Extracted from Verdun – The Left Bank by Christina Holstein, reproduced by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
The
result of the German success on the Mort-Homme was to change the
shape of the lines on the Left Bank. In front of Cote 304
these now formed a deep salient, which looped to the north around the
villages of Malancourt, Haucourt and Béthincourt and enclosed
several French strong points and centres of resistance. A
simultaneous attack on both sides of this salient would, if
successful, cut off all these positions at once, but as German
resources did not stretch that far it was decided to attack from one
side only. To attack from the north meant approaching over open
ground controlled by a series of fieldworks; but attacking from the
west would allow them to use the cover of an extensive forest and
this was the approach chosen.
The
first step was to clear the French from a line of strong positions on
the western side of the salient that could then be used as a base for
a further German advance. The first to be dealt with was Malancourt
Wood, a sizeable wedge-shaped area of forest that dominated Haucourt
and Malancourt and commanded the approach to Cote 304 from the west.
Described by one observer as an inextricable tangle of trees and
underbrush no different from a primeval forest, Malancourt Wood had, since December 1914, been home to two French infantry brigades, the 57th and 58th, whose regiments, raised in the warmth of southern France, must have found it a deeply unattractive and frightening place. The undergrowth was so thick that there was no clear sight lines or fields and attacks emerged suddenly and with deadly effect out of the damp. dense tangle of woodland. For men who could not see what was happening, listening to the enemy became even more important than usual. Even this was impossible in stormy weather, when the wind roaring in the trees drowned out any sound made by the other side.
A French bunker in Malancourt Wood built by the 285th Infantry, probably in 1915
Author's collection
The
southerners soon attracted official suspicion. As early as November
1914, 58 Brigade was accused of weakly allowing the enemy to
gain a foothold in the wood. Tensions increased during a truce to
bury the dead, when two French lieutenants came too close to the
German trenches and were captured. An immediate counter attack
launched by a company equipped with heavy wire cutters and a device
like a Bangalore torpedo – a long tube to which were attached
scores of small explosive devices and which could only be used on the
express order of the regimental commander – was a failure; and
rather than attack again the same way, the French began to mine under
the German positions. However, the Germans were also mining and on 6
December 1914, they exploded three mines under the French positions
and rushed forward. The company commander
– Captain Léandri of 7
Company, 141st Infantry Regiment – had been wounded at the start of
the action and with the captain out of action general panic ensued,
with men running away and others surrendering. As usual, a counter
attack was ordered, this time using a mortar, whose plunging
trajectory was more useful among trees than the traditional flat
trajectory guns further back. However, the captain in charge of the
mortar was captured and with the other artillery officers claiming to
be unable to use it this attempt also failed. When, in the early
hours of the following morning, two fresh companies finally attacked
the German positions they were driven off in hand-to-hand fighting
with heavy losses. Léandri’s company had more or less disappeared.
The mine crater formed by the three German mines blown in 6 December 1914
Author's collection
There was fury at the
highest level. Within a few days the brigade commander was made
available for other duties while the regimental commander was retired
with immediate effect. At the same time a General Order at Corps
level severely reprimanded 7 Company, 141st Infantry, for having
failed to use every means of defence available before being captured.
The 7th Company was never reconstituted. It was a portent of things
to come.
Mine warfare continued
during 1915, particularly in the eastern and western extremities of
the wood, where the lines were close together. Troops on both sides
spent nerve-jangling time listening for the sound of enemy mining,
never knowing when an enemy crowbar or pickaxe might break through
into trench or mine gallery. Accounts from both sides speak of
attacks and counter attacks by day and night across lines anything
from ten to fifty metres apart, with regular explosions rocking the
wood, shells falling and violent bursts of rifle and machine gun
fire. And there was worse: on 26 February 1915, after a violent
bombardment in the eastern half of the wood, the French front line
suddenly burst into flames and there was screaming and panic as
burning men fled back. It was a new tactic: the projection of
inflammable liquid on to the enemy trenches where it was subsequently
ignited. While the action did not involve attackers carrying portable
flame throwers – that came later – it was bad enough. In the
panic some six hundred metres of ground were given up and although
most of it was retaken the following day, an official enquiry was
ordered into the worrying défaillences – weaknesses or lapses –
on the part of the unhappy French defenders.
