The fortress of Verdun with its surrounding fortifications along the Meuse River was selected because it threatened the main German communication lines, it represented a salient in the French defenses, and the loss of such a storied citadel would be an enormous blow to French morale. The keynote of the tactical plan was a continuous series of limited advances that would draw the French reserves into the mincing machine of the German artillery. Each of these advances was itself to be secured by an intense artillery bombardment, brief for surprise and making up for its short duration by the number of batteries and their rapidity of fire. By this means the objective would be taken and consolidated before the enemy could move up its reserves for counterattack. Local command of the operation was given to Crown Prince William, the eldest son of William II .

German Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn believed that the war would be won or lost in France , and he felt that a strategy of attrition was Germany’s best hope of achieving its goals. In a letter to German Emperor William II in late 1915, he argued that Britain was the most formidable of the Allied powers , but he conceded that it could not be assaulted directly, save by submarine warfare, as the British sector of the Western Front did not lend itself to offensive operations (an assessment that would be proved correct at the First Battle of the Somme ). In Falkenhayn’s view, Britain’s “real weapons” in the war were the French, Russian, and Italian armies. He regarded Russia as already paralyzed and Italy as unlikely to affect the outcome of the war, concluding, “Only France remains.” Falkenhayn stated that a breakthrough en masse was unnecessary and that instead Germany should bleed France to death by choosing a point of attack “for the retention of which the French would be compelled to throw in every man they have.”

Battle of Verdun , (February 21–December 18, 1916), World War I engagement in which the French repulsed a major German offensive. It was one of the longest, bloodiest, and most-ferocious battles of the war; French casualties amounted to about 400,000, German ones to about 350,000. Some 300,000 were killed.

The initial German attack

As early as January 1916, French airmen had detected German preparations for the Verdun offensive, and on February 11, 1916, a French intelligence officer discovered a buildup of German troops on the right bank of the Meuse. As French commanders had been almost exclusively focused on their own offensive plans, their hasty efforts to bolster the defenses of Verdun were very nearly too late. Over the next 10 days, thousands of men and dozens of guns were moved to Verdun to oppose the expected German attack. Confronted with a massive logistical challenge—main rail lines to Verdun had been cut or were under constant barrage by German artillery—French officers organized a motorized supply chain on an unprecedented scale, transporting men and matériel to the front in a fleet of more than 3,000 trucks. The 37-mile (57-km) dirt road connecting the railhead at Bar-le-Duc to Verdun came to be known as La Voie Sacrée (“the Sacred Way”) for its critical role in the French defense.

Verdun, Battle of Key sites of the Battle of Verdun, taken from Encyclopædia Britannica's 13th edition (1926). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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At 7:15 am on February 21, the Germans commenced a massive bombardment of a front some 25 miles (40 km) long, from the Bois d’Avocourt to Étain. At about 4:45 pm the first German infantry attack was launched, initially by teams of scouts who surveyed the damage done by the opening barrage. If French defenses had not been shattered in a given area, the scouts retired and directed additional shelling. Combat engineers then followed, ahead of the main body of the advance. German troops made significant gains by the end of the first day, occupying the Bois d’Haumont and penetrating the French lines. The following day the Germans capitalized on their gains, repelling a French counterattack. The village of Haumont was razed by artillery fire, and by February 23 the villages of Brabant-sur-Meuse, Wavrille, and Samogneux were in German hands. In three days the Germans had overrun the first line of French defenses, and both sides hastily reinforced their positions. Thousands of French troops, placed in untenable positions in open country, were almost immediately wiped from the field. On February 24 the Germans sought to advance from their position at Samogneux, but they were immobilized by French artillery. The rest of the German line swept through the second rank of French defenses, capturing Beaumont, the Bois des Fosses, and the Bois des Caurières and advancing on the key fort at Douaumont. That evening the French commander at Verdun, Gen. Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre, the so-called “Victor of the Marne,” was set aside in favour of Gen. Philippe Pétain.

Pétain brought a fresh army—the Second—to the fight, and on February 25 he was given the formidable task of holding the right bank of the Meuse. Initial plans had been made to mass French forces on the left bank so as to oppose a German crossing, but the French high command soon decreed that a new defensive line, stretching from the heights on the east bank of the Meuse to the village of Douaumont, should be held at all costs. As the French defense was reorganized, the Germans captured the undefended Fort Douaumont, arguably the most formidable of the strongpoints surrounding Verdun. Eight months would pass and much blood would be shed before the French could reclaim the fort. French resistance stiffened over subsequent days, however, and the German advance slowed. French fliers reclaimed command of the air over the battlefield, and Pétain deployed hundreds of artillery pieces to Verdun, linking many of the new batteries by telephone. On February 26–29 some 500,000 German troops assaulted Douaumont village, but the French defenses held.