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Updated: June 13, 2025
Out beyond them the shell-marked ground, across which flakes of snow were drifting, descended abruptly to the plain of the Woevre; and struggling up its slopes came, at that moment, the 5th Division of the 3rd Brandenburg Corps a corps retired from the fighting-ranks months ago, specially fed, specially trained and armed, and prepared particularly for this Verdun fighting.
That the French retreated was due to the fact that the plateau was insufficiently protected, many of the regiments having been rushed north to the great battle then raging on the Aisne. Only one railroad center lies in the territory of the salient, Thiaucourt in Woevre.
There was nothing in the action taken to direct attention to one sector more than to another. The Vosges, the Meurthe and Moselle, Lorraine and the Woevre, the Argonne, Champagne, the Aisne, the Somme, the Arras sector, Ypres and the Yser, and the Belgian coast where the British navy had joined in, all were subjected to a heavy, deliberate and effective fire from guns of all calibers.
He was a native of the invaded department of the Ardennes, and had not completed his twenty-sixth year when he was killed in the trenches of Consenvoye, in the Woëvre, when he was taking part in the outer defence of Verdun. He seems to have been distinguished by a refinement of spirit, which is referred to, in different terms, by every one who has described him.
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.
In the night of March 10, 1917, the French carried out successful surprise attacks on the German trenches in the Lassigny and Canny-sur-Matz regions, and in the neighborhood of the Woevre north of Jury Wood, destroying defensive works in these operations and taking fifteen prisoners and some machine guns.
Immediately east and north of Verdun there lies a broad, brown band. From the Woevre plain it runs westward to the "S" bend in the Meuse, and on the left bank of that famous stream continues on into the Argonne Forest. Peaceful fields and farms and villages adorned that landscape a few months ago when there was no Battle of Verdun.
It began from the extreme left on the Belgian front, thence swung into the region of Souchez, then around Arras, farther on along the Aisne, particularly at the two extremities of the Aisne plateau, turned to the right in Champagne, spread to the Argonne, next in the Woevre and finally in Lorraine.
But the latter half of September gave a novel aspect to affairs. A great deal, no doubt, was due to Foch and the unity of command; but that unity did not extend to the East nor account for the debacle of Bulgaria and Turkey. It was, however, partly responsible for the extension of our offensive in France beyond the limits of the year before and for the timing of the American attack in the Woevre. In the hour of his Allies' need President Wilson had consented to the brigading of American with French and British troops, and to the employment of American divisions as supports for French and British generals. But with the American Army growing equal in size to the French and the British and acquiring an independent skill in war, there could be no hesitation about an American command on an equal footing with the armies of Haig and Pétain; and to the Americans under General Pershing had been allotted the right wing of the Allied front, the British forming the left and the French the centre. Some critics talked of Pershing's armies being used as the spear-head of an invasion of Germany through Lorraine; but this would have been an eccentric operation, and there were obvious reasons for restoring Lorraine, if possible, to France undevastated by war. North rather than east was the natural direction for an American advance, and in either case an indispensable preliminary was to eliminate that strange wedge at St. Mihiel which the Germans had held since September 1914. The task would also be a useful apprenticeship for an independent American command. The attack was made on both sides of the salient on 12 September, but the principal drive was from the south on a twelve miles' front between Bouconville and Regnieville. Part of the defending force was Austrian, but the whole salient collapsed under the blow; 15,000 prisoners and 200 guns were captured, and a new front was formed on a straight line from Fresnes to Pont-
The Germans continued to bombard the Woevre front, but did not attempt to attack as the French artillery held them to their trenches. During the day the Germans, who had been hemmed in at Samogneux, after repeated struggles to debouch from that place, succeeded when night came in capturing Hill 304.
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