|
Battle Of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north of Verdun. The German 5th Army (German Empire), 5th Army attacked the defences of the Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV, ) and those of the French Second Army (France), Second Army on the right (east) bank of the Meuse. Using the experience of the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, the Germans planned to capture the Meuse Heights, an excellent defensive position, with good observation for artillery-fire on Verdun. The Germans hoped that the French would commit their strategic reserve to recapture the position and suffer catastrophic losses at little cost to the German infantry. Poor weather delayed the beginning of the attack until 21 February but the Germans captured Fort Douaumont in the first three days. The advance then slowed for seve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main Theatre (warfare), theatres of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Imperial German Army, German Army opened the Western Front by German invasion of Belgium (1914), invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in Third Republic of France, France. The German advance was halted with the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trench warfare, trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this Front (military), front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, collaborationist regime of Vichy France, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II. Pétain was admitted to the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1876 and pursued a career in the military, achieving the rank of colonel by the outbreak of World War I. He led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he was called "the Lion of Verdun" (). After the failed Nivelle Offensive and 1917 French Army mutinies, subsequent mutinies, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in restoring control. Pétain remained in command for the rest of the war and emerged as a national hero. During the interwar period, he was head of the peacetime French Army, commanded joint Franco-Spanish operations du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salient (military)
A salient, also known as a bulge, is a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory. The salient is surrounded by the enemy on multiple sides, making the troops occupying the salient vulnerable. The opponent's front line that borders a salient is referred to as a re-entrant – that is, an angle pointing inwards. A deep salient is vulnerable to being "pinched off" through the base, and this will result in a pocket in which the forces in the salient become isolated and without a supply line. On the other hand, a breakout of the forces within the salient through its tip can threaten the rear areas of the opposing forces outside it, leaving them open to an attack from behind. Implementation Salients can be formed in a number of ways. An attacker can produce a salient in the defender's line by either intentionally making a pincer movement around the military flanks of a strongpoint, which becomes the tip of the salient, or by making a broad, frontal attack which is he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Souville
Fort Souville, briefly called Fort Lemoine, was one of the forts of the Verdun Fortification District, situated in the commune of Fleury-devant-Douaumont. Constructed between 1876 and 1879 at an altitude of 396m, it is a Séré de Rivières system, first generation fort. It served as a key battlefield in the 1916 Battle of Verdun during World War I. The fort was armed on its ramparts with 9 cannons and 5 mortars, with 8 pieces of artillery used as flanking fire. A Bussiere turret in attached battery was also present. Location The fort is part of the interior belt of forts, one of two belts securing Verdun. Fort Souville was part of the first sector (Northeast of the city), serving as the first sector commander's headquarters, connected to central command via telephone. Fort Souville is located south of Fort Douaumont and southwest of Fort Vaux. History The fort was one of the first forts of the Séré de Rivières system, being constructed of masonry and limestone rubble covere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fleury-devant-Douaumont
Fleury-devant-Douaumont (, literally ''Fleury before Douaumont'') is a commune in the Meuse department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. During the Battle of Verdun in 1916 it was captured and recaptured by the Germans and French 16 times, with all structures being completely destroyed. Since then, it has been declared to have "died for France", and thus remains unoccupied (official population: 0), as have the communes of Bezonvaux, Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Haumont-près-Samogneux, Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre and Cumières-le-Mort-Homme. History During the war, the town was completely destroyed and the land rendered so uninhabitable that officials decided not to rebuild it. As the land around the municipality was polluted with corpses, ammunition, explosives and poisonous gas, it was deemed too contaminated for farming to resume. The site is maintained as a testimony to war and is officially designated as a " village that died for France." It is managed by a municipal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Vaux
Fort Vaux (), in Vaux-Devant-Damloup, Meuse (department), Meuse, France, was a polygonal fort forming part of the ring of 19 large defensive works intended to protect the city of Verdun. Built from 1881 to 1884 for 1,500,000 francs, it housed a garrison of 150 men. Vaux was the second fort to fall in the Battle of Verdun after Fort Douaumont, which was captured by a small German raiding party in February 1916 in the confusion of the French retreat from the Woëvre plain. Vaux had been modernised before 1914 with reinforced concrete top protection like Fort Douaumont and was not destroyed by German heavy artillery fire, which had included shelling by howitzers. The superstructure of the fort was badly damaged but the garrison, the deep interior corridors and stations were intact when the fort was attacked on 2 June by German Stormtroopers (Imperial Germany), Stormtroops. The defence of Fort Vaux was marked by the heroism and endurance of the garrison, including Major Sylvain-Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defence In Depth
