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Verdun 1916: The Deadliest Battle of the First World War
Fought on the heights above the garrison town of the same name on the River Meuse, 140 miles east of Paris, the Battle of Verdun lasted for ten months, between February and December 1916, double the length of the Battle of the Somme and over three times the length of the Battle of Passchendaele. Conceived by the Germans as a means of destroying the French army through attrition rather than breakthrough and encirclement, the battle cost 300,000 lives.Massed artillery was employed on a hitherto unprecedented scale; the initial bombardment lasted for nine hours and saw 80,000 shells fall on the French trench line, while on the ground the initial attack saw the combat debut of storm-troop tactics and the man-pack flamethrower. As the battle raged the combatants endured heat and thirst akin to desert conditions together with bottomless mud as bad as at Passchendaele. In addition, fixed defences like the forts of Douaumont and Vaux sparked hellish underground fighting in subterranean pitch darkness that occurred nowhere else on the Western Front.The result was almost 200 square kilometres of ground that had been blasted, ploughed and poisoned into a wasteland by explosives and gas, so much so that the post-war French authorities were unable to return it to its former agricultural use and simply left it to the elements.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 4, 2017
This is a decent enough read, albeit imperfect.
The battle of Verdun is a fascinating and dramatic story, and Buckingham does an effective job of telling it. I was genuinely astonished at the hell of the battle, and he has chosen some good eyewitness testimonies to bring it to life. The constant artillery for 10 months turned the battlefield into a poisoned wasteland (as did widespread use of phosgene gas by the Germans), and units sent into the meatgrinder did not last long; frequently we read of battalions obliterated in a barrage. Trenches did not last long either, and the frontlines were generally interconnected shell craters. Rations, water and ammunition were always difficult to replenish. The subterranean fighting in the various forts of Verdun was particularly grim. These were dark and damp, with narrow low, tunnels (3 feet wide by 4 feet high in Fort Vaux), and one can imagine the shaking of constant bombardment. The battle for Fort Vaux was particularly striking. A French machine gun alongside a soldier throwing grenades could defend a corridor against hundreds of Germans, whose only option was to attempt to rush the machine gun in single file; I tried to imagine what it felt like to be next in line to charge down the corridor. There were thousands of German casualties and the French defence was heroic; when they finally surrendered, cut off and out of water, the Germans allowed the French defenders of Fort Vaux to parade with military honours, and the French officer was presented by the Germans with a captured sword to replace his own. I was very struck by the chivalry after such incredibly savage fighting. I was surprised how apparently close to collapse the French army came in Verdun too; it seems that if they had broken through, the Germans may have gone some way to winning the war. Verdun was a dramatic story indeed.
There were also some interesting military lessons. On the French side, the bellicose won out over the moderate (when has that ever turned out well?), and as a result the sensible Petain was removed and the aggressive Nivelle was put in command, and the French embarked on fruitless, uncoordinated piecemeal attacks which just chewed up lives. Proper coordinated offensives were much more effective. Nivelle also ended the "noria" system, which Petain had implemented to maintain morale and retain combat experience within units. Essentially it meant rotating units out after a short period (maybe a week or so), rather than leaving them in the frontline until the unit was destroyed, which was the German practice, and the French before and after Petain (who actually comes across as a competent and decent general).
Buckingham's book has a number of flaws though. First, it is told very much from the French perspective, although not exclusively; a rough guesstimate is that for every account from a German, there would be three or four French, maybe even more. I had hoped for a more balanced insight, and I wondered why this was not the case. I'm not a First World War historian, but is there a paucity of sources from the German side, or is it a language problem? Do English-language historians of World War I not speak German? I wondered if Buckingham might not, as his bibliography lists seven French-language websites, but only one German language website (although alternatively maybe there is more interest in France about Verdun - I haven't looked).
The next significant flaw was Buckingham's use of sources. He does not appear to have used a single primary source, other than quotes from other history books. All the eyewitness material he quotes is from other historians' work. He does provide full endnotes, so it was possible to see what evidence he was using. He makes very extensive use of Alastair Horne's 1964 work "The Price of Glory". I wondered if basically he was just regurgitating that book - he refers to it a lot, even quoting Horne the historian, which I thought a bit lazy. Buckingham didn't seem to add much.
There is also a French website about Verdun of which he also makes extensive use. That website seems to be the source of his irritatingly long lists of units and their commanders; when the name of the commander had no bearing on the narrative, that information would have been much better in an appendix. Better maps would have been helpful too. Similarly his description of the course of the frontline on the Western Front would have been better presented in a map. There was a definite sense of padding designed to fill the book out to its 260 pages. The first two chapters (of ten) went into unnecessary detail on the history of (chapter one) of the town of Verdun from 450 BCE, and (chapter two) a history of the fortresses at Verdun, particularly the construction after the Franco-Prussian war. They were kind of interesting, but the level of detail was not necessary and felt like filler material. Meanwhile, chapter three traced the history of the First World War into 1915 (more filler). Finally, chapter four became more relevant as it looked at the Verdun region from Feb 1915 until Feb 1916, when the battle started. So really there were just six chapters about the actual subject of the book! (Remember it is called "Verdun 1916".)
Another irritation was his constant use of "a" before giving someone's rank and name. For instance, "...including a Lieutenant Petitcullot, who subsequently succumbed to his injuries...", or "...accompanied by a Sergent Frette...", to choose two random examples. It became really offputting and I was baffled why he felt he had to insert "a". It adds to the word count, I suppose.
