Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I

by John Mosier

The Battle of Verdun during the First World War stands as one of history’s greatest clashes. Yet it is also one of the most complex and misunderstood.

Although British historians have always seen Verdun as a one-year battle designed by the German chief of staff to bleed France white, historian John Mosier’s careful analysis of the German plans reveals a much more abstract and theoretical approach. From the very beginning of the war until the armistice in 1918, no fewer than eight distinct battles were waged there. These conflicts are largely unknown, even in France, owing to the obsessive secrecy of the French high command.

Our understanding of Verdun has long been mired in myths, false assumptions, propaganda, and distortions. Now, using numerous accounts of military analysts, serving officers, and eyewitnesses, including French sources that have never been translated, Mosier offers a compelling reassessment of the Great War’s most important battle.
 

Genres: History, World War I, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction, War, Germany

416 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2013

Reviews

[Jerome Otte · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Mosier attempts to debunk some perceived myths of the Battle of Verdun. Of course, Verdun was more than just a single battle and actually a series of engagements, and Mosier stresses this particular point. Mosier often brings up Horne’s classic history and tries to make the history of the battle more broad and explain more of its complexities. He does, however, do a fine job bringing to life the area’s geography and how it affected the battle. Mosier’s style is readable (if a little obnoxious) and he has a good command of the subject matter and the various sources, even if his writing isn’t particularly eloquent. He does, however, have a captivating style. He mainly approaches the battle from a higher-up view and avoids bogging down in minor details.

However, Mosier’s book is a bit unfocused. He assumes a good deal of prior knowledge about the wider war. Mosier is critical of Joffre and Haig, but his critique seems too emotional and seems to consist mostly of potshots. He also has a tendency to quote novelists, which annoyingly does little to support any of his points. And at one point he writes that a French general (Frederick Herr) received an American Medal of Honor (he did?). There are also little quibbles like Mosier constantly writing “up” or “down” instead of north or south.

A fine, readable history, although some more maps would have helped and the format may not please everyone.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were times while reading this book that kept me wondering, if the Allies made so many mistakes, what was that rail car at Compiegne all about? Oh, that's right the Americans won the war because of St. Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne or at least according to Mosier.

No one questions that the French and British made mistakes, but is there anyone who truly believes that the U.S. could have taken on Germany all by itself in 1918 without the four years of blood-letting that preceeded it?

Mosier has some good points which make his book readable such as his assertions about the casualty figures, France's politicians who were desperate to keep their jobs so they went along with the falsehoods told by the Army, and of course, the fact that Falkenhayn didn't really want to "bleed France white". The trouble is I'm still not sure what he did want. The German High Command obviously wasn't sure either since he was pushed out after Verdun 5.

Verdun 5 is the one most most of us think of when we talk about Verdun. Starting on February 21, 1916, this battle is only one phase of the 4-year confrontation in the area. Mosier makes a great point of this. I found his presentation convincing on this topic. Unfortunately, Mosier's prejudices about German superiority and Von Falkenhayn were apparent and that made his book less appealing than it might have been.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tone of this book is set by the following quotation regarding the French version(s) of the battle(s) of Verdun at the close of chapter one (page 32): "Mistakes, Misrepresentations, and Myths." A substitle in the first chapter is "True Lies," signalling how French sources misrepresented what was happening on the ground at Verdun over the course of the war. Much work on Verdun focuses on the battle fought in 1916. However, as Mosier points out, the battle actually stretched from 1914-1918, with American troops closing out this extended struggle at Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne.

Indeed, the author notes that there were nine separate battles at Verdun, with the 5th (in 1916) the one most mentioned and understood as "the" battle. Mosier notes that his thesis is not original, but he does observe that standard versions take battle # 5 out of context.

There is considerable discussion of the politics of the military (the French and Germans were especially political) and of the civil-military relationships among the major combatants. This is pretty well done.

Quibbles: the maps are very poor, in both quality and in terms of the quality of information transmitted to the reader. The author's disdain for various actors at the time is a bit overdone and becomes obtrusive at times (especially the critical analysis of the French and the rather benign view of Germans).