Defence in depth (also known as deep defence or elastic defence) is a military strategy that seeks to delay rather than prevent the advance of an attacker, buying time and causing additional casualties by yielding space. Rather than defeating an attacker with a single, strong defensive line, defence in depth relies on the tendency of an attack to lose momentum over time or as it covers a larger area. A defender can thus yield lightly defended territory in an effort to stress an attacker's logistics or spread out a numerically superior attacking force. Once an attacker has lost momentum or is forced to spread out to pacify a large area, defensive counter-attacks can be mounted on the attacker's weak points, with the goal being to cause attrition or drive the attacker back to its original starting position. Strategy A conventional defence strategy would concentrate all military resources at a front line, which, if breached by an attacker, would leave the remaining defenders in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Douaumont
Fort Douaumont (, ) was the largest and highest Fortification, fort on the ring of 19 large defensive works which had protected the city of Verdun, France, since the 1890s. By 1915, the French General Staff had concluded that even the best-protected forts of Verdun could not withstand bombardments from the German 42 cm Gamma Mörser, 420 mm (16.5 in) Gamma guns. These new super-heavy howitzers had easily taken several large Belgian forts out of action in August 1914. Fort Douaumont and other Verdun forts were judged ineffective and had been partly disarmed and left virtually undefended since 1915. On 25 February 1916, Fort Douaumont was entered and occupied without a fight by a small German raiding party comprising only 19 officers and 79 men, entering via an open window by the moat. The easy fall of Fort Douaumont, only three days after the beginning of the Battle of Verdun, shocked the French Army in World War I, French Army. It set the stage for the rest of a battle which l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Battle Of Champagne
The Second Battle of Champagne (, utumn Battle in the First World War was a French offensive against the German army at Champagne that coincided with the Third Battle of Artois in the north and ended with a French defeat. Battle On 25 September 1915, twenty divisions of the Second Army and Fourth Army of (GAC, Central Army Group ''Général'' Édouard de Castelnau), attacked at with each division on a front. A second echelon of seven divisions followed, with one infantry division and six cavalry divisions in reserve. Six German divisions held the line opposite, in the front position and the (, Reserve Position) further back. French artillery observers benefited from good weather but on the night of 24/25 September, heavy rain began and fell until noon. The German front position was overrun in four places and two of the penetrations reached as far as the , where uncut barbed wire prevented the French from advancing further. In one part of the line, the French artille ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meuse
The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper Meuse roughly marked the western border of the Holy Roman Empire with the France in the Middle Ages, Kingdom of France, after Count Henry III, Count of Bar, Henry III of Bar had to receive the western part of the County of Bar (''Barrois mouvant'') as a French fief from the hands of King Philip IV of France, Philip IV. In 1408, a Burgundian army led by John the Fearless went to the aid of John III, Duke of Bavaria, John III against the citizens of Liège, who were in open revolt. After the Battle of Othée, battle, which saw the men from Liège defeated, John ordered the drowning in the Meuse of burghers and noblemen in Liège whose loyalties he suspected. The border remained relatively stable until the annexation of the Three Bishoprics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Army (France)
The Second Army () was a field army of the French Army during World War I and World War II. The Army became famous for fighting the Battle of Verdun in 1916 under Generals Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the Collaboration with Nazi Ger ... and Robert Nivelle. Commanders World War I * General de Curières de Castelnau (Mobilization – 21 June 1915) * General Pétain (21 June 1915 – 1 May 1916) * General Nivelle (1 May 1916 – 15 December 1916) * General Guillaumat (15 December 1916 – 11 December 1917) * General Auguste Edouard Hirschauer (11 December 1917 – 22 December 1918) * General Antoine Baucheron de Boissoudy (22 December 1918 – 11 February 1919) World War II * General Charles Huntziger (2 September 1939 – 5 June 1940) * General Henry Freydenberg ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
5th Army (German Empire)
The 5th Army () was a field army of the Imperial German Army during World War I. It was formed on mobilization in August 1914 seemingly from the VII Army Inspection. The army was disbanded in 1919 during demobilization after the war. History In August 1914 the command of 5th Army was assigned to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, heir to the Hohenzollern throne, with General Schmidt von Knobelsdorf serving as his chief of staff, and would remain thus until late 1916. The opening hostilities on the Western Front saw the Crown Prince's 5th Army, along with the neighboring 4th Army (commanded by Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg), acting at the center of the Schlieffen plan attack into Belgium and France. On 21 August 1914, in what became known as the Battle of the Ardennes, the 4th and 5th Armies advanced into the Ardennes to counter a thrust by the French 3rd and 4th Armies. Over the next two days 5th Army played a major part in halting the opposing French forces. By 23 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
