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French sappers (mining engineers) discover and invade a German mine tunnel. A grim illustration of the battle underground. The sappers tunneling to lay mines beneath enemy positions could sometimes hear each other or come upon opposing tunnels.
Postcard of a German soldier guarding French POWs, most of them colonial troops, the colorful uniforms of a Zouave, Spahi, Senegalese, and metropolitan French soldier contrasting with the field gray German uniform. A 1915 postcard by Emil Huber.
Monument to the 40th Infantry Division at Mort-Homme, Verdun. © 2015 John M. Shea
A German Uhlan huddles on his mount in the snows of the Yser sector in Flanders, site of the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914. His horse's ribs are visible, and even the sun medallion on his czapka is miserable. Uhlans were light cavalry lancers of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian cavalries modeled on the Polish original. The postcard was sent from Paris in September, 1918 to W. Roper in the British Expeditionary Force. Illustration by René Frébet.
The rulers of the Central Powers stumped by Verdun. Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Mohammed V of Turkey, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria puzzle over a map labeled "Verdun." The ink and watercolor drawing is dated March 4, 1916. By R. DLC?The German assault on Verdun began on February 21, 1916 and continued through August.
"The real struggle began on April 7th. Listeners in a tunnel known as C4 announced that the Germans were mining towards them at speed. Mulqueen ordered a camouflet to be blown at once. It was the start of a frenzied contest that lasted for six weeks almost without a break and left indelible memories. Looking back on it in later life, Mulqueen described the period as one full of 'rude shocks. . . . Our men were buried and our nights made sleepless. We were striving to rectify a situation that threatened to overwhelm us.'" ((1), more)
"On April 8 [1916], a big maneuver took place on the Crécy battlefield. I don't know if they wanted to re-create the to-and-fros of the [medieval] battle, but we spent all day tangled up in the forest, tramping through dense thickets, our faces lashed by branches and our legs scratched by brambles.At a crossroads I witnessed an altercation between Captain Cros-Mayrevieille and Lieutenant Cordier, commander of the 14th Company. I caught these words on the fly.Captain: 'I gave you this order.'Cordier: 'No, you didn't. You're lying.'Captain: 'Watch your language.'Cordier: 'What? Watch my language? Watch how I knock your glasses off your nose!'Captain Cros was particularly fond of his glasses, and even fonder of the nose which held them on his face, because he quickly sped off on horseback, to the great joy of all who were watching." ((2), more)
"The strange mixture of beauty and destruction intensified dramatically when the German guns opened up at seven o'clock. Dark smoke from exploding shells and yellow smudges of shrapnel floated over the top of the hill where the morning mist had so recently lingered. It was in fact the heaviest bombardment since the start of the battle on 21 February, and other witnesses described Le Mort-Homme as looking like a volcano in eruption. Captain Augustin Cochin, taking the brunt of the firing on nearby Cote 304, found it the worst ordeal he had ever undergone. He soon reached the end of his tether: 'Like the poor beggars in the Gospel, I pleaded not to die so senselessly, I and my poor biffins, who were driven half mad: round-eyed, no longer answering when I spoke to them.' From his position below, Jubert could make out two zones of fire: one covering the French lines from the crest of Cote 304 along to Le Mort-Homme, and a second barring the likely route by which the French might try to bring up reinforcements." ((3), more)
"By the last week of April [1916] each of the four French divisions had passed out of the 'entrenched camp' and advanced to the frontier, and a couple of British brigades took up positions astride the railway south of Lake Doiran. This move enabled the British, for the first time in this theater of war, to make contact with specifically German units, a sharp cavalry skirmish taking place between two troops of Uhlans and the Sherwood Rangers on April 10. Morale was higher—partly because the hardship of winter was over, but also because the proximity of the Germans suggested a purpose for being in this odd corner of Europe." ((4), more)
"Tuesday, April 11, 1916.The day before yesterday the Battle of Verdun seems to have attained a paroxysm of horror and fury. Along the whole line the fierce waves of the German offensive have been victoriously repulsed.Never before in her history has the soul of France risen to such heights. Sazonov, whose moral conscience is quite unusually sensitive, was deeply moved as he used these words to me this morning." ((5), more)
(1) A camouflet is an underground chamber created by an explosion. Unlike a mining operation designed to affect the surface — creating a crater or collapsing part of a fortress — a camouflet charge was intended to disrupt enemy mining operations. Frederick Mulqueen was commander of 182 Tunnelling Company which had recently moved into the Vimy Ridge sector when the British extended their line to free French forces for the Battle of Verdun. The English and Germans were both building on an existing network of mines in the area.
War Underground by Alexander Barrie by Alexander Barrie, pp. 162, 163, copyright © 1961 by Alexander Barrie, publisher: Ballantine Books, publication date: 1961
(2) Excerpt from the Notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas whose unit was behind the lines in Crécy-en-Ponthieu in Picardy, northern France. The Battle of Crécy fought there in 1346 was an English victory over the French during the Hundred Years War. Captain Cros tried to strip Barthas of his corporal's stripes, in part because of his strong socialist views, but Barthas appealed to his commander, Colonel Douce. After meeting with Barthas and reading his appeal, Douce ordered Cros to reinstate Barthas to his corporal's rank.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, pp. 180, 181, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(3) The German assault on Verdun began on February 21, 1916 with a bombardment by over 1,000 guns northeast and east of the city. The attack northwest of the city, at Mort-Homme and Cote 304, began later. Second Lieutenant Raymond Jubert had been struck by the beauty of the morning of April 8, 1916 and contrasted it with his men, sleeping like the condemned, to be woken only to die. This is the 'strange mixture of beauty and destruction' Ousby refers to in the beginning of his account of the German attack on Sunday, April 9. Despite the ferocity of the attack, the French held.
The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby, pp. 254, 255, copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Ian Ousby, publisher: Anchor Books, publication date: 2003
(4) On October 5, 1915, 13,000 Allied French and British troops landed at the Greek port of Salonica in Greece in a too-late attempt to aid Serbia. Thwarted by Bulgarian troops, and threatened by those of Greece, the Allied forces retreated to and fortified their position at Salonica, if not strengthening their dicey legal grounds for being in the neutral country at all. By early 1917, there were over half a million French, English, Russian, Serbian, and Italian troops on the Salonica Front. Lake Doiran was on the border of Greece and Bulgaria, and was part of the British sector at the eastern end of the front. Uhlans were mounted lancers distinguished by their distinctive headgear, the Polish czapska.
The Gardeners of Salonika by Alan Palmer, page 62, copyright © 1965 by A. W. Palmer, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1965
(5) Germans forces struck mightily at the Verdun sector on April 9, 1916, attacking northwest of the city, at the high ground of Mort-Homme and Cote 304, with their heaviest bombardment since beginning the Battle on February 21. The French held, and on April 10, French General Pétain famously concluded his order of the day with 'Courage! On les aura!' — Courage! We'll get them! Entry for April 11, 1916 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia. Sergei Sazonov was the Russian Foreign Minister.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 229, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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