![]() ![]() Kunze’s orders had been to clear obstacles in front of the advancing infantry.ĭouaumont’s remaining guns were eerily silent as Kunze and his men crept around the outer edge of the moat, probing for a way in. At about 1630 hours, a 24th Brandenburg pioneer squad under Feldwebel Felix Kunze found itself just 50 yards from the apex of the fort. But during the approach march, the two units lost contact in a blinding snowstorm, and the 12th Grenadiers veered off course in the Chauffour Woods. The German 12th Grenadier Regiment was to storm Douaumont, supported by the 24th Brandenburg Infantry Regiment. Although the Germans didn’t know it, the garrison had been reduced to just 57 reserve artillerymen, who kept up a half-hearted fire in the direction of the enemy lines as the Germans hammered the fort for several days with their 420mm “Big Bertha” howitzers. By the time the Germans advanced on Fort Douaumont on February 25, only the two 75mm guns and single 155mm remained. In 1915 French commander in chief General Joseph Joffre had decided that field guns in the flanking batteries and most of the troops manning the Verdun forts were needed elsewhere. If that weren’t enough, the batteries at Fort Vaux, two miles to the southeast, could cover the entire top of Fort Douaumont.Īlthough Douaumont should have been impregnable, the French had severely weakened it well before the battle. Covering the left rear of the fort was a flanking battery mounting a 75mm field gun on a special fortress carriage. Both rapid-fire artillery turrets were fully automated. Atop the fort were four hardened-steel observation turrets, two machine-gun turrets, a turret with a pair of 75mm guns and a primary turret with a 155mm howitzer. The roof was 12 feet thick and covered with several additional feet of earth. The gun embrasures were 12 feet above the moat’s floor, and the galleries were accessible only from inside the fort.ĭouaumont’s two levels could accommodate a garrison of nearly 1,000 troops within 8-foot-thick walls of steel-reinforced concrete. Machine guns in inward-facing counterscarp galleries on the moat’s outer corners covered every inch of the ditch with enfilading fire. A dry moat 24 feet deep and 35 feet wide surrounded the fort proper. Backing the wire was a line of 8-foot sharpened stakes. Its outer defenses started with two concentric, 30-foot-deep belts of barbed wire. Continually strengthened and modernized through 1913, Douaumont comprised an elongated pentagon more than 500 yards across at its widest point. Built in 1885, it was part of the Séré de Rivières system of border defenses France established following its 1871 defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. But before Vaux fell, its commander and garrison put up a fight that cost the Germans almost 3,000 casualties in only seven days of fighting.Ĭontemporary military experts considered massive Fort Douaumont the world’s strongest fortification. Fort Vaux, the smallest of the Verdun forts, was commanded by a partially disabled officer who had refused medical retirement. Fort Douaumont, the largest and strongest fortification of the system, was taken without a shot being fired, virtually single-handedly by a German sergeant. During the 10-month campaign, two of the major forts-Douaumont and Vaux-fell, yet the battles for each could not have been more different. 21, 1916, it ran up against a ring of 18 large forts and 23 smaller strongpoints the French called ouvrages. When the German army attacked Verdun, France, on Feb. The German troops who swarmed over two key French fortresses protecting Verdun anticipated a tough fight. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |