Fort Douaumont was the main fortwhich surrounded the city of Verdun but the other forts nearby were also captured and heavily bombarded daily. The Germans fired 10,000,000 shells alone during the 9 months of the Battle Of Verdun causing incredible damage to the forts , land and even the City of Verdun.
Most of which is still visible today
And to add to the apocalyptic scale of the battle, the entire region is uninhabitable to this day with there still being high levels of chemicals like Arsenic, not to mention the sheer number of unexploded shells there
The Somme and Stalingrad, to name a few large battles, while they had comparable Death tolls, You are still able able to visit and live in both places, meanwhile the Verdun Area is still a quagmire of unexploded ordinance and toxic gasses
In May of 1916 The French had managed to recapture Fort Douaumont but despite this the German forces managed to repel the French counter attacks as the Germans had changed their tactics which involved attacking smaller forts nearby and surrounding area.However after the French recaptured the Fort Douaumont and were repelled the Germans took many French troops as prisoners. And they started to push into the area of Fleury-devant-Douaumont and Fort Souville. Driving a salient ( a pocket of land ) into the French territory. In June the Germans had managed to capture Fort Vaux.
Fort vaux was slightly better defended that Fort douaumont but even though the fort housed 600 French reserve troops they were no match for the 5,200 German troops which managed to take it just months after the fall of Fort Douaumont.
German Captains and Lieutenant that lead the raid into the Fort Douaumont.
Captain Hans-Joachim Haupt
Lieutenant-Colonel Von Oven
Captain Cordt Von Brandis
The fort Douaumont was one of the many Forts that circled the city of Verdun since the 1890s and had significant weaponry and artillery positions. However the fort fell without a fight on the 26th of February 1916 the Germans managed to take the fort with a small German raiding force composing of 19 German Officers and 79 men. This detrimental blow to the French army caused hysteria and Crippled moral for local french civilians and panic even broke out in the city of Verdun and across France as their impenetrable city had been taken with ease. One of the major factors that resulted in the loss of the Huge fort was simply the poor placement of French Reserve troops mainly where elderly mostly aged around 40-50s and with such a small force of around 56 troops and a hand full of machine gunners.
This proved to be an important placement of German forces which where able to push even closer to the city of Verdun and ultimately became the German victory that General Erich Von Falkenhayn had planned. He was praised for a quick successful blow to France’s Most heavily Defended Military position which would be the very beginning of a horrific battle for a city with such a Great loss of life.
The Battle of Verdun lasted 11 months from the 21st of February till the 18th of December 1916. It was also one of the longest campaigns of the Great War and had one of the heaviest casualties of the war including Civilian Loss of life.
