Editing Battle of Verdun (section)

==Background==

===Strategic developments===
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]]. The Germans built field fortifications to hold the ground captured in 1914 and the French began [[trench warfare|siege warfare]] to break through the German defences and recover the lost territory. In late 1914 and in 1915, offensives on the Western Front had failed to gain much ground and been extremely costly in casualties.{{efn|[[First Battle of Champagne]] ({{nowrap|20 December 1914 to 17 March 1915}}), [[First Battle of Artois]] ({{nowrap|December 1914 to January 1915}}), [[Second Battle of Ypres]] ({{nowrap|21 April to 25 May}}), [[Battle of Neuve Chapelle|Neuve Chapelle]] ({{nowrap|10 to 13 March}}), [[Second Battle of Artois]] ({{nowrap|9 May to 18 June}}), [[Second Battle of Champagne]] ({{nowrap|25 September to 6 November}}), [[Battle of Loos]] ({{nowrap|25 September to 14 October}}) and [[Third Battle of Artois]] ({{nowrap|25 September to 4 November}}).}} According to his memoirs written after the war, the Chief of the [[German General Staff]], [[Erich von Falkenhayn]], believed that although victory might no longer be achieved by a decisive battle, the French army could still be defeated if it suffered a sufficient number of casualties.{{sfn|Falkenhayn|2004|pp=217–218}} Falkenhayn offered five corps from the strategic reserve for an offensive at Verdun at the beginning of February 1916 but only for an attack on the east bank of the Meuse. Falkenhayn considered it unlikely the French would be complacent about Verdun; he thought that they might send all their reserves there and begin a counter-offensive elsewhere or fight to hold Verdun while the British launched a relief offensive. After the war, [[Wilhelm II, German Emperor|Kaiser Wilhelm II]] and [[Gerhard Tappen]], the Operations Officer at ''[[Oberste Heeresleitung]]'' (OHL, General Headquarters), wrote that Falkenhayn believed the last possibility was most likely.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=191–192}}

By seizing or threatening to capture Verdun, the Germans anticipated that the French would send all their reserves, which would then have to attack secure German defensive positions supported by a powerful artillery reserve. In the [[Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive]] ({{nowrap|1 May to 19 September 1915}}), the German and Austro-Hungarian Armies attacked Russian defences frontally, after pulverising them with large amounts of heavy artillery. During the [[Second Battle of Champagne]] ({{lang|de|Herbstschlacht}} [autumn battle]) {{nowrap|25 September to 6 November 1915}}, the French suffered "extraordinary casualties" from the German heavy artillery, which Falkenhayn considered offered a way out of the dilemma of material inferiority and the growing strength of the Allies. In the north, a British relief offensive would wear down British reserves, to no decisive effect but create the conditions for a German counter-offensive near [[Arras]].{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=192}}

Hints about Falkenhayn's thinking were picked up by Dutch military intelligence and passed on to the British in December. The German strategy was to create a favourable operational situation without a mass attack, which had been costly and ineffective when tried by the Franco-British, Falkenhayn intended to rely on the power of heavy artillery to inflict mass casualties. A limited offensive at Verdun would lead to the destruction of the French strategic reserve in fruitless counter-attacks and the defeat of British reserves during a hopeless relief offensive, leading to the French accepting a separate peace. If the French refused to negotiate, the second phase of the strategy would follow, in which the German armies would attack terminally weakened Franco-British armies, mop up the remains of the French armies and expel the British from Europe. To fulfil this strategy, Falkenhayn needed to hold back enough of the strategic reserve to defeat the Anglo-French relief offensives and then conduct a counter-offensive, which limited the number of divisions which could be sent to the 5th Army at Verdun for {{lang|de|Unternehmen Gericht}} (Operation Judgement).{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=193}}

The Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV) lay in a [[Salients, re-entrants and pockets|salient]] formed during the German invasion of 1914. General [[Joseph Joffre]], the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, had concluded from the swift capture of the Belgian fortresses at the [[Battle of Liège]] and at the [[Siege of Namur (1914)|Siege of Namur]] in 1914 that fortifications had been made obsolete by German super-heavy siege artillery. In a directive of the General Staff of 5 August 1915, the RFV was to be stripped of {{nowrap|54 artillery}} batteries and {{nowrap|128,000 rounds}} of ammunition. Plans to demolish forts Douaumont and Vaux to deny them to the Germans were made and {{cvt|5000|kg|order=flip}} of explosives had been placed in Douaumont by the time of the German offensive on 21 February. The {{nowrap|18 large}} forts and other batteries around Verdun were left with fewer than {{nowrap|300 guns}} and a small reserve of ammunition, while their garrisons had been reduced to small maintenance crews.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|p=35}} The railway line from the south into Verdun had been cut during the [[Battle of Flirey]] in 1914, with the loss of [[Saint-Mihiel]]; the line west from Verdun to Paris was cut at [[Aubréville]] in mid-July 1915 by the German [[3rd Army (German Empire)|3rd Army]], which had attacked southwards through the [[Forest of Argonne|Argonne Forest]] since the new year.{{sfn|Doughty|2005|pp=275–276}}