Overall, though, this is a fine book on a complex subject.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfocused in places, and a bit strawman-y, but made up for by the fact that Mosier despises the French general staff more than anyone now living, and most long dead. The spite he has for Foch is admirable in a get off my lawn you damn kids sort of way.

Not your first book on the war, or your second, but worth considering for a deeper dive. Mosier is well informed with respect to materiel, tactics, strategy, and historiography.

[Chris Laskey · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is unfortunately obsessed with the lies and falsehoods that ran through the history of Verdun - in particular the French versions of events. He has such a grand view of the German military that it colors everything in the book. Certainly these arguments are valid but he can't be unbiased and results in a lot of snarky comments that removes one from really assessing what he is saying. However he is making solid points that should be considered when reading about the events in WWI as with any war. I think we have all been shaded by the amount of misinformation given us during Vietnam or Iraq that one looks to the past as being perhaps more truthful. The reality is that all wars are in part political or part of some moral issues that encourages or even creates the level of hidden or inaccessible information. I certainly give points to Mr. Mosier on the events of Verdun but it would have been better if he could be less emotional about it. His writing is not involving and with all the information he is supplying, that counters a lot of standard events, it would have helped to have more maps sandwiched in the events to follow his information. The author assumes one has read up on Verdun and WWI and is intimate with the history - so do that before reading this work.

[Ryan Hanlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artillery nerds (not me), look no further because this is the book for you!

[Marks54 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is becoming clearer to me that it is possible to read too many books on WWI. I do feel some sympathy for historians, who must increasingly struggle to say something new or distinctive on topics that have been so written about for such a long time. Even so, I have grown skeptical of histories that have some modifier, such as "lost", "critical", "what-if?", or something else. They promise to bring the reader some perspective that has been neglected until now and is thus more worthy of attention than other histories competing for attention. Pulling such an effort off successfully is must harder than it appears.

Mosier's book is about the series of battles fought around Verdun during WW1 from 1914 until 1918. His initial contention is that called separate episodes of this nearly continuous combat "battles" with winners and losers is not very informative, does little justice to the facts, and perpetuates a varieties of myths about the war. This is a worthwhile point and the author makes his case effectively about it.

Mosier has other arguments to make as well and these vary in their degrees of interest and their contentiousness. Some of the points are fairly technical while others link that military and the political in some curious ways.

Perhaps the most contentious and intriguing line of argument has to do with the linkage of allied control over battlefield information, allied propaganda, and military strategy. The claim is that the Allies were basing their strategy ultimately on there assumption that they were winning the casualty exchange with the Germans -- that German progress on the Western Front was coming at a proportionately higher body count than the Allies were suffering in defending against the Germans. As a result, the intuition was that the Allies would win the war by exhausting German manpower. However, the actual exchange rate of dead and wounded appears to have greatly favored the Germans over the Allies. However, given Allied controls over battlefield statistics and propaganda, Mosier claims that the Allies actually believed that they were winning the war of attrition when in fact they were losing the exchange badly. Allied political control over information, news, and propaganda was actually contributing to the senseless slaughter of infantry in the first three years of the war. This claim is plausible and at the same time is highly contention and speaks to nearly criminal leadership by the Allied military leaders and nearly criminal irresponsibility and incompetence by political leaders. ... the trouble is that making such a claim is one thing while proving it -- especially the strong negative normative implications -- is another. But it sure makes for good reading.

Another really interesting line of argument in Mosier's book concerns the differences in Allied versus German artillery capabilities. It is a very knowledgeable discussion and clarifies many questions I had about why the Germans did so well when their forces were not that different in number from the allies. The point is that, after accounting for effective firepower, the forces were quite different.

The details of particular battles in this massive war are hard to follow and remember, but the general trends are clear enough. Mosier makes some interesting claims about the geography of the Verdun region and its importance to military strategy. Readers should keep a map handy.

