Editing Battle of Verdun (section)

===Analysis===
Falkenhayn wrote in his memoirs that he sent an appreciation of the strategic situation to the Kaiser in December 1915,

{{blockquote|The string in France has reached breaking point. A mass breakthrough—which in any case is beyond our means—is unnecessary. Within our reach there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death.|Falkenhayn{{sfn|Falkenhayn|2004|pp=217–218}}}}

The German strategy in 1916 was to inflict mass casualties on the French, a goal achieved against the Russians from 1914 to 1915, to weaken the French Army to the point of collapse. The French had to be drawn into circumstances from which the Army could not escape for reasons of strategy and prestige. The Germans planned to use a large number of heavy and super-heavy guns to inflict a greater number of casualties than French artillery, which relied mostly upon the {{nowrap|75 mm field}} gun. In 2007, Robert Foley wrote that Falkenhayn intended a battle of [[attrition warfare|attrition]] from the beginning, contrary to the views of Wolfgang Foerster in 1937, Gerd Krumeich in 1996 and other historians but the loss of documents led to many interpretations of the strategy. In 1916, critics of Falkenhayn claimed that the battle demonstrated that he was indecisive and unfit for command, echoed by Foerster in 1937.{{sfn|Förster|1937|pp=304–330}} In 1994, Holger Afflerbach questioned the authenticity of the "Christmas Memorandum"; after studying the evidence that had survived in the {{lang|de|Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres}} (Army Military History Research Institute) files, he concluded that the memorandum had been written after the war but that it was an accurate reflection of Falkenhayn's thinking at the end of 1915.{{sfn|Afflerbach|1994|pp=543–545}}

[[File:River Crossing NGM-v31-p338.jpg|thumb|{{centre|French [[Train (military)|train]] horses resting in a river on their way to Verdun}}]]
Krumeich wrote that the Christmas Memorandum was fabricated to justify a failed strategy and that attrition had been substituted for the capture of Verdun only after the attack failed.{{sfn|Krumeich|1996|pp=17–29}} Foley wrote that after the failure of the Ypres Offensive of 1914, Falkenhayn had returned to the pre-war strategic thinking of [[Helmuth von Moltke the Elder|Moltke the Elder]] and [[Hans Delbrück]] on {{lang|de|Ermattungsstrategie}} (attrition strategy), because the coalition fighting Germany was too powerful to be defeated. Falkenhayn wanted to divide the Allies by forcing at least one of the [[Triple Entente|Entente]] powers into a negotiated peace. Attrition lay behind the offensive in the east in 1915 but the Russians had refused to accept German [[peace feeler]]s, despite the huge defeats inflicted on them by the Austro-Germans.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=206–207}}

With insufficient forces to break through the Western Front and to overcome the reserves behind it, Falkenhayn tried to force the French to attack instead, by threatening a sensitive point close to the front line and chose Verdun as the place. Huge losses were to be inflicted on the French by German artillery on the dominating heights around the city. The 5th Army would begin a big offensive but with the objectives limited to seizing the Meuse Heights on the east bank, on which the German heavy artillery would dominate the battlefield. The French Army would "bleed itself white" in hopeless attempts to recapture the heights. The British would be forced to launch a hasty relief offensive and suffer an equally costly defeat. If the French refused to negotiate, a German offensive would mop up the remnants of the Franco–British armies, breaking the Entente "once and for all".{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=206–207}}

In a revised instruction to the French Army in January 1916, the General Staff (GQG) wrote that equipment could not be fought by men. Firepower could conserve infantry but attrition prolonged the war and consumed troops that had been preserved in earlier battles. In 1915 and early 1916, German industry quintupled the output of heavy artillery and doubled the production of super-heavy artillery. French production had also recovered since 1914 and by February 1916 the army had {{nowrap|3,500 heavy}} guns. In May Joffre began to issue each division with two groups of {{nowrap|155 mm guns}} and each corps with four groups of long-range guns. Both sides at Verdun had the means to fire huge numbers of heavy shells to suppress the opposing defences before risking infantry in the open. At the end of May, the Germans had {{nowrap|1,730 heavy}} guns at Verdun and the {{nowrap|French 548,}} sufficient to contain the Germans but not enough for a counter-offensive.{{sfn|Jankowski|2014|pp=109–112}}

