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Updated: June 16, 2025
Between this line of forts and the second position an intermediate position on the reverse side of the slope had been begun from Douaumont to Louvemont, on the Poivre and Talou Hills, but at the time of the opening assault the work had not made much progress. The Germans prepared for the offensive with the most exhaustive labors, and as far as it was humanly possible left nothing to chance.
Down below, towards the foot of the lower slopes of the Côte du Poivre, overlooking the village of Champneuville and the Côte de Talou, stretched a strip of wooded country, those same evergreens which, towards the north and elsewhere, had given the Germans such tremendous opportunities for completing preparations for their attack upon the salient.
Elsewhere there was little fighting; for on the Côte du Poivre and the Côte de Talou no German attack was possible, French guns on Mort Homme and Hill 304 still commanding every avenue of approach, and already having given the Germans practical, if dreadful, evidence of their deadly work.
Yet behind Douaumont, behind the Côte du Poivre and the Côte de Talou, there existed yet miles of upland plateau before the city of Verdun could be reached miles which the Germans must cross before they could hope to complete its capture.
For the guns yonder, those guns on Mort Homme and 304, command the Côte de Talou and the Côte du Poivre far better than could our rifles; so our commanders, who no doubt want men in other places; are thinning out our lines and are sending us to reinforce another portion of the salient."
Only a desperate rally enabled the French to keep their front intact while their left was withdrawn from Champneuville and Talou hill to Vacherauville and the Poivre hill, and their right from Bezonvaux and the Bois des Caurières to the Douaumont plateau.
They were back upon that main defensive line now, where it swept from Vacherauville, on the River Meuse, opposite the Mort Homme and Hill 304, across the hill of Talou and Pepper Hill ominous names already to the enemy past Louvemont, and so to Douaumont and Damloup, where the trenches had now descended to the plain of the Woevre, and they held to it till they clambered once more up the slopes, and so to the other end of the base of the salient.
We have seen how, attempting to follow up their drive to the north, the French guns on Mort Homme and Hill 304 had outflanked the Germans, and had driven them from the Côte de Talou and the Côte du Poivre.
Reckoning now upon a similar course of events, and, having already pounded the French position, they launched on this morning hosts of grey-coated infantry at the Hills of Talou and Poivre, above which Henri and Jules were fighting.
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