The book is highly polemical. The author is very negative towards the Allies and more positive towards the Germans. It is OK to have a point of view, but Mosier's comes across as a distraction. The book is also highly repetitive in its arguments, some of which crop up in multiple points throughout the narrative, whether or not it is necessary.

Overall, I learned something from the book and grant the author the benefit of the doubt. Verdun is an important campaign to know about. The incremental value of this book, relative to other histories, is not as great as the author claims. That is unfortunate and probably could have been addressed with some better editing.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book might be a good preparatory reading for World War One. Dr. Mosier covers a number of topics, geography of France, German and French history prior to WWI, railroads and their usefulness and limitations as well as military preparedness. He explains in pain-staking detail why the French artillery was terribly inaccurate and inadequate. French politics are reviewed along with their divisive role in military preparedness.
The author claims the lost history is actually buried history. The French army controlled all information or disinformation of the war. The author delved into this mass of suppressed information finding that each layer of command lied to the one above it as to the results of the latest offensive effort. One of the main points the author makes is that Verdun was not one battle but a series of battles fought from late 1914 to 1918. One need to carefully review the source of the information provided in the index and keep a skeptical viewpoint to decide for yourself, is the book a fresh viewpoint and a struggle with official “truth” or a powerful revisionist account. Mosier also points out that WWI had no hero General to catch the public attention. Whereas, WWII had many Hero Generals that has kept the public interested in WWII for years. For those interested in World War One history the book is well worth the read. I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. The book was narrated by Wes Talbot.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both entertaining and thought provoking. Mosier takes an alternative look at this epic, four year long bloody exercise in siege tactics, and draws all sorts of conclusions that I hadn't really considered before. I haven't previously focused much on WWI, so I'm coming from a mostly general overview perspective, but his sidebar conversations into the distorting power of myths, and the debate about the value of strategies like "war of attrition" or "strategic bombing" can apply to so many intn'l conflicts in any age. The more complex and ambiguous a problem is, the more prone a leader is to try to oversimplify it, and in the process misjudge it completely. He mostly focuses on the impacts from the French perspective, for whom it was a major battle. He doesn't exactly overlook it from the German perspective, but I got the impression it wasn't as important to them as it was to the French. One of his conclusions, tieing this into the collapse of the French gov't in 1940, wasn't very well supported, anc perhaps could have justified an entire add'l chapter.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like learning about World War I a lot, A LOT, so I got a lot out of this book. Frankly, that's the only people I'd recommend this book to - hardcore ACKSHUYALLY World War I buffs, because the voice of the author is so annoying. This book captures the experience of listening to an old, opinionated, meandering professor very well - doesn't talk much about Verdun itself, when he does, says everyone involved was an idiot and the historians don't understand what was important, who was competent, and even where the battle took place. I'll try and read his other books, too, but I definitely wouldn't recommend these to even a casual enthusiast of World War I.

[J.T.K. Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting idea - the Battle of Verdun was actually 9 different battles throughout the course of WWI. What I found more intriguing was the psychology of the Allies in lying to the folks back home and lying so convincingly that some historians (and school textbooks) still buy into the lies!
Mosier sets out the case for which side was better prepared and equipped for the conflict. He also details the deception practiced by leaders to hide the devastation to the citizens, and, in some cases, their own governments. This turns several histories on their heads. Worth the arduous read

[Duncan Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the return of trench warfare and restricted maneuver in Ukraine, I thought it would be interesting to read up on the history of the First World War. Verdun is a battle that I thought I understood fairly well, though not on the level of other battles I've researched like Gettysburg or the Battle of the Bulge. After reading this book, I came away with a better understanding of the murkiness of the First World War. I would have liked to see more tactical analysis, though the records from this war make it much harder to analyze than others like the Second World War. What I learned most from this book is the following: 1) Organization and equipment made the initial German offensives more successful than the French. 2) The mentality of the two sides on how to win the war differed more than I previously thought. 3) The "Battle of Verdun" was not an isolated event, it was a campaign throughout the war that only truly ended with American involvement.

