France holds international commemorations to mark the centenary of the Battle of Verdun

[webfact]

France holds international commemorations to mark the centenary of the Battle of Verdun
Produced by Beatriz Beiras



VERDUN: -- At zero seven fifteen on the morning of February 21 1916. German artillery launched a fusillade of shells on the Caures wood. It was a battle tactic to prepare the ground for the armies to follow.

The Germans had surprised the French. The battle of Verdun had begun well for them.

A century later Verdun remains the most famous battle of the First World War.

“My grandfather was a German soldier in 1914 because Alsace was part of the German Empire so it is in great part in memory to him,” Luc Heinrich a volunteer at the battlefield site explained while another added: “Maybe the young will forget tomorrow but it is thanks to these people that we are free.”

The battle which cost the lives of 300,000 lasted 300 days. One hundred and thirty thousand of these soldiers, Germans and French are buried in the impressive Douaumont Ossuary.

Verdun was a ruthless battle fought exclusively between the French and Germans. The Germans believed that by launching their tactic of “Trommelfeuer”, rolling fire and storms of steel at the start of the battle it would soon be over. But this was trench warfare and the two sides dug in.

During the 300 days and nights between that February morning and December 1916 26 million shells pounded the battlefield that is six shells per square metre.

It is considered as the most terrible of battles in the history of warfare. The losses though were less than at the Somme.

The difference was that the Allies were also in action at the Somme where the English lost 19,250 soldiers on the first day of fighting.

New weapons like the tank were deployed for the first time at the Somme. It was also the first battle where film – which was to become an exceptional witness to conflicts – was first used to capture the horrors.

But it is Verdun which remains the most potent symbol of the futility of war. After 300 days of fighting the battle lines had hardly moved, the Germans never got within five kilometres of the city of Verdun.

In 1984 the then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and former French President Francois Mitterand chose these killing fields to seal friendship between the two countries as they stood hand in hand.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-05-27

[jaidam]

It is unbearable to consider the sacrifice our forefathers made,to ensure our freedoms, and the complete travesty of what recent generations did with that legacy. Some even uttering the fashionable "lest we forget" when they have clearly forgotten.

[Andaman Al]

It is unbearable to consider the sacrifice our forefathers made,to ensure our freedoms, and the complete travesty of what recent generations did with that legacy. Some even uttering the fashionable "lest we forget" when they have clearly forgotten.

Yes. Lest some forget. A tiny sample of what it was like. Welcome to Hell on Earth

[mrwebb8825]

Why are the French celebrating? They weren't even there when it was won.

[NumbNut]

Why are the French celebrating? They weren't even there when it was won.

Huh? This is WWI. The French were most definitely there.

[chilli42]

Germans and Allies should set aside a day of loathing and hate for the generals and politicians who pursued war in a manner that wasted life in this way.

[Baerboxer]

Germans and Allies should set aside a day of loathing and hate for the generals and politicians who pursued war in a manner that wasted life in this way.

It was the first truly industrialized war. The class ridden political and military hierarchies were slow to learn, slow to adapt and had mind sets from bygone eras.

This was a time when not everyone in Britain enjoyed the right to vote. Women couldn't and many of those who fought and died also couldn't. The ruling classes saw the lower classes as expendable and giving them the chance to do their duty was seen as good.

Many lessons about the effects of emerging technological development should have been learned from the American Civil war. The European powers sent observers but were slow to change and the social and political frameworks hindered change.

Whole communities and families wiped out and simply justified as doing ones duty and part of being a leading nation in the world.

However. had France, Britain, and their Allies, later joined by America not made these sacrifices in this and the subsequent world war, Europe would have been under a German dictatorship. How ironic history sometimes is.

[GeorgesAbitbol]

Why are the French celebrating? They weren't even there when it was won.

For sure you weren't there during European History 101 Class

[NumbNut]

Germans and Allies should set aside a day of loathing and hate for the generals and politicians who pursued war in a manner that wasted life in this way.

It was the first truly industrialized war. The class ridden political and military hierarchies were slow to learn, slow to adapt and had mind sets from bygone eras.

This was a time when not everyone in Britain enjoyed the right to vote. Women couldn't and many of those who fought and died also couldn't. The ruling classes saw the lower classes as expendable and giving them the chance to do their duty was seen as good.

Many lessons about the effects of emerging technological development should have been learned from the American Civil war. The European powers sent observers but were slow to change and the social and political frameworks hindered change.

Whole communities and families wiped out and simply justified as doing ones duty and part of being a leading nation in the world.

However. had France, Britain, and their Allies, later joined by America not made these sacrifices in this and the subsequent world war, Europe would have been under a German dictatorship. How ironic history sometimes is.

Agree, WWI changed everything, and mostly for the better. And just as well with such a high price tag.

I would say though that the British did have an inkling of what they could possibly be in for in any modern war with a European adversary following the Second Boer War (1899-1902). It showed what a committed foe armed primarily with modern magazine-fed rifles could do to a conventional massed infantry attack. The Boers did have some automatic weapons but they mostly played a minor part in the actions fought during that war. Putting the casualties caused by disease to one side, it is numbing how many soldiers became causalities due to the deployment of a modern (for the times) and accurate Mauser rifle with a five bullet magazine fired by a relatively untrained farmer/civilian.

The Second Boer War is the main reason the British Army adopted khaki in an attempt to blend in with the scenery.

The history of the Second Boer War, and to a lessor extent the Russo-Japanese war showed what modern rifled weapony in the right hands could achieve. And that's even before we add in the bloody machine guns.

The vast majority of WWI Generals, with some notable exceptions, were jokes. I don't know how the bastards slept at night.

Edited May 27, 2016 by NumbNut

[bannork]

it's pointless perhaps to compare wars but there really can't have been a worse fate than being in the trenches in WW!. The constant shelling, the machine guns and mass slaughter when they went over the top,the mud, the rats, the cold.

.How any man came back sane from that hell on earth is beyond me.