When German generals decided on a strategy of attrition to methodically wear down the French Army in the middle of the First World War (1914 to 18), the Battle of Verdun was the result, an engagement that spiralled out of control and cost both sides much more than they ever imagined. Desperate to hold on to the prestigious fortress complex of Verdun, the French rotated divisions in its defence so that 75% of the nation's army fought in this gigantic struggle. The longest of WWI and one of the deadliest, the Battle of Verdun (February-December 1916), as with so many others in the Great War, resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties but very little strategic gain for either side. The French held out, and Germany was so exhausted in men and material that it could not launch another major offensive until 1918.

The German high command hoped a sustained attack on the prestigious fortress of Verdun, located in the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in northeast France, would "bleed France white" (Bruce, 389). The reasoning was that the French generals could not possibly surrender Verdun, since this would be a serious blow to military and civilian morale. The German attack, made on a specific point of the huge Western Front, was designed to drag on and so continuously draw in French troops until so many men were killed, the French civilian population would rise up and insist on an end to the war. Whether the German high command actually wanted to capture the fortress complex is much debated by historians. The key to German success would be inflicting more losses on the enemy than its own forces endured so that attackers would outdo defence. So far, all the major battles of the First World War had favoured defence, but this uncomfortable truth was ignored when the German high command convinced Kaiser Wilhelm II (reign 1888 to 1918) to give them the green light to proceed.

It was left to the French Second Army to defend Verdun at all costs. It would not be easy. Verdun sat in a bulge of land within a loop of the river Meuse. This bulge could be attacked by the enemy from three sides. The fortress was actually a complex of mutually protecting and concentric rings of fortresses, but all would be exposed to artillery. The French had poor lines of communication and supply leading to Verdun, while the Germans had a railway line that reached within 12 miles (19 km) of it.

Another negative for the defence was that, after the fall of various fortresses earlier in the war, when German heavy artillery had pounded them to rubble, the French high command began to have serious doubts that any fortress, no matter how strong, would ultimately fall. Accordingly, most of Verdun's heavy guns had already been removed for use elsewhere as field artillery. In addition, this loop of the Meuse had become one of the quieter areas of the Western Front, and, consequently, in February 1916, the fortresses were only guarded by a handful of French divisions.

On the plus side for the French, the fortresses remained tough structures to break into; many sat on high ground, and many had been strengthened in 1885 and again, more recently, using concrete and armour plating. The trench systems between and around the various fortresses had also been greatly improved when the German build-up of troops suggested this would almost certainly be the location of the next big clash on the Western Front. The crucial question was: could the French Army organise itself to get sufficient men and material to this area to ensure its defence once an attack began?

The plan of attack was given the code name Operation Judgement. The battle began on 21 February; it would last for ten gruelling months. The opening act of the drama was itself gigantic. The German artillery units had been steadily beefed up through January and February so that over 540 heavy guns and 660 lighter guns were ranged against the enemy. An artillery bombardment blasted the French defences for 21 hours; each hour, 2,400 shells were fired. It was the most intense bombardment yet seen in the war.

Infantry units of the German Fifth Army, made up of around one million men, then advanced along an 8-mile (13 km) front that followed the Meuse. A new awful weapon was used by the attackers: the flamethrower. The big push initially went well, gaining 3.5 miles (5.6 km), a large amount given the typically static state of the Western Front. The French commanders, low on ammunition and supplies, were obliged to regroup their depleted forces. The retreat south meant the Woëvre plain was abandoned to the enemy. More serious, certainly in terms of prestige, was the loss of Fort Douaumont on 25 February.

The scale of the German advance and its success meant that Verdun itself, key to the entire battle, was now under serious threat. Marshal Joseph Joffre (1852 to 1931), Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, took drastic measures and appointed a new commander for this zone of the front, Philippe Pétain (1856 to 1951). Despite the forward French trench systems having already been overwhelmed, Pétain was given express orders to continue to defend Verdun at all costs, even if it certainly would have been better to withdraw and defend the more favourable forested terrain behind the Verdun salient. Pétain was a good choice for the job, a commander who cared little for operational losses and one who had always championed defence over offence. If one general could save France, it was Pétain.

Pétain acted swiftly, reorganising his troops and taking personal command of the vital artillery units, ensuring they now gave only concentrated fire. Pétain also reorganised his big guns so that the more the Germans advanced, the more their flank would be exposed to French artillery. Logistics failures had hampered the French since the start of the battle, their supplies and reinforcements coming in via a single secondary road. The situation was now greatly improved by organising an ever-moving chain of supply trucks that linked the front to the town of Bar-le-Duc, some 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 km) to the rear. At first, there were 3,500 trucks bringing in supplies, but this eventually increased to 12,000. Any truck that broke down was simply shoved into the fields and abandoned, while a specialised team of road repairers worked constantly to keep the traffic flowing, which it did, one truck passing every 14 seconds through June. The road became affectionately known as the Sacred Way after the war, and, despite coming under German artillery fire, it gave a massive supply boost to the weary defenders. Now troops could be used in rotation in a front where the intensity of the fighting quickly wore men down.