First, the idea that this battle resulted from the Germans blindly sending waves upon waves of troops to the slaughter for little ground is a misconception. The misconception comes from the fact that the French and British were doing this and could not fathom that their enemy was doing anything different. In fact, the Germans were practicing early combined arms warfare, where infantry moved with machine guns, engineers, and artillery support to puncture holes in the French line that could then be exploited. This was not the hours of artillery bombardment followed by an "Over the Top!" call, it was decentralized command with greater concentrations of firepower. The French in this sector were late to understanding this and they did not have the weaponry to support this type of maneuver warfare, which showed in their failed counterattacks.

Second, this battle was not intended to purely be a battle of attrition as it may be thought. The German chief of staff, von Falkenhayn understood that time would not be in Germany's favor forever, yet he was not rushing. His plan for the offensive at Verdun in 1916, the most famous battle within the series of engagements, was to reach 1 of 2 outcomes. Option 1: Taking the terrain at Verdun would convince the French that they could not be victorious and they would accept peace, like Vicksburg in the American Civil War. Option 2: The French would respond by attempting to retake the ground lost and would destroy their ability to fight in the process, again resulting in a peace. The intention was not to simply kill as many Frenchmen as possible, it was to convince the army, government, and people that victory was out of reach. It may have worked, if Petain had not been installed and resolved to preserve his men rather than waste their lives for meters of ground that themselves were not valuable.

Third, the battle in 1916 was not the beginning and end at Verdun, the French did not win victory there and beat back the Germans that same year, though they proclaimed to have. The fighting in the area dated back to 1914 and it was not over until the American Expeditionary Force moved in during the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives. In this way, the area is more comparable to the battles north of Richmond that occurred over and over again until Grant finally cleared through during the Wilderness Campaign. Yet to the French government and people, the battle to reclaim Verdun had been over months ago. The lies from the army were seen as necessary to keep morale high, yet those lies themselves perpetuated the incompetence that had gotten them into the situation they were in. I don't want to be blindly jingoistic as an American, but even von Hindenburg himself credited the Americans influx of troops and campaigns as deciding the war.

To me, Verdun is a cautionary tale. It is viewed as a French triumph, the wall that broke the German tide and would eventually decide the war, all due to misinformation. To fail to scrutinize the facts and now history, is to set ourselves up for failure that we may not be able to recover from.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third book I've read by Mosier. Like the other 2, I find this one hard to grade. There is much to like, and much to scratch one's head at.
Let's start with the good. Mosier provides a useful tonic to the historical groupthink that surrounds many of the battles of the first word war (the focus here is on the many battles for Verdun, but he talks about other battles too). He tries, with some success, to pierce the more or less accepted narrative of these battles, which is very Allies focused. Often portrayed as a static line where offensive action was impossible, Mosier notes that the Western front was in fact the site of numerous successful offensives by the Germans. He has a very firm grip on the weapons and tactics that made these offensives possible, even where the Germans were outnumbered (put simply - much better firepower through mortars, and a refusal to order suicidal frontal en masse attacks). He also does a good job of showing the deceitful manner in which the French (and British) high command reported the war to the politicians (who were supposedly in charge). I also like his conclusion that there are really no good lessons to be drawn from Verdun (even the sound military tactics used by the Germans were no different than what they did in other areas).
But as is often the case with Mosier, the individual pieces seem to lead to something less that a whole. His focus on the deception employed by the Allied command and press is convincing, yet I find it hard to believe that this wasn't also happening in Germany. He gives some credit to Petain, but the French victories at Verdun are brushed over in a couple of paragraphs. He is very convinced that only the Americans saved the Allies, which... actually sounds about right.
Mosier's prose is workmanlike, but he certainly isn't going to win any prizes for writing. To his credit, he is generally clear and the writing is easy to follow. He needs a better editor (I found numerous cases where exactly the same point, in more or less the same words, was made in successive paragraphs). He also used the phrase "Denial is not just a river in Egypt". But overall the book is fairly readable.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) This work may as well have been titled “How to slaughter some sacred French Cows”, because that is the raison d’etre for this work. While the focus is on the real story of events at Verdun, that it was more than what official histories indicate of the massive 1916 engagement, the bigger issues that this book focuses on are the shortcomings of the French military, from a detailed analysis of the French artillery, which was a significant weakness of the war, to its ability to alter the narrative as accepted by the French nation and historians.