Malancourt Wood was only
one part of a very extensive forest that stretched both north and
west. The first German units had arrived there in late 1914 and by
the end of 1915 they had made themselves comfortable.
Making yourself at home: a German officers' residence in the woods on the Verdun front
Rolf Wippermann
The great oaks and
beeches provided huts for troops, tree trunks and logs for corduroy
roads wide enough for horse drawn wagons, and defences against light
calibre shelling. Less than a kilometre from the front lines there
were several well-built kitchens and comfortable infantry camps, each
electrically lit and accommodating two companies, separate camps for
pioneers and machine gunners, regimental and brigade command posts,
supply dumps, a cemetery and even a swimming pool. A water supply
ensured cleanliness and hygiene at all times while a light railway
linked all the important sites with the main pioneer park. It was not
just the camps that were well built; the trenches were also carefully
constructed. There
were dugouts for small
groups of men, lines of wooden stakes forming obstacles, machine gun
and observation posts of reinforced concrete and deep communication
trenches running back to the guns. Except where the lines ran close
together, it was very quiet. A few shells morning and evening, the
odd explosion or burst of rifle fire and for most of the time that
was all.
A German trench mortar position in Malancourt Wood
Author's collection
But fine as it all was,
by the end of 1915 the weather was taking its toll and to the men of
the 120th Landwehr, who arrived in the wood in December 1915, none of
it looked as if it would withstand a serious assault. Urgent
improvements were ordered, incorporating the lessons learned during
the 1915 battles in Artois and Champagne. These involved excavating
deep dugouts to shelter men waiting to go into action,
improving signalling and
observation, digging cable trenches and running more communication
trenches directly to the front line. It also involved pushing saps as
close as possible to the enemy front line and mining under the
intervening ground in order to blow it up at zero hour and allow the
assault parties to advance. Trench mortar and flame thrower positions
were also created. The pioneers had a particularly hard time
maintaining and draining the existing positions, which winter rain
filled with several feet of water and mud. To the amusement of the
men, a whole army of architects, surveyors and hydraulic engineers
descended on the forest full of plans and projects for the various
sectors that were not always to the taste of the field fortification
specialists and which resulted in noisy arguments about pumps, hoses,
fascines and who should use them.
A German heavy trench mortar
Author's collection
The French were also
improving their lines and their artillery was
becoming more active.
Gone were the quiet days with a few shells at regular intervals. Now
there were prolonged barrages with heavy shells and mortars, which
tore up the corduroy roads and the railway, damaged the water and
electricity supply – unnecessarily, in the view of the Germans –
and made men run where previously walking had been the norm. French
observation balloons appeared, leave was stopped and rumours
circulated, mostly originating in field kitchens at the rear, of big
guns and serious action to come. During the night of 4 March a new
assault division came into line, the famous 11th Bavarian, which had
seen victorious action on the Eastern Front in 1915. They were
commanded by General von Kneussl, who had received the Pour le
Mérite, Germany’s highest decoration for valour, for his part in
the capture of Przemysl. Now there could be no doubt about it, action
was imminent and from the build up of stores, tools and rations, not
to mention the creation of new first aid posts, it would be serious.
As the days went by French guns ranged back and forth over the German
front and rear, hitting supply dumps, roads, assembly points,
batteries, stations, pioneer parks and any other useful sites until
the formerly peaceful camps and tracks were piled with dead horses,
smashed wagons and corpses. French artillery activity also hampered
the transfer of German heavy batteries and ammunition to their new
positions and the middle of March had passed before the move was
completed and all the batteries were fully supplied.
