Battle of Verdun Timeline

(February 21, 1916 – December 19, 1916)

The Battle of Verdun was a major World War I battle fought between the French and German armies along the Meuse River in northeastern France from February to December 1916. Lasting 302 days, it was the longest and one of the deadliest battles in human history, symbolizing French national determination and the brutal attrition warfare that defined the Great War. More Less

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Historical Background

Vauban builds Verdun citadel

1600

At the heart of the city of Verdun was a citadel built by Vauban in the 17th century, forming part of the town's longstanding fortifications guarding the Meuse river crossing.

Image source: Verdun

Fort Douaumont receives new guns and bunker

1903 - 1913

In 1903, Douaumont was equipped with a new concrete bunker (Casemate de Bourges) containing two 75 mm field guns to cover the south-western approach. More guns were added from 1903 to 1913 in four retractable steel turrets.

Image source: Fort Douaumont

First Battle of the Marne halts German invasion

Sep 1914

After the German invasion of France had been halted at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, the war of movement ended at the Battle of the Yser and the First Battle of Ypres.

Image source: First Battle of the Marne

Prelude and Preparations

Fortified Region of Verdun forms a salient

1914

The Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV) lay in a salient formed during the German invasion of 1914. The Germans built field fortifications to hold the ground captured that year, while the French began siege warfare to break through the defences.

Image source: Battle of Verdun

Railway line south into Verdun cut

1914

The railway line from the south into Verdun had been cut during the Battle of Flirey in 1914, with the loss of Saint-Mihiel, isolating Verdun on three sides.

Image source: Battle of Flirey

Joffre concludes fortresses are obsolete

1914 - 1915

General Joseph Joffre, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, had concluded from the swift capture of the Belgian fortresses at Liège and Namur in 1914 that fortifications had been made obsolete by German super-heavy siege artillery.

Image source: Joseph Joffre

Western Front offensives fail in late 1914 and 1915

Jan 1915 - Dec 31, 1915

In late 1914 and in 1915, offensives on the Western Front had failed to gain much ground and been extremely costly in casualties, leading strategists on both sides to seek new methods.

Image source: Western Front (World War I)

German industry expands heavy artillery output

1915 - Mar 31, 1916

In 1915 and early 1916, German industry quintupled the output of heavy artillery and doubled the production of super-heavy artillery. French production had also recovered, and by February 1916 the army had 3,500 heavy guns.

Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive on the Eastern Front

May 1, 1915 - Sep 19, 1915

In the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive, the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies attacked Russian defences frontally after pulverising them with large amounts of heavy artillery, demonstrating the effectiveness of massed heavy guns.

Image source: Gorlice–Tarnów offensive

Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive on the Eastern Front

Railway west from Verdun cut at Aubréville

Jul 15, 1915

The line west from Verdun to Paris was cut at Aubréville in mid-July 1915 by the German 3rd Army, which had attacked southwards through the Argonne Forest since the new year, rendering the mainline railway unusable.

RFV stripped of guns and ammunition

Aug 5, 1915

In a directive of the General Staff of 5 August 1915, the Fortified Region of Verdun was to be stripped of 54 artillery batteries and 128,000 rounds of ammunition. In 1915, 237 guns and 647 tons of ammunition were removed, leaving only heavy guns in retractable turrets.

Image source: Battle of Verdun

Second Battle of Champagne demonstrates attrition

Sep 25, 1915 - Nov 6, 1915

During the Second Battle of Champagne (Herbstschlacht [autumn battle]), the French suffered 'extraordinary casualties' from German heavy artillery, which Falkenhayn considered offered a way out of the dilemma of material inferiority and growing Allied strength.

Image source: Second Battle of Champagne

French begin trench lines at Verdun

Oct 1915

Conversion of the RFV to a conventional linear defence began but proceeded slowly after resources were sent west for the Second Battle of Champagne. Building began on trench lines known as the first, second and third positions.

Germans plan capture of the Meuse Heights

Nov 1915 - Feb 1916

Using the experience of the Second Battle of Champagne, the Germans planned to capture the Meuse Heights, an excellent defensive position with good observation for artillery fire on Verdun. Falkenhayn offered five corps from the strategic reserve at the beginning of February 1916, but only for an attack on the east bank of the Meuse.

Image source: Erich von Falkenhayn

Castelnau inspection finds Verdun defences satisfactory

Jan 1916

An inspection by General Noël de Castelnau, Chief of Staff at French General Headquarters, reported that the new defences were satisfactory except for small deficiencies in three areas. That month, Chrétien was refused entry when he attempted to inspect Fort Douaumont, whose garrison answered to the central military bureaucracy in Paris.

Image source: Noël Édouard, vicomte de Curières de Castelnau

French intelligence warns of German attack; Joffre dismisses it

Jan 21, 1916 - Jan 31, 1916

French intelligence obtained an accurate assessment of German military capacity and intentions at Verdun, but Joffre considered that an attack would be a diversion because of the lack of an obvious strategic objective. The Germans did not know the garrison was only a small maintenance crew led by a warrant officer.

Casualties and Assessment

Wartime casualty accounting systems established

1916 - Apr 1917

Since the war's start, French units produced numerical loss states (états numériques des pertes) every five days; the system became established by February 1916 and in April 1917 GQG required it to discriminate lightly from severely wounded. German armies compiled Verlustlisten every ten days, later published by the Reichsarchiv, with medical data added in the Sanitätsbericht of 1934.

