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The Battle of Verdun
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The Battle of Verdun

The Battle of Verdun

Germany's plan at Verdun wasn't to capture ground — it was to drain France of 700,000 soldiers.

Chapter 1

Bleed France White

1:27

In December 1915, German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn sent Kaiser Wilhelm II a strategic memorandum that has no real precedent in the history of warfare. He did not propose capturing Paris. He did not propose breaking the Allied line. He proposed killing Frenchmen at an industrial rate until France ran out of them.

Falkenhayn chose Verdun deliberately. The fortress city sat on a salient jutting into German lines, meaning German artillery could strike it from three sides. More importantly, Verdun was sacred to France — it had held in 1792, in 1870. French commanders, Falkenhayn reasoned, could not politically afford to let it fall. They would throw every available division into its defense, and German guns would destroy those divisions on arrival.

His memorandum used the phrase 'bleed France white.' The plan called for an attack designed not to achieve a breakthrough but to force France into a killing ground of Germany's choosing.

Falkenhayn allocated 1,200 artillery pieces for the opening assault — roughly one gun for every 13 meters of the attack front. The German operation was codenamed Gericht, meaning 'tribunal' or 'place of execution.' That name was not accidental. He scheduled the assault for February 12, 1916. Winter fog delayed it nine days. Those nine days gave France just enough time to reinforce.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the strategic logic behind Germany's attack at Verdun in 1916?

German Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn argued that France's national pride was so tied to Verdun that French commanders would feed unlimited troops into its defense. His plan was not to capture the fortress city but to inflict casualties at a ratio that would exhaust French manpower before Germany's own ran out. The strategy is often called 'attrition warfare' taken to its most deliberate extreme.

How did the Voie Sacrée keep France from collapsing at Verdun?

A single secondary road — the D1916 from Bar-le-Duc — was the only supply route not controlled by German artillery. General Philippe Pétain organized a relay of trucks running day and night, moving one vehicle every 14 seconds at peak operation and delivering roughly 6,000 tons of supplies per week. Without this road, the French garrison would have been cut off within days.

What were the final human costs of the Battle of Verdun?

Roughly 300,000 soldiers died at Verdun between February and December 1916, with total casualties — killed, wounded, and missing — estimated at around 700,000 across both sides. France alone rotated approximately 70 of its 95 divisions through the battle, meaning nearly every French infantry unit that served in the war passed through Verdun at some point.

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