Some of the issues, primarily with the French command, are not so alien, especially with the failing of Joffre, who was not much of a battlefield commander, but perhaps the best political general in the French military. However, the analysis of German and French actions can, especially in the strategy of the war, are of some interest and debate. Mosier is a bit more charitable to the German plans, especially in how they did take advantage of French mistakes. The author is good to note that there were multiple engagements at Verdun, not just the 1916 mega-battle.

Yet, for all of his attack of the sacred cows, he doesn’t really dispel all that much of the history of the 1916 battle. The Voie Sacree is still the Voie Sacree, and perhaps a big failing is that this book assumes that the reader will already have a detailed understanding of the war. However, there is a great chance that a reader, especially in America, who checks this book out, may view this book as the first real exposure to the battle. He tries to take a few shots at Alastair Horne’s work on Verdun, but doesn’t really dispel it, and to be honest, while there could be some flaws with Horne’s work, that one is better written and does offer a better sense of the 1916 battle. This book is at best a companion for those with knowledge of the battle and World War I. Not recommended for the outside reader.

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than most accounts of Verdun, the authors considers all the battles between 1914 and 1918 on both flanks of Verdun as battles fought for the city. For an approach like this the book is too thin in my opinion, especially the fighting from 1917 to the end of the war is hardly covered. That said there are many positive things to say about the book; mostly the analysis of the myths created about the battles by the French side in regards to causalities and terrain conquered during the various offenses between 1915 - 1917.The interpretation of Falkenhayn’ s letter to the emperor and the author's spin on it was very interesting to me as well. He argues a convincing point that the goal was less to bleed the French Army white than to convince the people of France that the war was futile and could not be won. His analysis of the person of Falkenhayn is very different from everything I read in the past about him. If you are going to read a single book about Verdun I wouldn’t pick this one, if you plan on reading several books about the topic this is definitely one to consider.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I purchased this book in the gift shop at the National World War 1 Museum in Kansas City, MO during a visit there with my Dad in June 2016. I started to read this book shortly after returning home from that trip but soon set it aside as I wasn't enamored with the author's writing style. I recently pulled it back off the shelf for another try. I have not read any of Mosier's other books, but in this one he has more axes to grind than Paul Bunyan, mainly with other historians who he characterizes as misrepresenting the true scope and significance of the battles known as "Verdun". I would preferred a more straightforward telling of his version of the facts without the polemic. That being said, there are quite a number of interesting things in the book, especially about the development and use of artillery in WW1. Three out of five stars.

[Noble Diven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A history worth reading after you've read two other histories on the Battle of Verdun. Without any background knowledge the author sounds smug in his observations and theories regarding the battle, his comments on French leadership and tactics childish to the point that they overshadow some very interesting ideas on how the Western Front was fought. Being a quasi-nerd about World War I allowed me to really enjoy this book as I got to mentally argue points and revel in the technical details about such a bloody period in our world history.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mosier does a brilliant job of doing what nobody else has done yet: get the real story of the SEVERAL battles for Verdun documented correctly. Highly recommend, great research, yes Mosier repeats a lot of information, but out of necessity due to the amount of information. Best work I have read on the subject to date, and at the very least will challenge the seasoned First World War historian/enthusiast on the "official" history, and how wrong and inaccurate it is.