Churchill publishes casualty figures for Verdun

1927 - 1938

Winston Churchill used a Reichsarchiv figure of 428,000 German casualties and 532,500 from the Marin Report for parts of 1916. Doughty wrote that other historians followed Churchill's figure of 442,000 French casualties by mistakenly including all Western Front losses. In the second edition of The World Crisis (1938), Churchill clarified that 442,000 was for other ranks and 'probably' 460,000 included officers.

Image source: The World Crisis

Afflerbach questions authenticity of the Christmas Memorandum

1994

Holger Afflerbach questioned the authenticity of the 'Christmas Memorandum'; studying surviving evidence, he concluded it had been written after the war but accurately reflected Falkenhayn's thinking at the end of 1915.

Modern historians calculate Verdun casualty totals

2000 - 2014

In 2000, Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann calculated 377,231 French and 337,000 German casualties, averaging 70,000 a month; McRandle and Quirk (2006) gave 373,882 German casualties. In 2014, William Philpott recorded about 714,000 casualties at Verdun in 1916 and roughly 1,250,000 in the vicinity of Verdun across the whole war.

The Battle of 1916

Battle of Verdun begins

Feb 21, 1916

The Battle of Verdun began on 21 February 1916 on the Western Front in France, as German forces attacked towards the Meuse Heights. Douaumont was by then the largest fort in the RFV, with only its 75 mm and 155 mm turret guns and light ditch-covering guns left operational.

German offensive costs 81,607 casualties by end of March

Mar 1916 - Apr 1916

By the end of March the offensive had cost the Germans 81,607 casualties and Falkenhayn began to think of ending it, lest it become another costly and indecisive engagement like the First Battle of Ypres in late 1914.

German attacks shift to the right bank

May 1916 - Jun 1916

Later in May 1916, German attacks shifted from the left bank at Mort-Homme and Côte 304 to the right bank, south of Fort Douaumont. Fighting on the west bank had shown that capturing one vital point merely exposed another terrain feature overlooking it.

Nivelle takes over Second Army amid declining morale

Jun 1916

After his promotion to lead the Second Army in June 1916, Nivelle found manifestations of indiscipline (Défaillance) occurring in five front-line regiments. He had been concerned about declining French morale at Verdun.

Image source: Robert Nivelle

French mass 2,708 guns at Verdun

Jun 1916

In June 1916, the French had 2,708 guns at Verdun, including 1,138 field guns. From February to December, the French and German armies fired c. 10,000,000 shells weighing 1,350,000 long tons.

Brusilov Offensive opens

Jun 4, 1916 - Sep 20, 1916

The Brusilov Offensive began against the Austro-Hungarians on the Eastern Front, adding pressure on Germany's allies during the battle of Verdun.

Image source: Brusilov offensive

Battle of the Somme begins, drawing German resources away

Jul 1, 1916 - Nov 18, 1916

The opening of the Battle of the Somme forced the Germans to transfer some of their artillery from Verdun, which was the first strategic success of the Anglo-French offensive.

Image source: Battle of the Somme

First Offensive Battle of Verdun recaptures Douaumont

Oct 20, 1916

On 20 October 1916, the French began the First Offensive Battle of Verdun (1ère Bataille Offensive de Verdun) to recapture Fort Douaumont, with an advance of more than 2 km (1.2 mi).

Battle of Verdun ends

Dec 18, 1916

The Battle of Verdun ended on 18 December 1916 after nearly ten months of fighting, having become one of the longest and costliest battles of the First World War.

Meuse-Argonne offensive crosses the old Verdun front

Sep 26, 1918

The French Fourth Army and the American First Army attacked on a front from Moronvilliers to the Meuse on 26 September 1918 at 5:30 a.m., after a three-hour bombardment. On the right bank of the Meuse, a combined Franco-American force took Brabant, Haumont, Bois d'Haumont and Bois des Caures, then crossed the front line of February 1916.

Image source: Meuse–Argonne offensive

Legacy and Commemoration

Unknown Soldier ceremony held at Verdun citadel

1920

In 1920, a ceremony was held in the citadel of Verdun to choose a body to bury in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, honouring France's unidentified war dead.

Image source: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (France)

Herduin and Millant exonerated after inquiry

1926

In 1926, after an inquiry into the cause célèbre surrounding their execution, Herduin and Millant were exonerated and their military records expunged.

Kohl and Mitterrand hold hands at Douaumont

Sep 22, 1984

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (whose father had fought near Verdun) and French President François Mitterrand (taken prisoner nearby in the Second World War) stood at the Douaumont cemetery holding hands for several minutes in driving rain, as a gesture of Franco-German reconciliation.

Image source: Douaumont Ossuary

Key Facts

The Battle of Verdun lasted 302 days, making it the longest battle of World War I and one of the longest in history.
German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn launched the offensive intending to 'bleed France white' by attacking a position the French could not afford to lose.
An estimated 700,000–800,000 casualties were suffered, with roughly 300,000 soldiers killed between French and German forces.
The phrase 'They shall not pass' (Ils ne passeront pas), associated with General Philippe Pétain and Robert Nivelle, became an enduring symbol of French resistance.
Today, the battlefield is preserved as the Verdun Memorial, with the Douaumont Ossuary containing the remains of over 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers.

Source

This Battle of Verdun timeline was generated with the help of AI, using information found on the internet.

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