One of the two mine craters on the eastern side of Malancourt Wood
Author's collection
The
Malancourt Wood offensive had originally been planned for 9 March
but it was postponed when progress in the Mort-Homme sector was
slower than expected. Four regiments were involved: the 120th
Landwehr on the right; two of General von Kneussel’s special
assault regiments, the Bavarian 22nd and 3rd, in the centre and on
the left; and the 10th Infantry on the extreme left. The
plan was for the 120th Landwehr to capture the high ground on the
south side of the wood and hold in check a major French fieldwork
there while the two Bavarian regiments cleared the wood and the 10th
dealt with the strong points along its eastern edge.
Facing the Germans were
the 111th and the 258th Infantry Regiments, supported by
territorials. The urgent need to improve the defences of Malancourt
Wood had led to the 111th being left in position for thirty five days
and the men were exhausted and filthy. The arrival of General von
Kneussel’s division, together with increased railway activity in
the rear and rising levels of shelling, had made it clear that an
attack could be expected but it had not been expected that day and
after standing to in the early morning, the men had returned to
labouring. They had three lines of defence: an advanced line formed
of separate strong points; a zigzag trench known as the Grand
Parallel some 150 to 200 metres further back that cut through the
wood from side to side; and the final line of resistance, or barrage
line, which defended the southern tip of the wood. The tip had been
organized as a redoubt for a last ditch defence and it was there in
the redoubt – confusingly known as the Avocourt Redoubt – that
the brigade command post was situated. The whole wood was surrounded
by wire, with more dense tangles of wire between the various lines.
At 7am on 20 March the
guns opened up, swamping the French lines with high explosive and
gas. Packed together in the stuffy darkness of their underground
shelters, the Germans waited through the long hours of screaming
bombardment, occasionally checking their watches and trying to get
some food down their dry throats. The bombardment continued until 3pm
when, after a final terrifying paroxysm and a series of explosions
accompanied by huge plumes of smoke, the artillery lifted its range
and they attacked. Aerial reconnaissance and accurate plans of the
French defences found on deserters meant that the attackers knew what
to expect but to their surprise all they found were gaping shell
holes, rubble and corpses. The bombardment had demolished the
trenches and smashed the blockhouses and there was little resistance
from men who had been subjected for hours to terrifying shelling,
buried, suffocated by gas and rocked by giant explosions. As the
assault units swept forward, with the infantry racing to keep up and
firing rockets to indicate their position, prisoners began to pour
towards the German lines. Flame throwers and hand grenades cleared
any men still holding out in dugouts while the machine guns, each of
which had been photographed from the air and mapped, were quickly
silenced. Swiftly reaching the redoubt, the attackers surrounded the
brigade command post and trapped the commander, Colonel Brumm, inside
with his staff. The command post still had a working telephone line
and Colonel Brumm personally telephoned divisional headquarters with
the news that they were surrounded. However, he could tell them
nothing of the general situation in the wood.
A wash house and fountain on the country road between Montfaucon and Malancourt Wood. The road was known as the Preussenweg and for many German soldiers the fountain offered the last chance of fresh water before they reached the line
Author's collection
It was soon over. Within
three hours of the start of the action, Malancourt Wood was in German
hands. The prize included a massive haul of machine guns, trench
mortars and field guns, the regimental colours of the 111th Infantry
and a field kitchen with hot soup. With casualties of almost 700 men,
the action had not been entirely cost-free for the Germans but for
the French it was an utter disaster: they had lost an entire brigade.
The prisoner count was almost 3000 men, most of them unwounded,
including the brigade commander, both regimental commanders and
almost sixty other officers. In addition, well over 1000 men had been
killed or wounded or were missing.
