The Price of Glory (47 page)

of multitudinous soft whistlings, following each other without cessation, as if thousands and thousands of birds cleaving the air in dizzy flight were fleeing over our heads to be swallowed up in swarms in the Ravine des Hospices behind. It was something novel and incomprehensible.…

Suddenly a sergeant burst into the shelter, without knocking or saluting, his mouth trembling with agitation.

‘
Mon Général,
there are shells — thousands of shells — passing overhead, that don’t burst!’

‘Let’s go and have a look,’ said the General.

Outside, Bechu could now hear the distant rumble of the German guns, but still no sound of exploding shells. Then, out of the ravine, as they stood listening, crept ‘a pungent, sickening odour of putrefaction compounded with the mustiness of stale vinegar.’

Strangled voices whispered: ‘Gas! It’s gas!’

In the neighbouring 129th Division, Lieutenant Pierre de Mazenod heard the silent shells falling all round his battery of 75s. It was, he thought, just like ‘thousands of beads falling upon a large carpet’. For a few moments of blissful delusion, his men believed that the Germans were firing duds. Then came the first strangling sensations of the vile-smelling gas. The pack-horses plunged and reared in frenzy, broke from their tethers and ran amuck among the battery. Swiftly the gunners whipped on their gasmasks and ran to man their cannon. The masked men struggling at their guns reminded de Mazenod of ‘the Carnival of Death’. The crude gasmasks of those days so constrained breathing that every action required several times the normal effort, but at least they saved one from asphyxiation. Now, however, men with their masks on still coughed and retched and tore at their throats in a desperate struggle for air. In some ghastly way the gas seemed to be getting through the masks.

It was supposed to. For months German scientists had been experimenting with a new formula. At last they had produced a gas against which they discovered that captured French gasmasks were only partially effective, and now it was being tried out for the first time. Phosgene was its name — or ‘Green Cross Gas’ as the German Army called it, on account of its shell markings — and it was one of the deadliest gases ever used in war. Little wonder that the Germans had such confidence in this new attack.

The ‘Green Cross Gas’ attacked every living thing. Leaves withered and even snails died; as one minor blessing, the flies swarming over the corpse-infested battlefield also disappeared temporarily. Horses lay, frothy-mouthed and hideously contorted, along all the tracks leading up to Souville. The chaos was indescribable; abandoned mobile soup-kitchens stood tangled up with artillery caissons and ambulances. None of the supplies of cartridges and water that the front-line infantry had been calling for frantically all the previous day could get through the gas curtain, which in the stillness of the night lingered undissipated. Its effects extended to the rear areas, and even behind Verdun. A wounded subaltern recalls being treated by a
spectre-like surgeon and his team, all wearing gas masks, while nearby a ‘faceless’ Chaplain gave absolution to the dying. Occasionally the medicos clutched their throats and fell.

It was the French artillery that bore the brunt of the ‘Green Cross’. In de Mazenod’s battery, gun crews were reduced to one or two men each, many of them ‘green like corpses’. One by one the French batteries on the Right Bank fell silent. As bad luck would have it, even the immensely useful 155 mm. gun in Fort Moulainville, which had stayed in action all through the battle and had not been affected by the gas, was at last knocked out that morning by a ‘Big Bertha’ shell exploding inside the fort. For the first time in the titanic, four-month-old artillery duel, one set of gunners had gained the upper hand over the other. By dawn on the 23rd, only a few scattered cannon were still firing. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the ‘Green Cross’ shelling ended, replaced once more by the thunderous barrages of high explosive. At 5 a.m. the German infantry moved forward in the densest formations yet seen, the reserves following closely behind the first waves. Before de Mazenod could get his 75s back into action, the Germans were too close. Soon he and the survivors of his battery found themselves keeping them at bay with rifles.

* * *

The main German blow struck right between the French 129th and 130th divisions, both suffering acutely from thirst, short of ammunition and badly demoralised by the lack of artillery support. French listening posts gloomily overheard German patrols reporting back that they had reached the French forward posts, and found them abandoned. A deep hole was punched with alarming rapidity right through the centre of the French line. In their first rush, the Bavarians overran the
Ouvrage de Thiaumont
and reached and momentarily encircled the Froideterre fortification. Other Bavarian units broke through to the subterranean command post on the edge of the Ravine des Vignes called
‘Quatre Cheminées’,
which contained the HQs of no less than four separate French units. For several days the staffs remained besieged inside, with the Germans dropping hand-grenades on them down the ventilator shafts that constituted the ‘Four Chimneys’.

