Boy Allies at Verdun; Or Saving France from the Enemy Read online

  CHAPTER II

  VERDUN

  Rightly is the fortress of Verdun called the gateway to France. By reasonof its strategic position, it is absolutely essential that an invadingarmy have possession of Verdun before thought of a successful advance onParis can be entertained; and it was upon the capture of Paris that theGerman emperor laid his hopes, in spite of the collapse of a similaroffensive launched in the first days of the war.

  But Wilhelm II had learned a lesson. Verdun must be taken before heordered his armies upon the French capital; and so it was that, uponFebruary twenty-third, 1916, the German Crown Prince began a determinedassault upon the historic French fortress.

  In sheer human interest the battle of Verdun surpassed all otherindividual events of the war. For six months and more the defenders ofthe gateway to France withstood a storm at the fury of which the worldstood aghast.

  Foot by foot, almost inch by inch, the Germans forged ahead with areckless disregard of their lives, a tenacity and cool courage which wasonly equalled by the cool determination of the French. Five months afterthe opening of this great battle, the unofficial estimate of German deadwas a half million men. The assailants fought their way to within threemiles and a half of the fortress itself, but there they were finallyhalted. It was then that the tide turned; and though the Germans surgedforward day after day in heavy masses they progressed no further. It wasthe beginning of the end.

  The Germans advanced confidently. The destruction of the fortresspresented no hard problem to them. The utter worthlessness of similarlyfortified positions had been proven in the earlier days of the war--inthe destruction of Louvain, Liege, Brussels and Antwerp, the latter themost strongly fortified city in the world, with the exception of Parisitself. The huge 42-centimetre guns of the Germans had battered them topieces in little or no time at all.

  It was with the knowledge of the effectiveness of these great guns thatthe Crown Prince opened the battle of Verdun. The fortress of Verdun andthe outlying fortifications, it was believed, would be shattered withlittle effort. With these facts in mind, the German Crown Prince openedwith his big guns, first upon the fortresses guarding Verdun itself.

  These approaches shattered, the Crown Prince ordered his infantry andcavalry to the attack. But where the onrushing Germans, according to thereasoning of the Crown Prince, should have found no resistance, theyencountered strenuous opposition. Abandoning the outlying artificialfortifications, the French had thrown up huge earthworks and from behindthese received the German attacks coolly.

  Against these great earthworks the heavy guns of the attacking forcesavailed little. The force of even the great 42-centimetres was not greatenough to penetrate the loosely built mounds of earth behind which theFrench reposed. The great shells struck the fresh earth, were embeddedthere and did no harm. The French general staff had realized theuselessness of fortresses as soon as had the Germans.

  Therefore, while the Germans were able to destroy forts and fortresses atwill, almost, it availed them little. The defenders were secure behindtheir breastworks of earth. True, German guns dropped huge shells in thetrenches, a veritable rain of death, but the gaps in the defending lineswere filled promptly.

  There remained naught for the Germans but to try and carry the trenches,under the support of their artillery.

  Day after day the Crown Prince launched assault after assault. The Frenchmet them bravely. But the Germans were not to be denied; and urged on bythe Crown Prince, and often by the presence upon the firing line of theGerman emperor himself, they continued the herculean task without regardto loss of life.

  Gradually the French were forced back. Hand-to-hand fighting forpossession of the greatest strategical positions, fought daily, for atime resulted in advantage to neither side. Among the chief objectives ofthe German attack were two particularly important positions--Hill No 304(so called to distinguish it from numerous other elevated positions) andLe Mort Homme (Dead Man's Hill). This name, which was fated to becomehistoric, was gained only after days and days of constant hand-to-handfighting and is now recalled as one of the bloodiest battlefields of thetitanic struggle.

  General Henri Phillip Petain, in direct command of the French operationsat Verdun, endeared himself to the hearts of all his countrymen by hisgallant conduct of the defense. While the decision of General Joffre, theFrench commander-in-chief, to give ground before the German attacksrather than to sacrifice his men in a useless defense of the fortresses,was criticized at first by the people, the resulting value of this movewas soon apparent and censure turned to praise.

  While the heaviest assaults of the Germans were launched in theimmediate vicinity of Verdun itself, the great battle line stretched farto the north and to the south. When it appeared at one time that theFrench must be hurled back, General Sir Douglas Haig, the Britishcommander-in-chief, weakened his own lines to the far north to take overa portion of the ground just to his right and thus relieved the Frenchsituation at Verdun somewhat.

  General Petain thus was enabled to shorten his own lines, and from thatmoment, with few exceptions, the French stood firm.

