Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
At the outset the general staff seems to have adhered to its view, and for some days the German advance was steady. Even Fort Douaumont, on the outer rim of the old permanent fortifications, was lost, and the German press announced the fall of the city itself. But in the end the army listened to the Government, Castelnau and Pétain went to the front to organize the defense.
Yet German leviathan guns had proved that they could now smash Douaumont or any other fortress to pieces within a few hours, whereas in the old times it had been a matter of days, when even the artillery was sufficiently powerful.
And so they have dropped shells on the place, big shells Mon Dieu! as big as I am middle-sized ones, and small ones in fact, grandfathers, fathers, and children till the place has been pounded to atoms. "And so you have come at last, you fellows," he went on when the three had watched, for a while, more shells hurtling into the ruins of Douaumont fort.
During that time the Germans pushed out from Douaumont and captured Vaux; they crowded up and over Dead Man's Hill and up the slope of Hill 304; by July 1, 1916, they had pushed the French right back to the extreme edge of the hills, on the east bank of the Meuse, and the French were just holding the inside line of forts Belleville, Souville, and Tavannes with their backs to the river and with German trenches coming right up to the ditches of these three forts.
The ruthless War Lord who caused this terrific contest to break out, who has deluged Europe and Asia and Africa with blood, and who has been instrumental in the slaughter of hosts of people, is still thwarted. True, he has gained certain yards of land French land the steep, sloping sides of that plateau of Douaumont, and the lower ground opposite the Mort Homme and Hill 304. But at what a price!
He was doing that which France asked of him, that which God told him to do. Josephine would be proud of him. He would never be ashamed to meet her eyes. As he went, alone or in company with others, he whistled and sand a bit. He thought of "L'Alouette" a good deal. But not too much. He thought also of the forts of Douaumont and Vaux. "Dame!" he cried to himself.
For example, the 400-millimetre, already referred to as having proved so effective against Douaumont, was, I am told, made by cutting down and boring out a 13.6-inch naval gun. It fires a shell 7 feet long, weighing nearly 3,000 pounds, and carrying a bursting charge of 660 pounds of high explosive.
The Germans came on in very close formation, and on the following morning we counted quite eight hundred dead before the trench. "At daybreak on March 4 the Germans launched a fresh counterattack against Douaumont after an intense bombardment accompanied by the use of aerial torpedoes.
"The French Fourth Regiment, charged with taking the quarries of Haudromont, went beyond their objective, which was the trench of Balfourier. The division under General Guyot de Salins had taken Thiaumont and Douaumont, while that of General du Passage had seized the wood of Caillette and advanced to the heights of La Fausse-Côte.
On December 15, 1916, the French troops won an important victory in the region of Verdun, north of Douaumont, when they broke through the German lines on a front of six and a quarter miles, extending from the Meuse River to the plain of Woevre, penetrating to a depth of nearly two miles.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking