Part 7 (2/2)

Though the crisis was over there were many great moments of sleepless effort, of anxiety, and heroism in the months to come, for the last purposeful German a.s.saults on the fortress were made on 15th June, and on 14th July the Germans were still occupying the French with a.s.saults developing from the Thiaumont redoubts, which marked the farthest point southwards to which their long-sustained efforts had taken them. Following on these attacks was a considerable pause, during which the Germans were fully occupied elsewhere in dealing with the British attacks on the Somme.

The last phase at Verdun in 1916 was that in which the French, inspired by the methods of General Nivelle, thrust the Germans out of all the positions so painfully won, and re-occupied by mid-December very much the same lines as those from which the great push of the last week in February had ejected them. The story of Verdun cannot here be told in detail; its princ.i.p.al events are dated as follows:

27th Feb.--Germans take Talou Ridge.

3rd March.--Germans enter Douaumont village.

7th March.--Germans, transferring their efforts to the west of the Meuse, capture Hills 360 and 265.

14th March.--Germans penetrate west of Verdun the line Bethincourt-Mort Homme.

20th March.--Germans enter Avocourt Wood.

29th March.--French recover Avocourt Redoubt.

1st April.--Germans, renewing their attacks east of Verdun, capture part of Vaux village.

10th April.--Germans make extended attack on both sides of the Meuse, failing at the Mort Homme, but gaining at Poivre Ridge.

5th May.--Germans, renewing westerly attacks, gain a footing on Hill 304.

20th May.--Germans in a great attack on Mort Homme capture summit of Hill 295. The attack next day enlarged the gains.

24th May.--c.u.mieres and Fort Douaumont captured by Germans.

1st June.--Fresh German attack at Fort Vaux east of Verdun.

7th June.--Fort Vaux captured after six days' fighting.

17th June.--Attack renewed at Mort Homme. The attacks on both sides of the Meuse were prosecuted with increasing vigour till 28th, during which period the Germans took Hills 321 and 320, as well as Thiaumont Fort (23rd June) and Fleury (24th June). Fleury marked the point of their farthest advance towards the inner line of defences east of the Meuse at Forts Souville and Tavannes. The tide now paused, and on 30th June, a day before the British attack on the Somme, the French retook Thiaumont. The fighting went on in a restricted but incessant way through the rest of June and July, the French gradually improving their position. In August activity was renewed at Thiaumont and Fleury.

18th Aug.--French retake whole of Fleury.

9th Sept.--French retake trenches between Fleury and Douaumont.

24th Oct.--The French, after a long pause for readjustment, and now under the direction of General Nivelle, recapture village and fort of Douaumont, Haudremont quarries, and 4500 prisoners. They thus advanced to lines held in May.

3rd Nov.--Vaux recaptured. On 30th Nov. the German Crown Prince resigned the command of the Verdun front.

15th to 16th Dec.--General Nivelle (who succeeded General Joffre as French Commander-in-Chief on 12th Dec.) orders new attack at Verdun.

Vacherauville, Poivre Ridge, Bezonvaux, Hardaumont recaptured with 11,000 prisoners.

In early 1916 the British army was still finding itself, and its new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, regarded it as insufficiently trained and equipped for the great tasks which lay before it. As an instrument of war it was still not yet ready. It also remained, if not in a water-tight compartment in respect of the French armies at its side, yet with a separate command and in separate control. This may have been merely the necessary consequence of its state of training; but it is certain that in 1916 there was no one with authority to compel that unity of action and command which in 1918, but not till then, directed the Franco-British armies as one force. Fortunately, perhaps, the German High Command elected to attack the French at Verdun instead of throwing their whole weight on the British, though there were numerous smaller actions along the worn and dangerous Ypres front and elsewhere in the first half of the year.

On 14th Feb. the enemy captured some 600 yards of 'International Trench', south-east of Ypres, but they were regained on 17th March, when a bitter and protracted struggle also began for the mine craters at St. Eloi. These were lost and recovered more than once, with heavy casualties on both sides. The Canadians, who had their full share of these costly operations, were again sorely tried at the beginning of June, when the Germans penetrated their front trenches in a surprise attack on the 2nd of that month. Major-General Mercer was killed in this a.s.sault, and General Williams captured. Eleven days later the Canadians atoned for this set-back by completely re-establis.h.i.+ng their broken line. Throughout the first half of 1916 the enemy, not only round Ypres, but also round Loos, at Ploegsteert, Givenchy, and elsewhere, persevered in similar local attempts to keep the British occupied and upset their plans, while he was concentrating his chief efforts towards beating down the French defences at Verdun. The attack on Verdun, as already related, ultimately broke down, and the period in which it was at its height was utilized by Sir Douglas Haig to bring his forces as near as possible to the point at which they could undertake with success an attack of the first magnitude against the entrenched German lines. The date of the attack was premature, and was hurried on in order to take some weight off the hara.s.sed French armies at Verdun. It began on 1st July; the chosen _terrain_ was the River Somme, and the great offensive, in which the French joined, was over a 28-mile front from Gommecourt, north of the Somme, to Dompierre, south of that river.

_First Battle of the Somme_

The German position in the Somme area was situated on the high ground which is the watershed between the Scheldt and the Somme. The ground runs east-south-east, and its hills fall into long irregular spurs divided by wide valleys. On the forward slopes of the hills the German first-line defences ran from the Somme at Curlu to Fricourt; at Fricourt the defence line turned north, crossing the Ancre, thence pa.s.sing over the summit of the watershed near Hebuterne and Gommecourt to Arras. Between the Somme and the Ancre a second line of defence had been constructed 2 miles behind the first, and on it had been lavished all the ingenuities of fortification which the German engineers afterwards developed in the so-called Hindenburg lines. South of the Somme, where the French were to co-operate with Sir Douglas Haig, the defences were not so elaborate; it was not here that the Germans, who were fully aware of the impending British attack, expected the blow to fall. They expected the greatest weight to be felt towards the Ancre.

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