There was stupefaction at
29th Division headquarters when the news arrived. Colonel Brumm was
highly appreciated and Malancourt Wood had been regarded as a perfect
example of field fortification. In their defence the survivors of the
111th claimed that the Germans had pushed down through the centre of
the wood to the redoubt before spreading out and attacking them from
the rear and that this, together with the total breakdown in
communications caused by smashed telephone lines and runners who
never returned, meant that they had no chance to defend their
positions. That cut no ice with the French high command, for whom
such a shocking failure could only be explained by grave weakness and
demoralization. They pointed to the numerous desertions that had
taken place over the previous months and suspected that the two
regiments in question had connived with the enemy and agreed to
surrender. An enquiry was immediately ordered and within a week
General Joffre had ordered that the 258th, a reserve regiment, was to
be DISBANDED – the capital letters in the original document
indicating the extreme seriousness of the measure. The regimental
colours were to be returned to the depot and the remaining officers
and men dispersed among other divisions. Under no circumstances
WHATEVER should any units of the 258th remain with the division. Four
months later the 111th Infantry was also disbanded, the only active
regiment in the French army to be so treated before the Armistice. It
was a terrible disgrace.
Machine gunners of the 120th Landwehr Infantry, one of the regiments that took part in the Malancourt Wood offensive of 20 March1916
Author's collection
It was also a terrible
blow to the entire French defence of the area, because it broke the
organized defence line between Malancourt Wood and Cote 304 and thus
compromised the whole defence of the Left Bank. An immediate counter
attack was launched but the attackers were stopped by their own wire
and it was only on 29 March that French troops finally managed to
recapture the redoubt. Although fighting along the southern side of
the wood continued, the Germans never managed to break out to the
south and Avocourt Redoubt, which was separated from the German lines
by only a few metres, remained in French hands until August 1917.
It was evident to General
Pétain that the Germans were fully intending to continue their
offensive on the Left Bank and, knowing the weight of artillery
deployed, he believed that any attempt to push them back to their
starting point would only result in wearing down the forces he had
available. As a result, he preferred to organize the Left Bank for
defence in depth, with several strong lines being held by troops
determined not to abandon even the smallest piece of ground. They
would be supported by the Left Bank forts, which had been largely
abandoned but were now to be re-armed, garrisoned and fully supplied.
On 22 March General Pétain reorganized the whole sector and fixed
the line to be held at all costs. From now on the tactic was to be
one of aggressive disruption and to that end the artillery was
ordered to keep up continuous concentrated artillery fire to destroy
existing German positions and prevent the establishment of new ones.
Every opportunity to cause the Germans the greatest possible harm
had to be taken; and they
were not to be allowed time to rest or reorganize. If any ground was
lost, it was to be immediately recaptured in order to re-establish
the line and prevent further enemy success. Pétain’s watchword was
the absolute inviolability of the front and to that end all units had
to strengthen their positions and be prepared to die where they
stood.
By
the end of March Second Army had over half a million men available
for the defence of Verdun. It was a far cry from the two divisions
that met the German onslaught on the Right Bank on 21 February and
few would have believed it possible. On the eve of the German
offensive the main supply route into Verdun – the secondary road
from Bar-le-Duc, a town some seventy-five kilometres to the south –
had been taken over by the Service Automobile and, in accordance with
the logistical plan prepared in 1915, a Regulating Commission was
established. Within four hours the winding road had been entirely
cleared of traffic and reserved exclusively for army motor transport.
The Commission’s task was to keep the road running at all times and
in order to do so it was divided into six administrative sectors, or
cantons, each headed by an officer with wide ranging powers to keep
traffic flowing and the road repaired. Within twenty-four hours of
the start of the battle, convoys of trucks had transported an entire
division to Verdun from Bar-le Duc.
