Verdun

When I think of Verdun, I think of a massive single fort that remained unconquered by the Germans despite four years of almost continuous attack during World War I along the southwestern end of the Western Front. True to our family motto, often wrong, never in doubt — but close!  

According to more than one French person that we have spoken with, "every Frenchman knows Verdun"  "It is a symbol of French strength and sacrifice for France". 

Verdun is a town and outside the northern edge there were / are a series of very large forts. The town was under continuous pressure from the onset WWI with nearly continuous fighting along the railway, rivers, canals and roads leading into this then border town. The forts were always under some sort of pressure but only came under massive attack in 1916 when a major offensive was launched by the Germans. One of the forts, Fort Douaumont, was actually captured by the Germans and held for a considerable amount of time.

For most of theses forts, volume or space was actually underground. Underground cities with power plants, water systems, kitchens, plumbing systems and so on for thousands of men. We visited two of them, Douaumont and de Vaux.  Douaumont endured an especially gruesome siege while under German control. Several large explosions and fires occurred inside the fort during the occupancy and unable to bury the dead, which numbered in the thousands, the Germans cremated some and sealed many others up in the end of one of the tunnels which still exists as a crypt today for the unknown soldiers.

The exposed parts of Duaumont show considerable sign of weather and shock from the shelling. The concrete and steel must have been especially hardened and stronger than what is normally used.

This steel gun emplacement would lower and seal virtually flat to the concrete surface - it took 18 men to raise and lower the turret.  There were several of them across the top of the fort. Both German and French flags now fly on top of the fort. Verdun is now a symbol of French- German peace efforts and there is in town an institute of German -French studies, understanding and so on.

The tops of the fort show continuous shell holes. As is obvious, it was another rainy cold day.

And in the surrounding area there are the preserved remnants of nine abandoned, never rebuilt towns that were destroyed during the war. This is all that is visible in one of the named towns that I could find in my walk over it.

And all through the area it is possible to come upon ruins of gun emplacements or some form of fortifications.

In another abandoned town there was a little bit left of one of the churches, enough to identify it as such. There were actually several destroyed churches like this that we walked through.

In town there were several museums that were extremely well done, with collections of war memorabilia as well as interpretative videos and and replica equipment that a visitor could see.

There were also cemeteries. This one next to the Ossuaries - a huge building with the collected bones of approximately 150,000 dead from the battlefield, from both German and French armies and from the various nationalities that each army had within its ranks.

The is a view of but half the French cemetery, well not quite half, but a good bit of half. Patt and I have tended to walk among these graves reading names and touching headstones. It is quite an experience, just to touch a few and get a feel for the personal nature of what happened.

and to give you an idea of the various nationalities, within the various sections of crosses was this section.

These guys could have been from Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, or some other North African nation that was a French Colony. Note the last line under this man's name.

Total killed at Verdun, something over 500,000. Total wounded 1,500,000. The French Generals set up a system of rotating all French units of the front lines elsewhere and sending them for a period of time to Verdun.  

During the course of the War, Verdun came to stand for the French resistance to Germany.  Other nations awarded the City various honors and declarations of valor.

Then after the failure of the German spring offensive a littler further to the north, another battle took place in 1918, possibly the largest and longest land battle Americans were ever involved in and with the most casualties (according to the on-site American director of the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. This monument is at Montfaucon, has a replica of the Statue of Liberty on top, and looks out over the battle field.

This is a view of the battlefield from the top of the tower where from September 11 and November 11, 1918, the American 1st Army participated in an offensive, the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, that forced a German retreat from the front.

The success was not with out cost. The largest American cemetery outside of the U.S. is here - some 14,246 plots. And of course there are names on the wall in the building across the way of bodies not found.

Verdun is a pretty old city, replete with old walls, churches and gates and such. We enjoyed our time there, staying about 15 kilometers north of town nearer the sites of the war, but coming into town a couple of times. Patt here at one of the old city gates.