==={{lang|fr|Région Fortifiée de Verdun}}===
[[Image:Verdun and Vincinity - Map.jpg|thumb|{{centre|Map of the battlefield}}]]
For centuries, Verdun, on the [[Meuse (river)|Meuse]] river, had played an important role in the defence of the French [[hinterland]]. [[Attila the Hun]] failed to seize the town in the fifth century and when the empire of [[Charlemagne]] was divided under the [[Treaty of Verdun]] (843), the town became part of the [[Holy Roman Empire]]; the [[Peace of Westphalia]] of 1648 awarded Verdun to France. At the heart of the city was a citadel built by [[Vauban]] in the 17th century.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|p=20}} A double ring of {{nowrap|28 forts}} and smaller works ({{lang|fr|ouvrages}}) had been built around Verdun on commanding ground, at least {{cvt|150|m|order=flip}} above the river valley, {{cvt|2.5|–|8|km|order=flip}} from the citadel. A programme had been devised by [[Séré de Rivières system|Séré de Rivières]] in the 1870s to build two lines of fortresses from [[Belfort]] to [[Épinal]] and from Verdun to [[Toul]] as defensive screens and to enclose towns intended to be the bases for counter-attacks.{{sfn|Le Hallé|1998|p=15}}{{efn|Forts in the outer ring were (clockwise) Douaumont, Vaux, Moulainville, Le Rozelier, Haudainville, Dugny, Regret and Marre. The inner ring included Souville, Tavannes, Belrupt and Belleville.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|p=32}}}}

Many of the Verdun forts had been modernised and made more resistant to artillery, with a reconstruction programme begun at Douaumont in the 1880s. A sand cushion and thick, steel-reinforced concrete tops up to {{cvt|2.5|m|order=flip}} thick, buried under {{cvt|1|–|4|m|order=flip}} of earth, were added. The forts and {{lang|fr|ouvrages}} were sited to overlook each other for mutual support and the outer ring had a circumference of {{cvt|45|km|order=flip}}. The outer forts had {{nowrap|79 guns}} in shellproof turrets and more than {{nowrap|200 light guns}} and machine-guns to protect the ditches around the forts. Six forts had {{nowrap|155 mm guns}} in retractable turrets and fourteen had retractable twin {{nowrap|75 mm turrets}}.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=31–32}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00153, Westfront, Bettungsgeschütz.jpg|thumb|{{centre|[[Langer Max|Long Max]] mounted on its combined railway and firing platform.}}]]
In 1903, Douaumont was equipped with a new concrete bunker ({{lang|fr|Casemate de Bourges}}), containing two [[canon de 75 modèle 1897|75 mm field guns]] to cover the south-western approach and the defensive works along the ridge to {{lang|fr|Ouvrage de Froideterre}}. More guns were added from 1903 to 1913 in four retractable steel turrets. The guns could rotate for all-round defence and two smaller versions, at the north-eastern and north-western corners of the fort, housed twin [[Hotchkiss M1909 Benet–Mercie machine gun|Hotchkiss machine-guns]]. On the east side of the fort, an armoured turret with a {{nowrap|155 mm short-barrelled}} gun faced north and north-east and another housed twin {{nowrap|75 mm guns}} at the north end, to cover the intervals between the neighbouring forts. The fort at Douaumont formed part of a complex of the village, fort, six {{lang|fr|ouvrages}}, five shelters, six concrete batteries, an underground infantry shelter, two ammunition depots and several concrete infantry trenches.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=25–29}} The Verdun forts had a network of concrete infantry shelters, armoured observation posts, batteries, concrete trenches, command posts and underground shelters between the forts. The artillery comprised {{circa| 1,000 guns}}, with {{nowrap|250 in}} reserve; the forts and {{lang|fr|ouvrages}} were linked by telephone and telegraph, a narrow-gauge railway system and a road network; on mobilisation, the RFV had a garrison of {{nowrap|66,000 men}} and rations for six months.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|p=32}}{{efn|In September and December 1914, the {{nowrap|155 mm gun}} at Fort Douaumont bombarded German positions north of Verdun and a German observation post at the {{lang|fr|Jumelles d'Ornes}} (the Ornes binoculars). In February 1915, Douaumont was bombarded by a {{nowrap|420 mm mortar}} known as [[Big Bertha (howitzer)|Big Bertha]] and [[38 cm SK L/45 "Max"|Long Max]], a {{nowrap|380 mm naval}} gun.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=33–34}}}}