French folding postcard map of Verdun and the Meuse River, number 9 from the series Les Cartes du Front. Montfaucon is in the upper left and St. Mihiel at the bottom.

Les Cartes du Front

Verdun et Côtes de Meuse

Echelle 1:32,000

Routes

Chemin de fer

Canaux



Maps of the Front

Verdun and the Hills of the Meuse

Scale: 1:32,000

Roads

Railways

Canals



1. - Les Flandres

2. - Artois, Picardie

3. - Aisne, Champagne

4. - Argonne et Meuse

5. - Lorraine

6. - Vosges et Alsace

7. - Route des Dame et Plateau de Craonne

8. - Région de Perthes

9. - Verdun

10. - Somme et Santerre

11. - Plateau d'Artois

12. - Belgique - Flandres



A. Hatier. Editeur.8.Rue d'Assas, Paris.



Outer front:

Correspondence of the Armies

Military Franchise

Other views: Larger, Larger, Back

Tuesday, February 22, 1916

"Bombardments by the German heavy artillery, during February 21st and the night of the 21st-22nd, preceded the charge of the shock divisions. Nowhere before, on any front, in any battle, had anything like it been seen. The Germans aimed to create a 'zone of death,' within which no troops could survive. An avalanche of steel and iron, of shrapnel and poisonous gas shells, fell on our woods, ravines, trenches, and shelters, destroying everything, transforming the sector into a charnel field, defiling the air, spreading flames into the heart of the town, damaging even the bridges and Meuse villages as far as Genicourt and Troyon. Heavy explosions shook our forts and wreathed them in smoke. It would be impossible to describe an action of the kind. I believe it has never been equalled in violence, and it concentrated the devastating fire of more than two million shells in the narrow triangle of land between Brabant-on-Meuse, Ornes, and Verdun."

Quotation Context

Description of the beginning of the Battle of Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, the extraordinary bombardment of February 21 and 22, 1916, and the infantry assaults of the 22nd. French commander-in-chief Joffre charged Pétain with the defense of Verdun on February 26.

Source

Verdun by Henri Philippe Pétain, pp. 58, 59, copyright © 1930, publisher: The Dial Press, publication date: 1930

Tags

1916-02-21, 1916-02-22, 1916, February, Verdun, Petain, Pétain