombardment :
As the Germans fleetly overwhelmed the first two entrenched position , Captain Delvert , commander of the beleaguered power prevail the third and last entrenched position , recalled conditions there as the obscure defenders push on in desperation :
Delvert ’s troops hung on heroically throughout the battle , but were unable to stop the German onslaught follow the loss of the other two entrenched positions . Over the seven following days , from June 2 - 8 , Gallic and German troops contend for control of Fort Vaux in even more nightmarish experimental condition , as combat eventually extend into the narrow-minded , claustrophobic subterranean passageways of the garrison itself .
Great War picture
The plan of attack on the fortress itself began with a thunder bombardment in the early dawn of June 2 , with German gunman dropping around 2,000 shells an time of day on the fortress ’s stocky ground superstructure , dry moat , and protective outside gallery , whose inward - facing artillery puss allowed defenders to cut down down any attackers who tried to cross the fosse . Just before dawn , battalions from the German 50thDivision staged their first attacks on the picture gallery , scaling the tops of these structure and extemporise various method to expel the hard - to - reach defenders , include lowering bunch of hand grenades in front of the hired gun slit and fitting flamethrower with foresightful , curved subway to direct the flames inwards .
The Germans stand enormous casualties during these audacious attacks , with one French officer delineate the scene :
After finally clearing the gallery of their defender , the Germans concern the roof of the fort ( once covered in pasture , now a mass of soil churned up by thousands of shells ) and looked for way into the principal bodily structure . Knowing the Germans would detect their mode in eventually the French commandant , Major Sylvain - Eugene Raynal , began preparing the garrison ’s last - ditch defenses , order his troops to construct a series of sandbag barriers along the fort ’s main underground corridors , behind which Gallic machine gun crews could shelter ( below , one of the interior passageway of Fort Vaux ) .
Musee Armée
On June 3 , as the German attackers struggle their way in to the fort ’s central structure , both sides descended into hell , or something like it , with the ferocious combat inside the fort ’s reward concrete passageway . The atmospheric condition were beyond imagination , even by the horrifying criterion of the First World War : in increase to auto guns and rifles , both face made openhanded use of grenades in the narrow corridors , blow out humanity ’s eardrums and often killing them through shockwaves alone , and the Germans employed flamethrower to get off fire down outlet and through doorways , burning French ( and occasionally by accident German soldiers ) alive and filling enclosed spaces with toxic smoke . The fort was filled with bushed body that quickly began to decompose in the summer heat , and the French were now shell the Germans occupying the roof relentlessly . Capping it all off , Raynal discovered that the French garrison , now immobilize in the fort , was running out of water : it turn out the caliber on the fort ’s cistern , showing a full piddle supply , was broken .
Still the Germans pressed on , accept monolithic casualties in return for advancement measured in individual - dactyl meters , as the Gallic simple machine artilleryman push tooth and nail for every sandbag emplacement in the corridor . mindful that Raynal ’s scout troop were in desperate straits , French commander Robert Nivelle order a easing effort to lift the siege , but the 124thDivision failed to break through the German units protect the besieging strength . On June 4 , Raynal dispatched his last carrier pigeon to Gallic headquarters , calling for another contiguous relief effort ; the pigeon flew home , despite being swash in a German attack , and die after delivering its message ( it later became the only raspberry embellish with the Legion of Honor ) .
Now the H2O position was becoming vital . By June 5 , there was approximately a half - pint of foul pee left per humanity , which Raynal duly dispense to his troop , follow by a message send by heliograph ( a mirror used to meditate the sunshine ) to neighboring Fort Souville that their conflict was pass on an end . On June 6 , another Gallic relief cause failed miserably , give the defenders of Fort Vaux into disconsolateness . Finally , on June 7 Raynal decided the gigue was up and send out two officers under a white flag to negotiate the fort ’s resignation ; Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm , commander of the German Fifth Army , was so impressed with the Gallic resistance at Fort Vaux that he award Raynal ( who ’d recede his brand during the battle ) with another police officer ’s blade , in a great show of respect . On June 8 , the last French attack to retake Fort Vaux ended in complete , ignominious failure , as compound scout troop from Morocco were wipe out by German gun before they even go to their start positions in the French trench .
The dip of Fort Vaux brought the Germans one large step nigher to the citadel of Verdun , and the be days would be some of the most serious for the French since the fight began . The Germans would make their final thrust to victory in late June , with the circumstances of France hanging in the balance .
Meanwhile ordinary soldiers on both face at Verdun retain to endure circumstance which defy easy description . By now literally ten-spot of one thousand of stagnant body carpeted the background across the field , and continual shelling made it almost impossible to bury many of them ; others were hastily interred in shell holes or the sides of the trenches , where they disintegrate in full view of their surviving compatriots .
In June 1916 one French soldier near the village of Thiaumont wrote in a missive home : “ … I stayed ten twenty-four hour period next to a man who was chopped in two ; there was no way to move him ; he had one wooden leg on the parapet and the sleep of this body in the trench . It stank and I had to chew tobacco the whole time to weather this torment … ” And on June 19 the French ship’s officer Henri Desagneaux pen in his diary :
Enemy shelling meant that supply disruptions were now the rule , rather than the exception , leave soldier without food or weewee for Day at a time . concord to one German soldier , desperately athirst men wassail rainwater from shell holes tainted by decompose corpses , with predictable results – most notably dysentery , which could be fatal :
As always , some of the worst effect were inward , as men subjected to nonstop battery began to miss their nerves , if not their minds . A Gallic ship’s officer tried to add up up the experience of enduring shell after shell for weeks , even calendar month at a time , until the dupe reversion into benumbed impassiveness :
See theprevious installmentorall entry .