  It seemed that the Germans, beaten off time after time as they were, mustsoon abandon the attempt to break the French lines at Verdun; but eachrepulse brought a new assault mightier than before. The Germans racedacross the open ground under a veritable hail of lead. They fell byhundreds and thousands, but what few survived hurled themselves againstthe barbed wire entanglements of the French or into the trenches, thereto die upon the points of the foes' bayonets, or to be shot down as theytumbled over the breastworks.

  The German general staff drew heavily from its forces on the east frontand added these new legions to the already large army occupied beforeVerdun; but the result was always the same. So far they could progressand no farther.

  After almost five months of defensive tactics, General Petain began tolaunch assaults of his own. At first the Germans put these down withregularity, but at last the effort began to tell. The French madeheadway. Much of the lost ground was recovered. The French moved forwarda bit day by day, occupied new positions and consolidated them. It wasterrible work, but the French persevered.

  Around Hill No. 304 and Dead Man's Hill the fighting was especiallysevere. There men died by the hundreds and by the thousands that one ofthe opposing armies might advance a few yards. Gains even were counted byfeet--almost by inches. Gain of a few yards was accounted a day's workwell done.

  Not once did the French troops falter under fire; nor did the Germans,for that matter. Never was there greater bravery, loyalty and devotion.Called upon for tasks that seemed well nigh impossible, the men did nothesitate. They met death in such numbers as death was never met before.

  Almost daily, after the French had taken a brace three and a half milesfrom Verdun, it seemed that the Crown Prince must give up the effort. Itappeared incomprehensible that the useless sacrifice of men couldcontinue. But the attempt was not given up; rather, it was pressed withgreater vigor each succeeding day.

  But, after five months, the fury of the German assaults graduallylessened. They were not delivered with the same effectiveness as before.The great guns continued to rage, scattering death over the field formiles, but the massed attacks of infantry, and cavalry charges, becamemore uncommon.

  Then came a day when the Germans failed to attack at all. For more thantwenty-four hours there was a lull. Weeks passed with the Germanslaunching only occasional drives. The same held good for the French. Itappeared that each side was content to rest on its laurels, biding thetime when a grand assault could be delivered with some degree ofeffectiveness.

  The fighting was intermittent. It came spasmodically. Each side hadfought itself out and had paused for breath. What advantage there hadbeen, all things considered, rested with French arms. The losses on bothsides, in killed and wounded, had been enormous--almost beyondcomprehension. The number of prisoners taken by the French was large.Many French troops also had been captured, but not so many as Germans.Also, the
French having been the defenders for the most part, they hadsuffered less in killed and wounded than had the foe.

  This, then, was the result of the battle of Verdun six months after ithad begun. There had been no decisive victory. Each side retained itspositions, but each was ready to strike whenever the opportune momentpresented itself.

  Even while the fighting at Verdun was at its height there came thewhisper of a grand offensive to be launched by the Allies. The whisperbecame louder as the days passed. There was more talk of Roumania andGreece throwing their armies to the support of the Allies, thus forming asteel cordon around the Central powers and their smaller allies, Bulgariaand Turkey, and forcing the Germans to shorten their lines. In theeastern war theater the Russians again were on the advance and werepushing the Germans and Austrians hard, threatening for a second time toinvade Galicia and the plains of Hungary. It began to appear that the endwas in sight.

  Italy, too, had launched a new offensive with Trieste as the objectiveand the driving power of the Italian troops was beginning to tell. Itbegan to appear that the Central powers must before long be placed uponthe defensive in all war zones.

  The world waited impatiently for the opening of the grand alliedoffensive that, it was expected, would be delivered simultaneously on allfronts. It was felt that it would not be long coming. There was talk of anew great field gun perfected by Great Britain--a gun that would be moreeffective than the German 42-centimetres--but so far it had come to playno part in the struggle.

  But of all battles, land or sea, that had been fought in the greatest warof history, the battle of Verdun stood head and shoulders as the mostimportant. It was the greatest and bloodiest struggle of all time, up tothat period.

  And it was in this battle that Hal and Chester, with the friend AnthonyStubbs, war correspondent, and other friends, old and new, were to playimportant roles. While each realized, as the three made their way toGeneral Petain behind the French officer who had interrupted their wildautomobile ride, that an important engagement was about to be fought,neither had, of course, means of knowing that they were to take part inone of the greatest of all battles.

  It was with the satisfaction that they had arrived in time to prevent asurprise attack that they made their way to General Petain's quarters.But, as it transpired, they had arrived a trifle too late. For even asthey reached the general's tent the German guns spoke.