France has been fighting the whole war on its own soil, and that stalemate war of attrition
has gone on for over two years.
Many of the French - both soldiers and civilians - have given up to despair by this point that
their country will ever be whole again, but that despair takes a big hit this week, for
this week France wins a major victory.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week the British failed again at the Somme, though the French had some success
there, but British Commander in Chief Sir Douglas Haig vowed to continue the offensive
all winter if necessary, in spite of the ghastly weather conditions.
The Serbs pushed the Bulgarians back in the Balkans, the Romanians stopped the Germans
in the Carpathians, the French took control of the police and censored the newspapers
in neutral Greece, and back at home in France, the French were making the final preparations
for their counterattack at Verdun.
And that counterattack happened this week at Fort Douaumont.
First came several days of artillery bombardment.
On the 21st, the fort’s artillery observation turret was shattered by a heavy shell, but
Douaumont still stood strong, as she had through all the long months.
The 22nd was fairly quiet, but on the 23rd came a huge crash, a shell had exploded in
the sick bay, killing or wounding around 50 German medical personnel.
Minutes later, another shell exploded, wiping out a barracks room.
The French were using something heavier than they ever had before; it was the two 400mm
railway guns they’d brought in, blasting the fort with remarkable accuracy every ten
to fifteen minutes.
The bakery was gone; the roof collapsed in the main corridor on the top floor; casemates
were obliterated, and Major Rosendahl, the commandant of the fort, was faced with panic.
He evacuated the upper parts of the fort, but a shell soon penetrated to the bottom,
blowing up an arms depot, and Rosendahl gave the order to abandon the fort, even though
every exit was blocked by French gas shells.
A suicide squad remained behind to try to put out the fires, but the fort was soon out
of water.
The Germans withdrew during the night.
So the fort was now empty.
Well, except for two German soldiers in the gallery at the northwest corner of the fort.
They hadn’t been disturbed by the 400s, they hadn’t seen the garrison leaving, and
they hadn’t been given any orders to leave, so they stayed there alone and forgotten for
another two days.
Poor guys, huh?
At 7 AM on the 24th, a group of signalers and runners from a German artillery unit entered
the fort and saw that it was empty, but the fires were no longer out of control and the
captain- Captain Prollius- thought the fort could still be defended, if he could get the
men.
He had around 20.
He sent a runner to get reinforcements.
That morning there was a thick mist and the Germans thought no one could attack with that
little visibility.
But remember last week I said that the French had been training on a replica battlefield
with a full-scale Fort Douaumont in it until they knew the battlefield blindfolded?
Yeah, well that came in handy right now, because the French attacked 6km of German lines in
spite of the mist and were in the German first trench before the German field guns could
even get started.
Fleury fell within minutes and the Germans were surrendering with a readiness never before
seen, in fact, a French listening post heard this from a German detachment, “I have only
one man left, all the others have run away.”
(Verdun) Some Germans told their captors they hadn’t had food in six days.
The French soon attacked the fort itself, but Captain Prollius’ plea for men had gone
unanswered.
Early that evening, a French sapper and a private stumbled into Prollius’ command
post in the fort’s cellar.
He surrendered to them, and Fort Douaumont- after eight months- was once again in French
hands.
Imagine being French General Charles Mangin, back at command in Fort Souville, seeing his
men disappearing into the mist and fog, hearing the artillery of the creeping barrage, but
having no idea how the attack was going.
20 French planes were lost that day flying low trying to pierce the fog to see the battle.
Finally, at around 4:30 in the afternoon, Douaumont exposed itself to the sunshine,
and three Moroccan soldiers were standing on top of the dome waving their arms in victory.
There was no denying that on that one single day, France had won its greatest victory of
the war so far.
Mangin’s men took ground that day that the Germans had taken four and a half months to
conquer.
The Germans were also losing ground on another part of the Western Front, over at the Somme,
but it was a bit of a different story there.
The results of the British 4th army attack toward Transloy the 23rd were terrible.
Look at 8th Division, for example- the four attacking battalions took casualties of 59,
39, 51, and 38 percent.
But they captured a kilometer of muddy trench called Zenith and Misty trenches.
Incessant rain had by now turned the battlefield into a swamp.
It was all but impossible to transport ammunition, food, and water to the men.
In fact, all traffic supplying the 4th Army was now confined by the mud to a single road
from Longueval to Flers.
The Germans soon figured this out and every two minutes near Flers the road got a burst
of German artillery fire.
Lord Gort from the General Staff, later commander of the BEF in WW2, visited the front and wrote
to Haig, describing “men living on cold food and standing up to their knees in mud
and water... in too poor a physical condition to conduct an attack successfully... so all-encompassing
was the mud that troops making an attack had to help each other out of the fire trenches
as they cannot get out unaided”.
But Haig was determined to resume the offensive against the Transloy Line, the 7th British
attack on the line, and it was set for November 5th.
The Germans may be slowly falling back in the west, but they were advancing in the Southeast.
At the beginning of the week, General August von Mackensen’s new offensive attacked the
Romanians on the whole line in Dobrogea, taking Tuzla.
This success threatened the Cernavoda-Constanza railway line, which was his objective.
Constanza fell on the 24th, yielding 6,700 prisoners, and on the 25th the Romanians abandoned
Cernavoda and retreated northward.
But this was now a problem for Mackensen.
The Romanians had blown the bridge at Cernavoda across the mighty Danube River, and that river
was a really effective barrier against Mackensen.
In fact, the Romanians might now even be able to reduce their forces here and still hold
off Mackensen while sending more men up to fight General von Falkenhayn, who they were
doing pretty well against in the mountains.
For the time being, the river created a deadlock that favored whoever was playing defense.
Still, British war observer Alfred Knox had this to say (Brusilov), “Unfortunately it
is too late to save the situation.
The allied line in Dobrogea is now many miles north of the Constanza railway... as things
are, it seems likely that all Wallachia with its grain and oil will be lost to the enemy.”
And Lloyd George, who was now British Secretary of State for War after Lord Kitchener had
drowned in the summer, had a bunch to say about Romania.
He called the possible conquest of Romania “the biggest blow of the war”, and believed
that with Germany taking the Romanian oil fields and harvest, it would “probably prolong
the war for another two years.”
But he was well aware no aid could be sent before Romania had already made peace.
And though Russian aid could theoretically have come, Russia was having big problems
at home.
All Russian offensives were pretty much called off, as 200,000 Russian workers were involved
in roughly 177 political strikes.
Chief of Staff Mikhail Alexeev warned the Tsar that there were now only enough reserve
troops for another five months of fighting.
And that was the week, minor British success for huge casualties at the Somme, the Germans
pushing back the Romanians in Dobrogea, weather putting a stop to operations in the Balkans
for the time being, a political assassination as the Austrian Prime Minister Count Karl
von Stürgkh was killed by Doctor Friedrich Adler for repeatedly refusing to convene Parliament
and governing by emergency decree, and a major French victory at Verdun.
Erich von Falkenhayn, the architect of the Battle of Verdun, claimed that he started
it to bleed France to death by attacking a national treasure the French would be forced
to defend to the last.
What was his plan then, if France actually won at Verdun after all that defending?
Because retaking Douaumont was a huge deal, and a major PR coup for France, who had been
fighting the whole war on their own soil.
Defend to the last?
This week it looked like France was just getting started.
There is a lot of controversy over Falkenhayn’s claims as to why he began the battle of Verdun
and we made a whole special about it.
You can check that out right here.
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