[[File:Nieuport N.16 C.1 with Le Prieur rockets.jpg|thumb|{{centre|Nieuport 16 fighter in camouflage adopted during the Battle of Verdun}}]]
French infantry survived bombardment better because their positions were dispersed and tended to be on dominating ground, not always visible to the Germans. As soon as a German attack began, the French replied with machine-gun and rapid field-artillery fire. On 22 April, the Germans suffered {{nowrap|1,000 casualties}} and in mid-April, the French fired {{nowrap|26,000 field}} artillery shells against an attack to the south-east of Fort Douaumont. A few days after taking over at Verdun, Pétain ordered the air commander, Commandant [[Charles Tricornot de Rose]] to sweep away German fighter aircraft and to provide artillery observation. German air superiority was reversed by concentrating the French fighters in {{lang|fr|[[escadrille]]s}} rather than distributing them piecemeal across the front, unable to concentrate against large German formations. The fighter escadrilles drove away the German {{lang|de|[[Fokker Eindecker]]}}s and the two-seater reconnaissance and artillery-observation aircraft that they protected.{{sfn|Davilla|Soltan|1997|p=7}}

The fighting at Verdun was less costly to both sides than the war of movement in 1914, when the French suffered {{circa| 850,000 casualties}} and the Germans {{circa| 670,000}} from August to the end of 1914. The 5th Army had a lower rate of loss than armies on the Eastern Front in 1915 and the French had a lower average rate of loss at Verdun than the rate over three weeks during the Second Battle of Champagne (September–October 1915), which were not deliberately fought as battles of attrition. German loss rates increased relative to losses from {{nowrap|1:2.2 in}} early 1915 to close to {{nowrap|1:1 by}} the end of the battle, a trend which continued during the [[Nivelle Offensive]] in 1917. The penalty of attrition tactics was indecision, because limited-objective attacks under an umbrella of massed heavy artillery fire could succeed but led to battles of unlimited duration.{{sfn|Jankowski|2014|pp=114–120}} Pétain used a {{lang|ar|[[noria]]}} (rotation) system quickly to relieve French troops at Verdun, which involved most of the French Army in the battle but for shorter periods than the German troops in the 5th Army. The symbolic importance of Verdun proved a rallying point and the French did not collapse. Falkenhayn was forced to conduct the offensive for much longer and commit far more infantry than intended. By the end of April, most of the German strategic reserve was at Verdun, suffering similar casualties to the French army.{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=256}}

The Germans believed that they were inflicting losses at a rate of {{nowrap|5:2; German}} military intelligence thought that by 11 March the French had suffered {{nowrap|100,000 casualties}} and Falkenhayn was confident that German artillery could easily inflict another {{nowrap|100,000 losses.}} In May, Falkenhayn estimated that French casualties had increased to {{nowrap|525,000 men}} against {{nowrap|250,000 German}} and that the French strategic reserve was down to {{nowrap|300,000 men.}} Actual French losses were {{circa| 130,000}} by 1 May; {{nowrap|42 French}} divisions had been withdrawn and rested by the {{lang|ar|noria}} system, once infantry casualties reached {{nowrap|50 per cent.}} Of the {{nowrap|330 infantry}} battalions of the French metropolitan army, {{nowrap|259 (78 per cent)}} went to Verdun, against {{nowrap|48 German}} divisions, {{nowrap|25 per cent}} of the {{lang|de|Westheer}} (western army).{{sfn|Clayton|2003|pp=120–121}} Afflerbach wrote that {{nowrap|85 French}} divisions fought at Verdun and that from February to August, the ratio of German to French losses was {{nowrap|1:1.1,}} not the third of French losses assumed by Falkenhayn.{{sfn|Chickering|Förster|2006|pp=130, 126}} By 31 August, the 5th Army had suffered {{nowrap|281,000 casualties}} and the French {{nowrap|315,000.}}{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=256}}

[[Image:French soldiers of the 87th Regiment shelter in their trenches at Hill 304 at Verdun.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|{{centre|French trench at Côte 304, Verdun}}]]

