21 February 1916. Day One.

The attack began in the early morning. It was Monday.

Under cover of the dense Meuse forests to the east of Verdun the Germans had pushed naval guns mounted on narrow gauge rail lines to within 30 km of the city. In the Forest of Spincourt the order was finally received to aim a 380mm gun at Verdun and for the bombardment to begin.

The Bishop’s Palace in Verdun took the first hit, an entire corner of the Cathedral destroyed.

Bishop's Palace - Verdun. 21 February 1916

In reality, it had been a near miss. The real target was more likely to have been one of a number of bridges in Verdun that crossed the River Meuse but the propaganda value of a direct hit on a Cathedral was not lost by a French government desperate to maintain public fear of German ‘barbarism’.

The next salvo of shells found their targets on and around the main railway station in Verdun.

Closer to the front line, in the Bois des Caures, a slightly elevated wood between the towns of Flabas and Ville-devant-Chaumont, the main French defence under the leadership of Colonel Driant slept on.

Chasseurs in the Bois des Caures before the attack

Three hours after the first shell had exploded on the Cathedral the bombardment of the Bois des Caures began.

Bois de Caures - top right/centre between Flabas and Ville

Survivors recalled the world ‘disintegrating’ around them.

‘…a storm’

‘…a hurricane’

‘…a tempest that grew ever stronger…it seemed to be raining paving stones’

Shells fell and exploded in a constant wave. Trees were uprooted, flung to the ground only to be immediately flung back into the air by the next salvo of metal.

Soldiers were buried by the churned-up earth from near-by explosions. Scrambling to the surface they then found themselves buried again by new explosions. Each wave of shelling buried and killed and maimed hundreds of the French Chasseurs.

Observers spoke also of the mathematical pattern of the bombardment as they watched sections of the wood blasted by shells in waves of steel in repeated 15 minute ‘cycles’ of destruction.

All sections of the Verdun front were subjected to the same terrible barrage that fell on both fortified positions and the deeper supply and communication lines. German gunners used both gas and high explosive.

Around midday the bombardment paused.

In the Bois de Caures, Brabant, Haumont and Maucourt, survivors of the attack staggered from their dug-outs and fortified bunkers to survey the devastation around them.

German artillery observers on higher ground - as well as in balloons and aircraft - telegraphed back to the gunners to inform them where the bombardment had been less successful. German artillery re-calibrated their mortar fire and resumed their bombardment of the French first line of defence. 

Heavy shells were quickly falling at a frequency of 40 every 60 seconds. Altogether, the barrage lasted almost continually between 7 a.m and 4 p.m. In that period, around 80,000 shells fell on the Bois de Caures alone.

The German infantry began their attack at 4 p.m. accompanied by flamethrower units, a new addition to the carnage of the Western Front.

Three waves of German infantry advance east of the Bois de Caures - 21/2/16

After nightfall, the German guns opened up again.