VERDUN - The Nécropole Nationale de Douaumont - The Final Results of the Battle of Verdun 1916

  • by Pierre Grande Guerre
  • •
  • 24 Mar, 2019
  • •

Years of visit: 1986, 1994, 2005, 2009

A visit to the Nécropole Nationale de Douaumont and the aftermath of the Battle of Verdun.
We start at the Jewish Memorial, which stands in front of the Ouvrage de Thiaumont. 
"DEDICATED TO THE JEWISH FRENCH. JEWISH ALLIES, AND FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS. - 1914 - DIED FOR FRANCE - 1918"
The Ossuary
 
Next we arrive at the height of the Ossuary.
Some photos of the early post war period, when the cemetery and ossuary were still under construction.
The post war provisional Ossuary. The statue, called "Resignation", has been sculpted by Mme. Girardet. Nowadays it guards the interior, next to the entrance, to urge the visitors to silence.
"17 September 1927. - Solemn transfer from the provisional Ossuary to the definitive Ossuary with 52 coffins representing the 52 sectors and sub sectors of the battlefield of Verdun"

In 1927, as you can see on the period picture, the construction works were not yet finished. The Ossuary of Douaumont was created by the architects Léon Azéma, Max Edrei, and Jacques Hardy. It has been officially inaugurated in 1932.
 The Ossuary houses a cloister with a length of 137 meters, divided in 2 wings, and a chapel at the centre, a third wing directed north-west (photo; left). 
At the rear, near the ground, are small windows, which give you a view inside the mass graves, where the remains of French soldiers are piled up. The true face of the glory of war.
The tower is 46 m. high.
We visit the interior. At the entrance, left: the statue of "Resignation".
The cloister runs along 18 niches with 46 mass graves of 14 m3 each with the remains of 130.000 unknown soldiers.
The right wing.
The names of these soldiers are written on the wall above the graves, naming also the 52 areas around Verdun, where the soldiers fell. 
The Ossuary overlooks this large cemetery.
Before we visit the cemetery, some conclusions about the Battle of Verdun. 

The Final Results of the Battle of Verdun 1916
The Battle of Verdun lasted 10 months, from 21 February to 21 December 1916. The battle was one of the greatest battles in history, but alas, to my opinion, a terrible, unnecessary waist of lives. On both belligerent sides the generals were flooding in the troops without even thinking of another possible better strategy. As in all wars: many mistakes and blunders were made with disasterous effects.
 
The Battle has to be abandoned by the German Army for 2 reasons: 
1. The Russian General Brushilov launched a massive offensive on 4 June 1916 at the Eastern Front across the Austrian Hungarian Border and the line between Lemberg and Brest Litovsk. 
2. The British Expeditionary Forces and the French Forces launched a combined offensive near the river, the Somme,
on 1 July 1916. 
These two offensives forced the Germans to spread their divisions and auxiliary troops to the Somme and to the Eastern front.
 
Battle tactics
Général Petain used this new airplane, the Nieuport 17, a high-tech invention of March 1916, for his counter offensive in 1916 around Verdun. The actions of "Le Suber Bébé" ("The Super Baby") created the legend of the French Flying Aces, like Charles Nungesser, who shot down 43 enemy airplanes, piloting a Nieuport 17.
The French were also starting to gain terrain in the autumn by a new battle tactic of "curtain fire", or rolling barrage, and by using airplanes. The French recaptured the Fort de Douaumont (24 October), Fort de Vaux (2 November), and their immediate surrounding areas.
After 21 December the battle petered out, and there were no more fights of any historic importance in this sector of the front until 1918.
The battle may have died out, but night patrols, night raids, combats, and artillery bombardments were still going on until the end of the war.
Casualties after the Battle
After 10 months of battle the historians now estimate: 
During the Battle the Germans deployed 1,250,000 soldiers. 143,000 German soldiers were killed and 196,000 German soldiers were wounded.

The French deployed 1,140,000 soldiers. 163,000 French soldiers were killed, and 216,000 French soldiers were wounded. In the French Army there were many men of African colonial origin, counted here as French soldiers.