[Victor Whitman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes a convincing case that the narrative about this battle is wrong. Mosier seems to have a good command of German and French, which many Anglo WW 1 historians lack. So, definitely worth reading. My only critique is that I suspect most people will still leave confused about what actually happened. Needs better and more frequent maps

[Seth Benzell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Revisionist pushback to myths I never got (German attackers were dynamic stormtroopers, not human wave robots; forts were completely useless, the defense always inflicted high casualty ratios) but still fascinating. Echoes of Bakhmut - politicians switching generals, misinfo everywhere, assumptions turning into myths, a target selected for political reasons in a giant front.

[Paul Wesner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well foot noted, this book provides a good history of the war around the Verdun sector from start to finish.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title may say Verdun but it covers most of the war with details not found in other books. I recommend reading one or two others if you aren't familiar with the war and then read this one.

[Christopher Backa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at world war 1 combat in relation to the many battles that took place in and around Verdun

[Joe · Rating 1 out of 5]

One expression comes to mind: If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with...

[David Harrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

a tough read

[Bradyn Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinds beats the head horse. The book could be half the length if he wasnt so redundant.

[Tristan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to finish, had to read it for Dr. King class

[Michael Gerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting analysis of one of the most terrible battles in history, the Battle of Verdun in France in the First World War.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a reread from 2021. I'd be inclined to say closer to 4 stars than 3 although the drawbacks listed below still obtain. There may be better histories on Verdun itself (the 1916 version that is) but he does really fine job of placing it within an overall WW1 perspective. The GQG (French Army HQ) could provide lessons for today about how to obfuscate and confuse the consumers of their various forms of mis- and disinformation. At the government level the the salient lesson to be taken from Mosier's book is on p.296 where he cites Orwell 'it required people to believe the opposite of what they had been told'. This in respect to the lies told about French vs. German losses at almost every turn in the war. It may seem counterintuitive, but the big lies are easier for governments to foist on the masses than small corrections in course (see Covid 2019-2021, etc.). It all becomes understandable when you accept that any government's first priority is never the 'country' but their own jobs, as Mosier points out repeatedly. I'm inclined to pick up his works on WW2 and his other on WW1, his skepticism on 'accepeted' history is refreshing!

2021 review: Despite some serious flaws this was a pretty readable and somewhat informative work. Biggest Con: Unbelievably bad maps--in a military history almost unforgivable, small, almost tiny and nearly illegible, one lacking a scale altogether. There is also a persistent whiff of self-superiority about his analysis, as if he was the first historian to discover that the Allies lied early and often both during and after the war about the reality of combat losses on the Western Front. Perhaps he never read Niall Ferguson's 'The Pity of War' (1998) which goes into much greater detail on some of those issues. The book is redeemed in part by his occasional good humor, interesting analysis on the actual complexities of Verdun and interpretation of the actions of the high commands, French and German. The book is uneven and repeats itself unnecessarily in various places but despite these reservations I'd say it worth the read if for no other reason to counterbalance the vast majority of viewpoints that spew the same Western (French-British) propaganda and lies that started during the war and continued even with the writings of many so-called 'eminent' historians.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was no single Battle of Verdun; there were eight. Mosier's book (like his "Myth of the Great War") points out a number of painful truths about the Allied prosecution of the war. The French army covered all but fifty miles of the Western Front, so its shortcomings in leadership (just as before the war) contributed mightily to the stalemate that defined the war The reason that we don't know about the ongoing nature of the fight for the area around Verdun (itself a militarily insignificant and largely indefensible town of 12,000) is that the French high command routinely lied about the war's prosecution. Defeats became victories or were ignored entirely because the high command had a stranglehold on both the French and foreign press. Journalists could not cover the war unless they came from an Allied combatant nation. They could not cover the war independently because hey were under the control of French "minders," and rarely visited contested areas. If they published the truth, they were prosecuted as spies. One of the subjects that could not be covered (leadership and success aside) was the quality of French weapons compared to those of the Germans (much less leadership and military success). When the Americans punched through the German lines, though at high cost, the French largely took the credit.

Mosier has unearthed sources that were suppressed or ignored. He has provided analysis and critical judgments about a subject that was accepted as a given. He makes an even more damning case that Alan Clark< Leonard Wolff, and others made thirty years ago.