In June 1916, the French had {{nowrap|2,708 guns}} at Verdun, including {{nowrap|1,138 field}} guns; from February to December, the French and German armies fired {{circa| 10,000,000 shells,}} weighing {{cvt|1350000|LT}}.{{sfn|Mason|2000|p=185}} By May, the German offensive had been defeated by French reinforcements, difficulties of terrain and the weather. The 5th Army infantry was stuck in tactically dangerous positions, overlooked by the French on both banks of the Meuse, instead of dug in on the Meuse Heights. French casualties were inflicted by constant infantry attacks which were far more costly in men than destroying counter-attacks with artillery. The stalemate was broken by the Brusilov Offensive and the Anglo-French relief offensive on the Somme, which Falkehayn had expected to begin the collapse of the Anglo-French armies.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=235–236}} Falkenhayn had begun to remove divisions from the Western Front in June for the strategic reserve but only twelve divisions could be spared. Four divisions were sent to the Somme, where three defensive positions had been built, based on the experience of the {{lang|de|Herbstschlacht}}. Before the battle on the Somme began, Falkenhayn thought that German preparations were better than ever and the British offensive would easily be defeated. The 6th Army, further north, had {{frac|17|1|2}} divisions and plenty of heavy artillery, ready to attack once the British had been defeated.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=249–250}}

The strength of the Anglo-French attack on the Somme surprised Falkenhayn and his staff, despite the British casualties on 1 July. Artillery losses to "overwhelming" Anglo-French counter-battery fire and the German tactic of instant counter-attacks, led to far more German infantry casualties than at the height of the fighting at Verdun, where the 5th Army suffered {{nowrap|25,989 casualties}} in the first ten days, against {{nowrap|40,187 2nd}} Army casualties on the Somme. The Russians attacked again, causing more casualties in June and July. Falkenhayn was called on to justify his strategy to the Kaiser on 8 July and again advocated the minimal reinforcement of the east in favour of the "decisive" battle in France; the Somme offensive was the "last throw of the dice" for the Entente. Falkenhayn had already given up the plan for a counter-offensive by the 6th Army and sent 18 divisions to the 2nd Army and to the Russian front from the reserve and from the 6th Army; only one division remaining uncommitted by the end of August. The 5th Army had been ordered to limit its attacks at Verdun in June but a final effort was made in July to capture Fort Souville. The attack failed and on 12 July Falkenhayn ordered a strict defensive policy, permitting only small local attacks to limit the number of troops the French could transfer to the Somme.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=251–254}}

Falkenhayn had underestimated the French, for whom victory at all costs was the only way to justify the sacrifices already made; the French army never came close to collapsing and causing a premature British relief offensive. The ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses had also been overestimated, in part because the 5th Army commanders had tried to capture Verdun and attacked regardless of loss. Even when reconciled to the attrition strategy, they continued with {{lang|de|Vernichtungsstrategie}} (strategy of annihilation) and the tactics of {{lang|de|Bewegungskrieg}} (manoeuvre warfare). Failure to reach the Meuse Heights left the 5th Army in poor tactical positions and reduced to inflicting casualties by infantry attacks and counter-attacks. The length of the offensive made Verdun a matter of prestige for the Germans as it was for the French and Falkenhayn became dependent on a British relief offensive being destroyed to end the stalemate. When it came, the collapse in Russia and the power of the Anglo-French attack on the Somme reduced the German armies to holding their positions as best they could.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=254–256}} On 29 August, Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who ended the German offensive at Verdun on 2 September.{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=258}}{{efn|Pétain praised what he saw as the success of the fortifications at Verdun in ''La Bataille de Verdun'' (1929) and in 1930, when building the [[Maginot Line]] ({{lang|fr|Ligne Maginot}}) along the border with Germany began. At Verdun, French field artillery in the open outnumbered turreted guns in the Verdun forts by at least {{nowrap|200:1.}} It was the mass of French field artillery (over {{nowrap|2,000 guns}} after May 1916) that inflicted about {{nowrap|70 per cent}} of German infantry casualties. In 1935, a number of mechanised and motorised units were deployed behind the Maginot Line and plans were laid to send detachments to fight a mobile defence in front of the fortifications.{{sfn|Wynne|1976|p=329}} At the [[Battle of Dien Bien Phu]] (1953–1954), General [[Christian de Castries]] said that the situation was "somewhat like Verdun". French forces at Dien Bien Phu were supplied by transport aircraft, using a landing strip in range of Viet Minh artillery; the French forces at Verdun were supplied by road and rail, beyond the reach of German artillery.{{sfn|Windrow|2004|p=499}}}}