Editing Battle of Verdun (section)

====21–26 February====
[[File:Fort Douaumont Anfang 1916.jpg|thumb|{{centre|[[Fort Douaumont]] before the battle (German aerial photograph)}}]]
{{lang|de|Unternehmen Gericht}} (Operation Judgement) was due to begin on 12 February but fog, heavy rain and high winds delayed the offensive until {{nowrap|7:15 a.m.}} on 21 February, when a 10-hour artillery bombardment by {{nowrap|808 guns}} began. The German artillery fired {{circa| 1,000,000 shells}} along a front about {{cvt|30|km|order=flip}} long by {{cvt|5|km|order=flip}} wide.{{sfn|Mason|2000|pp=48–49}} The main concentration of fire was on the right (east) bank of the Meuse river. Twenty-six super-heavy, long-range guns, up to 17-inch (420 mm), fired on the forts and the city of Verdun; a rumble that could be heard {{cvt|160|km|order=flip}} away.{{sfn|Mason|2000|pp=49–51}}

The bombardment was paused at midday as a ruse to prompt French survivors to reveal themselves and German artillery-observation aircraft were able to fly over the battlefield unchallenged.{{sfn|Mason|2000|pp=49–51}} The III Corps, [[VII Corps (German Empire)|VII Corps]] and XVIII Corps attacked at {{nowrap|4:00 p.m.}}; the Germans used [[flamethrower]]s and [[Stormtroopers (Imperial Germany)|stormtroopers]] followed closely with rifles slung, using hand grenades to kill the remaining defenders. This tactic had been developed by Captain [[Willy Rohr]] and {{lang|de|Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr)}} which delivered the attack.{{sfn|Schwerin|1939|pp=9–12, 24–29}} French survivors engaged the attackers, yet the Germans suffered only {{circa| 600 casualties.}}{{sfn|Mason|2000|pp=54–59}}

[[File:Fort Douaumont Ende 1916.jpg|thumb|{{centre|Douaumont after the battle}}]]
By 22 February, German troops had advanced {{cvt|5|km|order=flip}} and captured {{lang|fr|Bois des Caures}} at the edge of the village of [[Moirey-Flabas-Crépion|Flabas]]. Two French battalions had held the {{lang|fr|bois}} (wood) for two days but were forced back to [[Samogneux]], [[Beaumont-en-Auge]] and [[Ornes, Meuse|Ornes]]. Driant was killed, fighting with the 56th and 59th {{lang|fr|Bataillons de chasseurs à pied}} and only {{nowrap|118 of}} the [[Chasseur]]s managed to escape. Poor communications meant that only then did the French High Command realise the seriousness of the attack. The Germans managed to take the village of [[Haumont-près-Samogneux|Haumont]] but French forces repulsed a German attack on the village of {{lang|fr|Bois de l'Herbebois}}. On 23 February, a French counter-attack at {{lang|fr|Bois des Caures}} was defeated.{{sfn|Mason|2000|pp=60–64}}

Fighting for {{lang|fr|Bois de l'Herbebois}} continued until the Germans outflanked the French defenders from {{lang|fr|Bois de Wavrille}}. The German attackers suffered many casualties during their attack on {{lang|fr|Bois de Fosses}} and the French held on to Samogneux. German attacks continued on 24 February and the French XXX Corps was forced out of the second line of defence; XX Corps (General Maurice Balfourier) arrived at the last minute and was rushed forward. That evening Castelnau advised Joffre that the [[Second Army (France)|Second Army]], under General Pétain, should be sent to the RFV. The Germans had captured [[Beaumont-en-Verdunois]], {{lang|fr|Bois des Fosses}} and {{lang|fr|Bois des Caurières}} and were moving up {{lang|fr|ravin Hassoule}}, which led to Fort Douaumont.{{sfn|Mason|2000|pp=60–64}}

At {{nowrap|3:00 p.m.}} on 25 February, infantry of [[Brandenburg]] Regiment 24 advanced with the II and III battalions side-by-side, each formed into two waves composed of two companies each. A delay in the arrival of orders to the regiments on the flanks, led to the III Battalion advancing without support on that flank. The Germans rushed French positions in the woods and on Côte 347, with the support of machine-gun fire from the edge of {{lang|fr|Bois Hermitage}}. The German infantry took many prisoners as the French on Côte 347 were outflanked and withdrew to Douaumont village. The German infantry had reached their objectives in under twenty minutes and pursued the French, until fired on by a machine-gun in Douaumont church. Some German troops took cover in woods and a ravine which led to the fort, when German artillery began to bombard the area, the gunners having refused to believe claims sent by field telephone that the German infantry were within a few hundred metres of the fort. Several German parties were forced to advance to find cover from the German shelling and two parties independently made for the fort.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=43–44}}{{efn|The first party to enter the fort was led by {{lang|de|Leutnant}} Eugen Radtke, {{lang|de|Hauptmann}} Hans Joachim Haupt and {{lang|de|Oberleutnant}} Cordt von Brandis. Brandis and Haupt were awarded the highest German military decoration, {{lang|de|[[Pour le Mérite]]}} but Radtke was overlooked. Attempts to remedy this led to {{lang|de|Major}} Klüfer of Infantry Regiment 24 being transferred and to controversy after the war, when Radtke published a memoir and Klüfer published a detailed examination of the capture of the fort, naming {{lang|de|Feldwebel}} Kunze as the first German soldier to enter Fort Douaumont, which was considered improbable since only one report mentioned him.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=54–55, 148}}}} The Germans did not know that the French garrison was made up of only a small maintenance crew led by a warrant officer, since most of the Verdun forts had been partly disarmed, after the [[Battle of Liège#Siege|demolition of Belgian forts]] in 1914, by the German super-heavy [[Big Bertha (howitzer)|Krupp 420 mm mortars]].{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=43–44}}
[[File:Verdun, east bank, 21-26 February 1916.png|thumb|{{centre|Verdun, east bank of the Meuse, 21–26 February 1916}}]]

The German party of {{circa| 100 soldiers}} tried to signal to the artillery with flares but they were not seen due to the twilight and falling snow. Some of the party began to cut through the wire around the fort, while French machine-gun fire from Douaumont village ceased. The French had seen the German flares and took the Germans on the fort to be [[Zouave]]s retreating from Côte 378. The Germans were able to reach the north-east end of the fort before the French resumed firing. The German party found a way through the railings on top of the ditch and climbed down without being fired on, since the machine-gun bunkers ({{lang|fr|coffres de contrescarpe}}) at each corner of the ditch had been left unmanned. The German parties continued and found a way inside the fort through one of the unoccupied ditch bunkers and then reached the central {{lang|fr|Rue de Rempart}}.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=45–50}}

After quietly moving inside, the Germans heard voices and persuaded a French prisoner, captured in an observation post, to lead them to the lower floor, where they found Warrant Officer Chenot and about {{nowrap|25 French}} troops, most of the skeleton garrison of the fort, and took them prisoner.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=45–50}} On 26 February, the Germans had advanced {{cvt|3|km|order=flip}} on a {{cvt|10|km|order=flip}} front; French losses were {{nowrap|24,000 men}} and German losses were {{circa| 25,000 men.}}{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=220}} A French counter-attack on Fort Douaumont failed and Pétain ordered that no more attempts were to be made; existing lines were to be consolidated and other forts were to be occupied, rearmed and supplied to withstand a siege if surrounded.{{sfn|Holstein|2010|pp=57–58}}