The National Cemetery
 
The National Cemetery of 144.380 m² contains 15,000 graves. But in fact it contains more than 16,100 soldiers, buried here.
Tele view from the Cemetery to the Fleury Memorial. The Memorial stands on the location of the former train station of the destroyed village of Fleury.
The Muslim graves are directed towards Mecca.
The memorial, dedicated to the Muslim soldiers, was inaugurated in 2006.
Colonial Muslim soldiers played a decisive role in recapturing this area in October 1916.
"DEDICATED TO THE MUSLIM SOLDIERS WHO DIED FOR FRANCE"
Next to the Muslim Memorial lies the memorial for André Thome. The reclining soldier is sculpted by Alexandre Descatoire, and it also called "Le Soldat du Droit" (The Soldier of Justice). Thome was a social democratic deputy of the department Seine-et-Oise in the French House of Deputies.  
"ANDRE THOME DEPUTY SECOND LIEUTENANT OF THE DRAGOONS, ON HIS REQUEST DETACHED TO 147TH INFANTRY BRIGADE KNIGHT IN THE LEGION OF HONOUR. CROIX DE GUERRE. KILLED DURING THE BATTLE OF VERDUN ON 10 MARCH 1916 AT THE AGE OF 36 YEARS." (The shadow on the text is of an overflying bird).
Last view from the André Thome Memorial at the Nécropole Nationale.
In the next Verdun impressions  I will also pay attention to the several German war cemeteries. For now, we continue to examine more and interesting sites at the large Verdun battlefield.
 

AISNE - Chemin des Dames

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 29 Nov, 2019

De Vanceboro Bridge Bomaanslag

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 14 Nov, 2019

Inleiding: Franz Von Papen & Werner Horn; schaker en pion

Onlangs stuitte ik in een oud boek (1) van 1919 op een opmerkelijk verhaal over een Duitse Luitenant, die in begin februari 1915 een half geslaagde bomaanslag pleegt op een spoorbrug over een grensrivier tussen de Verenigde Staten en Canada. Ook al staat de bekentenis van de dader, Werner Horn, deels in het boek te lezen, de naam van zijn opdrachtgever zal Horn blijven verzwijgen. Na wat verder zoeken vond ik ook de naam van Horn’s opdrachtgever, Franz von Papen, een van de aangeklaagden van het latere Neurenberg Proces in 1946.

In een Grote Oorlog als de Eerste Wereldoorlog  is Horn’s aanslag op de brug uiteraard slechts een bescheiden wapenfeit. Toch vermoed ik dat dit relatief onbekende verhaal, dat de geschiedenis is ingegaan als de “ Vanceboro International Bridge Bombing ”, nog interessante kanten kent. Het is onder andere een spionageverhaal over hoe in een groter plan een sluwe schaker zijn naïeve pion offert.  

Beknopte situatieschets Canada en de Verenigde Staten in 1915

ALSACE-LORRAINE - The Gap of Charmes - La Trouée de Charmes

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 01 Oct, 2019

This trip we start at the Léomont near Vitrimont and we will with some exceptions concentrate on the Battle of Lorraine of August-September 1914 in the area, called, the “Trouée de Charmes”, the Gap of Charmes.

After the Léomont battlefield we continue our explorations to Friscati hill and its Nécropole Nationale. Next we pay a visit to the battlefield of la Tombe to go on to the Château de Lunéville. There we cross the Vezouze to move on southward to the Bayon Nécropole Nationale. At Bayon we cross the Moselle to pass Charmes for the panorama over the battlefield from the Haut du Mont. North-west of Charmes we will visit the British Military Cemetery containing 1918 war victims. From Charmes we go northward to the battlefield of the First French Victory of the Great War, the Battle of Rozelieures of 25 August 1914. North of Rozelieures we will visit the village of Gerbéviller. From there we make a jump northward to visit the ruins of Fort de Manonviller to finish with an interesting French Dressing Station bunker, west of Domjevin.

LORRAINE - Avricourt - Leintrey - Reillon - Domèvre - Parux

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 18 Sept, 2019
Though we depart from Badonviller in the Northern Vosges , we make a jump northward to the east of Lunéville and Manonviller. We start at Avricourt on the border of Alsace and Lorraine. From the Avricourt Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof we explore the southern Lorraine battlefields ; the mine craters of Leintrey , the Franco- German war cemetery and Côte 303 at Reillon , and some German bunkers near Gondrexon , Montreux , and Parux.