The task of the Service
Automobile was to supply the Verdun sector with an average of 2,000
tons of ammunition each day, in addition to the roughly one hundred
tons of daily rations and supplies needed by each division. It also
had to cope with all necessary troop transport to and from
the front, and the
evacuation of men and material. It rose to the challenge. During the
first two anxious weeks of the battle, convoys of trucks carried
22,250 tons of munitions and 190,000 men to the front, in addition to
rations, pioneer and medical supplies, troops on leave, medical
evacuees and even a few civilians. In that time the number of
vehicles available rose to almost 4,000. Every day 1,700 trucks made
the journey in each direction between Bar-le-Duc and Verdun, an
average of one truck every 25 seconds while the Petit Meusien light
railway, supplemented by locomotives and wagons rushed in from all
over France, supplied thousands of tons of rations for an army which,
on 1 March, already comprised almost 440,000 officers and men and
136,000 horses and mules. More would be needed as the battle went on
but it was a remarkable start and one with which General Pétain and
General Joffre could be well pleased.
Verdun memorial to the work of the logistics corps in supplying the Verdun front compromises scenes from along the Voie Sacree. This shows one of the troop transports
Author's collection
With
Malancourt Wood in their hands, the next phase of the German
offensive could take place. Their positions in the wood, and
particularly in the redoubt, were enfiladed from a multitude of
French positions that had to be cleared before an attempt could be
made on the summit of Cote 304. The plan to clear them involved a two
stage operation to be launched on 22 March. The first stage involved
the capture of two hilltop positions, the Ouvrage de Vaucluse and the
Mamelon d’Haucourt, which were situated roughly 1000
metres from the eastern edge of Malancourt Wood and flanked the
villages of Malancourt and Haucourt. Once these were in German hands,
swiftly moving units would seize, first, a series of other
strongpoints on the western flanks of Cote 304 and, second, the two
villages. If successful, this operation would not only remove a
substantial number of obstacles but would push the German line to
within two kilometres of the summit of Cote 304.
A French machine gun post for two guns standing between Malancourt Wood and Vaucluse Hill
Author's collection
Aerial observation had
shown Vaucluse and the Mamelon to be strongly organized but their
capture did not appear to be too much to ask of fresh troops
attacking with powerful artillery support. But if the Germans hoped
for a repeat of the French collapse in Malancourt Wood, they were
disappointed. Here there was no forest cover and, as the Germans
quickly discovered, the French use of ground was so outstanding that
an attack on any one of these positions immediately came under fire
from several directions. In the circumstances casualties were likely
to be very high, and they were.
A German observation post in the rear of the Malancourt Wood lines
Wim Degrande
As soon as it was
realised that an action was planned, the tactic of aggressive
disruption came into play and every French gun, light or heavy, long
or short, whether belonging to the sector or not, roared into action,
concentrating its fire on the German lines or the assumed target with
the aim of preventing the action or of breaking it up. Throughout the
morning French guns, assisted by spotter planes and captive balloons,
ranged up and down the front, sweeping the approaches to the hilltops
and blasting the ground, so that enemy positions that were clear
enough on the map became impossible to identify. Men were falling
from the moment they moved off and it took two hours of slow
methodical work before Vaucluse and the Mamelon d’Haucourt were
carried. While that was a success, the rest of the day’s operation
failed completely. French positions believed to be deserted or
captured turned out to be strongly defended, men got caught in
tangles of broken wire, flanking fire hit them from the side and
machine guns which had been overlooked in the tumult took them in the
rear and mowed them down. Liaison was lost almost immediately and it
was fifteen hours before reports began to arrive. They were followed
by a slow trickle of exhausted and mud covered men whose horrified
expressions testified to the appalling carnage they had seen.
Altogether fifty three officers and over 2400 men were killed that
day and countless others wounded and captured. If 22 March was one of
the most heroic days in the life of the four German regiments taking
part in the action, it was also one of the bloodiest. As Schlachten
des Weltkrieges, the German narrative history of the war, sadly
admitted, it was not the first time that the intention of planners at
the rear had been defeated by conditions at the front. It would not
be the last.
A small French machine gun post, still standing on the top of the Mamelon d'Haucourt
Author's collection