So overall this book is interesting and worth a read, but it's also flawed. One thing, it has definitely made me want to visit the battlefield.
The battle of Verdun is a fascinating and dramatic story, and Buckingham does an effective job of telling it. I was genuinely astonished at the hell of the battle, and he has chosen some good eyewitness testimonies to bring it to life. The constant artillery for 10 months turned the battlefield into a poisoned wasteland (as did widespread use of phosgene gas by the Germans), and units sent into the meatgrinder did not last long; frequently we read of battalions obliterated in a barrage. Trenches did not last long either, and the frontlines were generally interconnected shell craters. Rations, water and ammunition were always difficult to replenish. The subterranean fighting in the various forts of Verdun was particularly grim. These were dark and damp, with narrow low, tunnels (3 feet wide by 4 feet high in Fort Vaux), and one can imagine the shaking of constant bombardment. The battle for Fort Vaux was particularly striking. A French machine gun alongside a soldier throwing grenades could defend a corridor against hundreds of Germans, whose only option was to attempt to rush the machine gun in single file; I tried to imagine what it felt like to be next in line to charge down the corridor. There were thousands of German casualties and the French defence was heroic; when they finally surrendered, cut off and out of water, the Germans allowed the French defenders of Fort Vaux to parade with military honours, and the French officer was presented by the Germans with a captured sword to replace his own. I was very struck by the chivalry after such incredibly savage fighting. I was surprised how apparently close to collapse the French army came in Verdun too; it seems that if they had broken through, the Germans may have gone some way to winning the war. Verdun was a dramatic story indeed.
There were also some interesting military lessons. On the French side, the bellicose won out over the moderate (when has that ever turned out well?), and as a result the sensible Petain was removed and the aggressive Nivelle was put in command, and the French embarked on fruitless, uncoordinated piecemeal attacks which just chewed up lives. Proper coordinated offensives were much more effective. Nivelle also ended the "noria" system, which Petain had implemented to maintain morale and retain combat experience within units. Essentially it meant rotating units out after a short period (maybe a week or so), rather than leaving them in the frontline until the unit was destroyed, which was the German practice, and the French before and after Petain (who actually comes across as a competent and decent general).
Buckingham's book has a number of flaws though. First, it is told very much from the French perspective, although not exclusively; a rough guesstimate is that for every account from a German, there would be three or four French, maybe even more. I had hoped for a more balanced insight, and I wondered why this was not the case. I'm not a First World War historian, but is there a paucity of sources from the German side, or is it a language problem? Do English-language historians of World War I not speak German? I wondered if Buckingham might not, as his bibliography lists seven French-language websites, but only one German language website (although alternatively maybe there is more interest in France about Verdun - I haven't looked).
The next significant flaw was Buckingham's use of sources. He does not appear to have used a single primary source, other than quotes from other history books. All the eyewitness material he quotes is from other historians' work. He does provide full endnotes, so it was possible to see what evidence he was using. He makes very extensive use of Alastair Horne's 1964 work "The Price of Glory". I wondered if basically he was just regurgitating that book - he refers to it a lot, even quoting Horne the historian, which I thought a bit lazy. Buckingham didn't seem to add much.
There is also a French website about Verdun of which he also makes extensive use. That website seems to be the source of his irritatingly long lists of units and their commanders; when the name of the commander had no bearing on the narrative, that information would have been much better in an appendix. Better maps would have been helpful too. Similarly his description of the course of the frontline on the Western Front would have been better presented in a map. There was a definite sense of padding designed to fill the book out to its 260 pages. The first two chapters (of ten) went into unnecessary detail on the history of (chapter one) of the town of Verdun from 450 BCE, and (chapter two) a history of the fortresses at Verdun, particularly the construction after the Franco-Prussian war. They were kind of interesting, but the level of detail was not necessary and felt like filler material. Meanwhile, chapter three traced the history of the First World War into 1915 (more filler). Finally, chapter four became more relevant as it looked at the Verdun region from Feb 1915 until Feb 1916, when the battle started. So really there were just six chapters about the actual subject of the book! (Remember it is called "Verdun 1916".)
Another irritation was his constant use of "a" before giving someone's rank and name. For instance, "...including a Lieutenant Petitcullot, who subsequently succumbed to his injuries...", or "...accompanied by a Sergent Frette...", to choose two random examples. It became really offputting and I was baffled why he felt he had to insert "a". It adds to the word count, I suppose.
So overall this book is interesting and worth a read, but it's also flawed. One thing, it has definitely made me want to visit the battlefield.
November 5, 2018
A really excellent little history of the bloodiest and longest battle of World War 1. It breaks down what could be almost numbing details pretty decently....honestly, it is a military history by a military historian, so there's some depth in places to plow through, but if your interested in this type of stuff it's well done and very readable. I did learn a lot about a battle that has always weirdly fascinated me....
April 19, 2025
Verdun
I have read many references to this important WWI battle but did not know what it was all about until I read this book. It was a battle of attrition with French Generals fighting a modern war with modern weapons but with battle tactics almost 50 years in the past. Hundreds of thousands of men died bon both sides. It's an interesting book and I enjoyed it.
I have read many references to this important WWI battle but did not know what it was all about until I read this book. It was a battle of attrition with French Generals fighting a modern war with modern weapons but with battle tactics almost 50 years in the past. Hundreds of thousands of men died bon both sides. It's an interesting book and I enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews