Verdun 1916: Falkenhayn's Plan to Bleed France White, 302 Days

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On February 25, 1916, about 100 German soldiers walked into Fort Douaumont, the strongest fortress in France, without firing a shot and captured its skeleton crew of roughly 25 men. The fort was nearly empty because French commander Joseph Joffre, convinced by the fall of Belgian forts in 1914 that concrete was obsolete, had stripped Verdun of 54 artillery batteries and 128,000 rounds. German chief of staff Erich von Falkenhayn chose the Verdun salient not to take ground but to bleed France white, building 10 railway lines, deep Stollen bunkers for 1,200 men each, and massing over 1,200 heavy guns. The battle opened on February 21 with a 10-hour bombardment of about one million shells, heard 99 miles away.

General Philippe Pétain took command the day Douaumont fell, rotating units through the line and feeding them along the Voie Sacrée. His guns on the west bank of the Meuse caught advancing Germans in the flank and dragged them into costly attacks on Mort Homme and Hill 304. Fort Vaux fell on June 7, and the Germans reached Chapelle Sainte-Fine, two and a half miles from the Verdun citadel, as Robert Nivelle ordered that they shall not pass. Then the Somme and Brusilov offensives drained German reserves, and Falkenhayn was sacked in August. By December the French had retaken both forts, at a combined cost of over 714,000 casualties.

• On the Voie Sacrée, the 45-mile road from Bar-le-Duc, a truck passed any given point every 14 seconds.
• Fort Vaux's garrison fought in dark tunnels until thirst forced them to lick condensation off the walls and surrender.
• Diphosgene gas sank into shell holes and could kill hours later as fluid filled the lungs.
• General Charles Mangin's autumn counteroffensives used stopwatch-timed creeping barrages and 400mm railway guns.
• In September 1984 Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand held hands at the Douaumont Ossuary, while six destroyed villages remain in the toxic Zone Rouge.