To the left of the Bavarians, the greatest triumph of the day was won by von Dellmensingen’s Alpine Corps, its spearhead the
Bavarian Leib Regiment and the Second Prussian Jägers. The Leib was commanded by Lt.-Col. Ritter von Epp. later to achieve fame in the early days of the Nazi Party; while the Regimental Adjutant of the Jägers was an
Oberleutnant
Paulus whose name would forever be associated with the ‘Verdun’ of a generation later — Stalingrad. High above the battle, watching it as from a grandstand, a French observer in a captive balloon, Lieutenant Tourtay, saw von Epp’s men storm into the village of Fleury. It was only 8.15, and the Germans had already covered nearly a mile since the attack began three hours earlier. A few minutes later, Tourtay saw twenty-four German field guns arrive at a gallop to support their tenancy of Fleury. Then the French defence began to crystallise, and shortly after 9 o’clock Lieutenant Tourtay was overjoyed to see the first French barrages of the resuscitated French artillery beginning to take effect. All that day fighting raged in Fleury, but by the evening of the 23rd it was firmly in German hands.

To the French there were moments when it looked as if, as one of the Brigadiers remarked,
‘tout allait craquer’.
Every telephone call to Pétain’s HQ at Bar-le-Duc brought worse news. There were more reports of
‘défalliances’
, indicative of that physical and moral exhaustion which especially alarmed Pétain. At Thiaumont, it appeared that nearly half of the 121st Chasseurs and eighteen of its officers had been taken prisoner; it was a bad omen when distinguished units like the Chasseurs surrendered so easily. Before midday an orderly officer came with a report that Germans were now only two and a half miles from Verdun as the crow flies, and within 1,200 yards of the final ridge, the Côtes de Belleville. On his heels another arrived to tell Pétain that Ritter von Epp’s men were firing their machine guns obliquely into the streets of Verdun itself, causing a minor panic. To his subordinates Pétain never revealed his alarm that day, displaying an apparent imperturbability worthy of Joffre himself and remarking only: ‘We have not been lucky today, but we shall be tomorrow.’

At 3 p.m., however, he telephoned de Castelnau, gravely pessimistic, expressing fears for the safety of the great bulk of the French artillery that still lay on the Right Bank, and begging for the third time that Joffre get the Somme Offensive advanced.

Joffre and his supporters later cited this conversation as further evidence that Pétain was still contemplating a voluntary evacuation of the Right Bank, and was only forestalled by the resolution of
Joffre and Nivelle. It was not so. On the Right Bank were positioned one-third of all the French guns at Verdun, and it would take an estimated three days to move them. Pétain feared — with reason — that if the German offensive continued, the defenders would be physically hurled across the Meuse, thereby losing all these guns; a sacrifice which, for France, would be second only to the capture of Verdun itself. In fact, Nivelle himself — though afterwards he was quick to claim that he had never been daunted — obviously shared Pétain’s fears. He had already ordered the withdrawal of some of the guns in the Bras-Froideterre sector; in Verdun itself, the Governor was set frantically to digging trenches in the streets, fortifying houses for street fighting and preparing Vauban’s ancient citadel for siege. Even Joffre’s own actions belied his subsequent claim ‘I was never worried’; hastily he sent Pétain four of the divisions he so zealously had been hoarding for the Somme; in Paris, one of his officers admitted to Clemenceau that Joffre was ‘prostrated’ — upon which ‘the Tiger’ commented: ‘These people will lose France!’

It was all very well for Joffre to write sanctimoniously in his Memoirs that ‘Pétain had once more allowed himself to be too much impressed by the enemy.’ Perhaps Pétain had fallen prey too readily to his ever-deepening pessimism. But without a shadow of doubt June 23rd was a frighteningly close-run thing. Who could tell that night that the lethal ‘Green Cross’ bombardment would not be repeated, that an equally potent thrust might not roll up the French defences on the morrow?