By the beginning of March, the German advance, whose movement of heavy artillery was seriously hampered by the muddy conditions, had been halted. The German generals had greatly underestimated just how many guns and shells were needed to effectively weaken the enemy. The French Army, shaking itself back to a functioning force after the initial shock, was now able to launch its own limited offensives. This action obliged the German commanders to extend their lines, notably to try and put out the French artillery on the west bank of the Meuse. Crucially, the French were able to hold on to the Le Mort-Homme (Dead Man) hill. Nevertheless, the German forces continued to threaten the fortresses of Verdun, and by the end of March, they were just 3 miles (4.8 km) from Verdun itself. The fighting continued to swing to and fro through this brutal and terribly wet spring; the village of Vaux, for example, exchanged hands no fewer than 13 times during the battle.

Verdun had not been captured, but the German objective of wearing down the enemy forces was certainly working. The German Army launched a new push westwards in the second week of April, but the gains made earlier in the battle could not be repeated as the fighting became less mobile and more akin to a creeping form of trench warfare.

At the end of May, as the weather and conditions improved, Le Mort-Homme was captured, and then Fort Vaux by the second week of June (although the French troops stoutly defending the latter only surrendered because they had run out of water). Towards the end of June, the German forces advanced on the key forts of Souville and Tavannes. The attackers used deadly phosgene gas on 22 June and inflicted heavy losses on the French, but the defenders held firm. By mid-July, the German Army had worn itself out, and Verdun was no longer under direct threat. The pushback could begin.

Both sides had suffered tremendous losses, but the nature of the fighting continued to favour defence. Artillery barrages, as had proved to be the case elsewhere, did not inflict sufficient damage on well-entrenched defenders to enable an easy infantry assault. Once the shelling was over, the defenders could come out of their holes and use their machine guns to devastate the secondary attack by infantry. Another significant factor was the French idea of rotating troops, which meant that the defence could utilise 42 divisions. The Germans, on the other hand, did not rotate their troops, and so the same 30 divisions in the battle received no respite.

Even the land itself told a tale of persistent destruction in this mighty battle:

The shape of the landscape had been permanently altered, forests had been reduced to splinters, villages had disappeared, the surface of the ground had been so pockmarked by explosion that shell hole overlapped shell hole and had been overlapped again…to both armies Verdun had become a place of terror and death that could not yield victory.

(Keegan, 285)

As summer turned to autumn, changes in command were made by both sides. The German commander of the assault, General Erich von Falkenhayn (1861 to 1922), was now replaced as chief-of-staff by the duo of General Erich Ludendorff (1865 to 1937) and General Paul von Hindenburg (1847 to 1934).

On the French side, General Robert Nivelle (1856 to 1924) had already taken charge during the latter phase of the wider Battle of Verdun, while Pétain was promoted to command the Central Group Armies. It was Nivelle who had instigated the new idea of a 'creeping barrage', that is, using artillery to fire a curtain of shells, which advanced along with that of the infantry. This technique brought success, including the recapture of Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux towards the end of October. The French had also been aided by a period of rest as the battle lulled and by the addition of significant reinforcements.

The German forces continued to suffer heavy and unsustainable losses. Verdun was certainly a battle of attrition, but it had worn down the long-term capabilities of the attackers more than the defenders. Early December saw another push forward by the French, and by mid-December, the capture of 11,000 German soldiers effectively ended the battle. In all, the German forces had suffered 330,000 casualties (including 143,000 dead) in the Battle of Verdun compared to the French casualty figures of around 351,000 (including 150,000 dead). Few other battles in WWI would reach these figures for total men killed and wounded. The town of Verdun had been destroyed, but the fortress was held. Germany had expended material at a prodigious rate; 23 million artillery shells had been fired, for example. The campaign, despite such a high price paid in men and weapons, brought no significant military gain for either side.

The sheer scale and then the drawn-out action of the Battle of Verdun had consequences in other areas along the Western Front. The First Battle of the Somme took place, also in northern France, from 1 July to 18 November 1916. This battle, which involved British and French armed forces against German forces, was originally designed as part of a wider Allied offensive but was developed into a diversionary operation to relieve pressure on the French Army troops around Verdun. The Somme also witnessed a huge number of casualties, but it did achieve its objective of helping divert German forces away from the Battle of Verdun. On the Eastern Front, major attacks by Imperial Russia's armies achieved a similar objective of diverting key German divisions away from Verdun. In short, Germany was fighting too many enemies and the strategy of a massive battle of attrition was shown to be folly.

Pétain became a national hero for the stoic defence of Verdun, and Nivelle was made the army's commander-in-chief. Pétain recognised that the defence of Verdun had been thanks to the courage of ordinary French soldiers, but even those who survived the ordeal had paid a terrible price for victory. The general noted: "In their unsteady look one sensed visions of horror, while their step and bearing revealed utter despondency. They were crushed by horrifying memories" (Bruce, 390).

The actions at Verdun and the Somme ensured that the Allies inflicted such casualties on Germany that it could not launch a major offensive again until 1918. The direction of the war had definitively turned, and, with the United States joining the conflict in November 1917, Germany could not now materially win this war to end all wars.