LORRAINE - Montreux - German Front Walk 

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 13 Sept, 2019
We depart from Raon-l’Etape to drive northward via Badonviller to Montreux to visit the  "Circuit du Front Allemand 14-18", the  Montreux German Front Walk 14-18,  with its trenches , breastworks , and at least twenty bunkers.

LORRAINE - The Battle of Morhange - 1914

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 08 Sept, 2019
North-east of Nancy, east of Pont-à-Mousson, and south-east of Metz we visit the battlefields of the Battle of Morhange of 14 until 20 August 1914. We follow mainly topographically the route of the French advance eastward over the Franco-German border of 1871-1918.
During this visit, we try to focus on the day that the momentum of the battle switched from the French side to the advantage of the Bavarian side: the day of 20 August 1914, when the Bavarians rapidly re-conquered the territory around Morhange , being also the day of the start of their rather successful “Schlacht in Lothringen”.
We will visit beautiful landscapes of the "Parc Naturel Régional de Lorraine", memorials, ossuaries, and cemeteries. Sometimes we will divert to other periods of the Great War, honouring Russian and Romanian soldiers, who died in this sector. We start our route at the border village of Manhoué, and via Frémery, Oron, Chicourt, Morhange, Riche, Conthil, Lidrezing, Dieuze, Vergaville, Bidestroff, Cutting, Bisping we will finish in Nomeny and Mailly-sur-Seille, where the Germans halted their advance on 20 August 1914, and where they constructed from 1915 some interesting bunkers.

LORRAINE - Lanfroicourt – Nomeny - Monument du Grand Couronné 

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 05 Sept, 2019
South of Manhoué we start this trip at Lanfroicourt along the French side of the Franco-German 1871-1918 border, marked by the meandering Seille river. We visit some French bunkers  in Lanfroicourt, near Array-et-Han and in Moivrons. From there we go northward to the outskirts of Nomeny and the hamlet of Brionne to visit the ( second ) memorial, commemorating the events in Nomeny of 20 August 1914. We continue westward to finish at the Monument du Grand Couronné at the Côte de Géneviève, a former French artillery base, which offers several panoramic views over the battlefield.

LORRAINE - Bouxières-sous-Froidmont - Verny - Feste Wagner

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 28 Aug, 2019
North of Pont-à-Mousson and south of Metz, we explore the relics of German bunkers and fortifications along the Franco-German 1871-1918 border. We start at Bouxières-sous-Froidmont to visit the nearby height of the Froidmont on the front line. This time we will show only a part of the Froidmont, focusing on its military significance.  From the Froidmont we continue via Longeville-lès-Cheminot and Sillegny to the “Forêt Domaniale de Sillegny” to explore some artillery ammunition bunkers. Next we continue to Marieulles for its three interesting bunkers and to Vezon for its line of ammunition depot bunkers. From Vezon we continue to the “Deutscher Kriegsgräberstätte Fey – Buch”. From Fey we go eastward, passing 6 bunkers near Coin-lès-Cuvry to finish our trip at the top construction of the “Feste Wagner” or “Fort Verny”, north of Verny.

VOSGES - Mutzig - Fort de Mutzig - Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 25 Aug, 2019

From Badonviller or the Col du Donon we continue north-eastward for a visit to an extraordinarily well restored sample of German fortifications:  the Feste Kaiser Wilhelm II, or Fort de Mutzig,  lying on a height, some 8 km. away from the 1871-1918 Franco-German Border.

VOSGES - Ste. Marie-aux-Mines - Tête du Violu / Bernhardstein

by Pierre Grande Guerre • 23 Aug, 2019
We concentrate on the German side of the front around "Markirch", Sainte Marie-aux-Mines, the so-called "Leber" front sector . We first pay a visit to the Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof, and next to the southern side of the Col de Ste. Marie for the many interesting bunkers of the German positions at the Bernhardstein, at the north-eastern slopes of the Tête du Violu. On the next photo page about the Haut de Faîte we will continue with a visit to the northern side of the pass and the "Leber" sector.
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