It was something only Knobelsdorf and his commanders knew. The course of German fortunes that day could hardly be better illustrated than by the letter of a twenty five-year-old former student of Munich University, Hans Forster (killed near Verdun later in the year). Forster was an NCO with the 24th Bavarian Regiment, detailed to advance between Fleury and Froideterre. Waiting in shell-holes early that morning, he had noted that hardly any enemy shells fell, a pleasant contrast to the two previous days. At 7 a.m., coloured Very lights were fired, and the regiment surged forward. Within a few minutes it had reached its first objective, a French redoubt referred to as the
‘A’ Work.

Forward! The French are flooding back; on the order of an officer they halt and take position again. ‘Hand-grenades’ is the shout among us. On all sides the defenders are falling — others surrender. One more powerful blow — the
‘A’ Work
is ours!!! We go on through a hollow. In front of us a railway embankment; to the right a curve in it. There forty-fifty French are standing with their hands up. One corporal is still shooting at them — I stop him. An elderly Frenchman raises a slightly wounded left hand and smiles and thanks me.… Over the railway.… In a shell-hole ten yards to the left of me is our Company Commander, Lt. A. He calls out: ‘It’s gone wonderfully!’ and laughs; then he becomes serious, for he sees that some men have gone ahead and are in danger of getting into our own fire. He stands up to shout — then — shreds of his map fly up, he clasps his hands to his breast and falls forward. Some men run to him, but in a few minutes he is dead. Forward again. No pause. Over the Fleury barbed wire; in ten minutes it’s ours. With rifles slung, cigarettes in our mouths, laughing and chatting, we go on. Captured French are coming back in hundreds.… [Though he must have been mistaken, Forster then claims to have seen, at the end of a long valley — probably the Ravine des Vignes — the suburbs of Verdun] Oh, Verdun — what rapture! we shake each others’ hands with glowing faces. To the right of Fleury village stands Prince Henry [of Bavaria, later wounded in the battle], moved with joy. It is a sight — so great and sublime; time 8.20 a.m. The sun is shining.… At about midday, the enemy gets together a counter-attack, but we overrun it and occupy a line of trenches one and a half kilometers in front of Fleury. Gunfire is mounting. We can no longer remain in the open, and we hunt for shelters.… That evening when we creep out of our holes we notice, to our horror, that the position was evacuated at 7 o’clock and that only our handful from the 24th and a few from the 10th were holding a line 500 yards wide. That was impossible. Lieutenant E. gave the order to move back under cover of dark, as we had been forgotten. Then, as early as 7.30 our own artillery began shooting up our positions.… Until 3 a.m. we lay in a hole. Immense thirst. At last it rained, so we could lick the brims of our helmets, and the sleeves of our jackets.…

Forster then headed back towards the German lines, half-carrying an NCO of the Leib Regiment who had been severely wounded in the groin. As it grew light he recognised the wounded man to have been a fellow student at Munich. Together they got back safely to Fort Douaumont.

A number of factors had contributed to the ebb of the German attack that day. The effects of the ‘Green Cross Gas’ had been a little disappointing. French gasmasks had on the whole proved more effective (the French in fact reported only 1,600 gas casualties) than expected, and the gas tended to settle heavily in the hollows, so that French batteries on high ground were relatively protected. There had also been only enough ‘Green Cross’ shells to blanket the centre of the line, but the French guns on either flank were not knocked out. Above all, in their mistrust of novelty the German commanders had committed an error typical of the 1914-18 military mind; just as a hesitant Haig was later to throw away the supreme surprise value of the tank, so Knobelsdorf had decided not to risk all on Phosgene. Thus, three or four hours before the infantry went in, the gunners had been ordered to cease the gas shelling and revert to normal ammunition, giving the French a vital respite to get their guns back into action.

Tactically, too, the Germans had made the error of attacking (once again) on too narrow a front with too few reserves. This was partly due to the failure, during the preliminary offensive which began on June 8th, to consolidate their flanks by capturing Thiaumont on one side and the ‘High Battery’ position at Damloup on the other. Again, on the 23rd, brilliant though the German success had been in the centre, the attack had completely failed to burst the French line at the seams. Thus the French had been able to concentrate on blocking the direct menace to Fort Souville via Fleury. By the afternoon of the 23rd, Ritter von Epp had to report that the Leib Regiment could make no further progress. It had already lost fourteen of its officers, and 550 men.