The Battle of Verdun and " The War to End All Wars "

The Battle of Verdun and “The War to End All Wars” World War I ended 100 years ago, on November 11th. As wars go, Word War I was particularly horrendous. More than 9 million servicemen and women of all participating nations died. Another 21 million lost arms, legs, faces, and other body parts. Among the military dead were approximately 1.4 million French and 2 million Germans. Because the United States did not enter the war until 1917, its military and civilian casualties were limited to 323,155, of which 116,708 were killed in action. Although many World War 1 battles claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the Battle of Verdun exemplifies the worst of the war’s carnage. Beginning in February of 1916 and lasting until that December, French and German (the only two armies involved) casualties exceeded 700,000, of which over 300,000 were killed in action. Verdun was very much an artillery duel; artillery shells packed with gas canisters or high explosives caused most casualties. During the 10 months that the battle waxed and waned, millions of artillery shells — both gas and high-explosive — fell on and near the positions of both sides. Many of those shells remain in the battlefield and remain live, making it even today a dangerous place to walk. Visitors are constantly reminded to stay on the marked paths. Newspapers occasionally report that a visitor picked Photograph of Verdun battlefield, 1916. up an artillery shell, only to have it release still-toxic gas. By December 1916, the battlefield resembled a moonscape, and still carries the remnants of artillery impact craters from 100 years ago In fact, parts of the battlefield are still so dangerous that over 100,000 dead are still there. Some 15,000 remains have been identified and have been buried in the battlefield’s National Author's photograph of Verdun battlefield, September 2014 Cemetery. And well after the war, demolition experts and others were able to collect the remains of some 130,000 others. But by then the bodies had decomposed and the uniforms had deteriorated to the point that no one could tell whether the remains were French or German. Identity disks or “dog tags” had been in use by both armies well before the Verdun battle. But the impact of high-explosive artillery shells on the human body is so devastating that a direct hit, or even a near-direct hit, shatters a body into pieces and disperses those pieces over a considerable area, making an identity disc useless. Also, identity disks at the time were usually fastened around the neck with a cotton string or necklace. As the cotton deteriorated over time, the disc would fall away from the bones and again be rendered useless as a means of identifying anyone. Workers simply gathered the accumulated French and German bones and piled them up according to the areas of the battlefield from which they were collected. Due to the efforts first of Monsignor Ginisty, then Bishop of Verdun, and thereafter contributions from people throughout the world, sufficient funds were collected to complete by 1932 an Ossuary, or bone repository, in a safe area of the battlefield, next to the National Cemetery. The bones — French and German together — were then stored in 46 alcoves or stone “coffins” representing the various battlefield areas in which they were found. The Verdun Battlefield Ossuary. Author's photograph Glass windows in the rear of the building allow a glimpse into the coffins that store the resting bones. If any of the French or German soldiers whose bones lie in the Verdun Ossuary or elsewhere believed they fought a “war to end all wars,” they were sadly mistaken. The November 11th Armistice allowed German soldiers to Unidentified French and German bones in the march back into Germany in formation and in Verdun Battlefield Ossuary. Author's photograph uniform, as if they had won the war. In fact, the German people had been so heavily propagandized and lied to that many believed Germany had won the war. Only when they learned of the Versailles Treaty provisions that branded Germany with responsibility for starting the war and imposed losses of territory and heavy reparations did the German people realize that not only had Germany lost the war, they and their beloved army had been branded war criminals. The national humiliation and resentment against the Versailles Treaty provided ideal conditions for an Adolf Hitler to concoct wild theories of how the German army had not lost the war: the army and German people were actually “stabbed in the back" by Jewish bankers, socialists, and other enemies. The resulting racist hatreds — as well as a perceived need to conquer other peoples’ lands in Europe — led to an even more destructive European war only 21 years after 1918. Despite the horrendous injuries and loss of life in the Battle of Verdun, in all of World War I, World War II, and other later, past and present wars, clearly humankind has not yet reached the point where we can put war behind us and find only peaceable ways to resolve conflicts. Suggested Reading Holstein, Christina. Walking Verdun: A Guide to the Battlefield. Barnsley, South Yorkshire (UK): Pen & Sword Books, 2012. Horne, Alistair. The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916. London (UK): Penguin Books, 1993. Lefebvre, Jacques-Henri. Verdun: la plus grande bataille de l’Histoire. Paris: G. Durassié & Cie, 1951. Mosier, John. Verdun: The Lost History of the Most Important Battle of World War I, 1914‒1918. New York: The Penguin Group, 2013.