![]() German Field marshal Hindenburg recognised this fact in his memoirs 'this battle exhausted our forces like a wound that wouldn’t heal'. Statistics differ as usual but we can reckon for both sides on at least a total of 714,000 losses (killed, wounded and missing). The whole battle was an unprecedented slaughter. The battle can be divided into four phases. Verdun was the longest battle of the First World War running from February to December 1916 – a total of 10 months. This made Verdun an almost ideal target even more so because the trenches there were in a poor state or in some cases non-existent. GHQ had decided after the rapid fall of the Belgian forts in 1914 and the great need of artillery for the French army in the field that forts were of no great use. In 1916 the fortress of Verdun was stripped of its guns and the forts manned only by token crews. The city lies on both banks of the River Meuse in North-eastern France. Most people know the battle of Verdun started on the 21st February 1916. The following article is based on the recollections of General Caloni and recollections of the authors’ grandfather’s experience of Verdun. An ‘Enthusiastic’ Response to War? British social responses to the outbreak of the First World War.Albert Perkins - Who Do We Think He Is?.The Unknowns Continue to Appear – the Work of the War Graves Adjudication Unit by Emma Worrall.Blessed be St Enodoc : The Great War Story of a Cornish Church and those buried there.The 'Dead Enigma': Hedd Wyn and Francis Ledwidge and the Welsh National Eisteddfod.Hang on a Minute! Near escapes by RFC/RAF Pilots during the First World War.Boy Soldiers of the Great War Revisited by Richard van Emden.Holtby of the Canadian Expeditionary Force The Envelope in the Attic : Items pertaining to Private Arthur W.The British Monarchy and the First World War by Professor Heather Jones.First World War Materials for University Students.
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