Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 84

achieve through diplomacy what it could not militarily. The Germans would return captured territory and,
in exchange, Russia would leave the Entente.9
Falkenhayn had developed and tested a new theory of warfare for the German army by 1916. Given a
two-front war, facing superior resources, and unable to
achieve strategic penetration, the German army would
organize and equip itself for violent, firepower-based
surprise attacks on narrow fronts. The military effect of
these attacks would inflict disproportionate casualties
on defending and counterattacking forces, draining the
enemy’s ability to conduct military operations. Unable
to resist any further, the enemy would capitulate and
negotiate a limited settlement that offered more—and at
a lower cost—than could be obtained militarily.

Verdun
For Falkenhayn, Britain was Germany’s bête noire.
In his words, England sought “the permanent elimination of what seems to her the most dangerous rival”
and “Germany can expect no mercy from this enemy,
so long as he retains the slightest hope of achieving his
object.”10 The problem, of course, was that Germany
had no way to get to Britain directly. However, without
its continental allies, Britain had no means to invade
Germany. Thus, the German war aim in 1916 was to
split France from the Entente by making the costs of
war intolerable. As Falkenhayn put it, “[i]f we succeeded in opening the eyes of her people to the fact that in
a military sense they have nothing more to hope for,
that breaking-point would be reached and England’s
best sword knocked out of her hand.”11 The trick then,
was to induce that sense of helplessness by getting the
French army to batter itself to death.
The French salient near Verdun seemed to offer
an ideal venue for this project. An artifact of the 1914
fighting, it jutted from the hills around Verdun toward
the northwest, past the line of forts anchored by Fort
Douaumont, and into a series of woods and low hills
bisected by the Meuse River. Thus, the French position was exposed to German forces on three sides and
could only be reinforced from the rear, not the flanks.
Moreover, Verdun held an important place in the
French imagination, and they could be expected to go
to great lengths to retain this object of symbolic importance.12 Finally, French forces around Verdun had
been thinned out to support efforts elsewhere on the
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front, and so were especially susceptible to Falkenhayn’s
firepower-based methods.13
In keeping with his theory of warfare, Falkenhayn
prepared fighting positions and massed artillery for the
battle but did not move his formations to their final
positions until days before the assault. He launched
diversionary attacks elsewhere along the Western
Front, and he kept his exact intentions secret from the
senior commanders who were to lead the offensive.
These initiatives were successful. Unfortunately for
the Germans, severe weather delayed their attack for
ten days just as the troops moved to their jumping off
points, giving the French valuable intelligence about
the location of the attack. The French were thus able to
advance the remediation of Verdun’s defense that had
begun just weeks before and to begin moving reserves
into place.
Due to Falkenhayn’s penchant for military deception, though, it was not clear to the French high
command that Verdun was the main effort until the
attack began on 21 February 1916. As it had in the east,
the concentrated, echeloned, and carefully allocated German artillery decimated the French defenses,
firing one million shells on the first day of the battle
alone.14 The overwhelming infantry assault, employing
flamethrowers for the first time, routed the front lines
and the reinforcements that were thrown piecemeal
into the battle. And, with luck, Fort Douaumont was
left virtually unmanned and was captured easily by a
small German detachment. In the face of the German
onslaught, the French seriously considered abandoning
their positions on the east side of the Meuse River and
giving up the fort system around Verdun.
However, as brutally as it began, the German
advance stalled. The artillery that was to move up in
support of the advancing infantry was bogged down
in the wet fields that it had just plowed with its initial
bombardment. The infantry came under withering
shellfire from French batteries firing from reverse
slopes of hills along the west bank of the Meuse, where
French observers had a clear view of German positions.
Local French counterattacks inflicted severe casualties,
and the French line began to receive steady reinforcements along a single gravel road that came to be known
as Voie Sacrée—the Sacred Way.
Falkenhayn’s failure to fully communicate and
receive the support of his subordinate commanders
July-August 2016  MILITARY REVIEW