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凡尔登战役
第一次世界大战西方战线的一部分
战役态势图
日期 1916年2月21日-12月18日 (9个月3周又6天) 地点 法国凡尔登防区 49°12′29″N 5°25′19″E 结果 法国胜利
参战方
德国	法国
指挥官与领导者
埃里希·冯·法金汉 威廉皇储 冯·克诺贝尔斯多夫 埃瓦尔德·洛克豪 马克斯·加尔维茨 格奥尔格·德马维兹	约瑟夫·霞飞 爱德华·卡施泰尔诺 菲利普·贝当 罗贝尔·讷韦尔 阿道夫·吉约马 夏尔·芒然
兵力
50个师	75个师 (轮换制)
伤亡与损失
336,000–355,000人 143,000人死亡	379,000–400,000人 163,000人死亡 216,000人受伤
凡尔登 凡尔登，位于法国东北部大东部大区默兹省

凡尔登战役（法语：Bataille de Verdun；德语：Schlacht um Verdun）是一场第一次世界大战西方战线于法国东北部凡尔登防区爆发的战斗，由法国第二集团军与德国第五集团军交战，此役是一战中持续最久的战役，也是军事史迄今伤亡人数最多的战役之一。

1916年2月21日，德军发动“审判行动”（德语：Unternehmen Gericht），执行德军总参谋长埃里希·冯·法金汉策划的消耗战战略。目标是占领凡尔登防区（Région Fortifiée de Verdun）中易守难攻的默兹高地，欲使法军派出部队重夺该地，在己方损失不高的情况下使法军“流血至死”。2月底，德军已攻占杜奥蒙要塞，兵临默兹高地下方，但未能在法军大部队抵达前攻占高地。3月，德军重新集结部队转攻默兹河西岸，法军炮兵部队则不断打击德军进攻部队。之后，法军试图重夺杜奥蒙要塞，德军也欲扩大战果，但除了占领沃要塞外无显著战果。7月1日，北方的英法部队在索姆河流域发动进攻，开辟了第二战场。7月12日，德军总参谋长法金汉在最后一次大型进攻失利后，下令第五集团军转入守势，其本人在8月29日被解职。10月下旬，法军发动战略反攻，夺回杜奥蒙要塞、沃要塞与东岸的大片土地，象征法军赢得了凡尔登战役。

背景

战略形势

1914年9月，德军西线右翼主力部队在第一次马恩河战役被法军阻击，双方接着展开一系列的运动战，从法国东北部延续到英吉利海峡，并在伊珀尔战役后陷入僵持的堑壕战。之后，协约国对德军阵地发动多次进攻，但未能打破战略僵持。德军总参谋长埃里希·冯·法金汉在此背景中认为，德军虽很难取得决定性胜利，但只要损害法军的有生力量，德国仍能赢得战争。法金汉预计如果德军进攻凡尔登，法军将投入所有预备队前去救援，同时英军也会在法国北部发动辅助攻势，此时德军就能透过德军炮兵对敌的显著优势，在两个战线都消耗敌军力量。

Hints about Falkenhayn's thinking were picked up by Dutch military intelligence and passed on to the British in December. The German strategy was to create a favourable operational situation without a mass attack, which had been costly and ineffective when tried by the Franco-British, Falkenhayn intended to rely on the power of heavy artillery to inflict mass casualties. A limited offensive at Verdun would lead to the destruction of the French strategic reserve in fruitless counter-attacks and the defeat of British reserves during a hopeless relief offensive, leading to the French accepting a separate peace. If the French refused to negotiate, the second phase of the strategy would follow, in which the German armies would attack terminally weakened Franco-British armies, mop up the remains of the French armies and expel the British from Europe. To fulfil this strategy, Falkenhayn needed to hold back enough of the strategic reserve to defeat the Anglo-French relief offensives and then conduct a counter-offensive, which limited the number of divisions which could be sent to the 5th Army at Verdun for Unternehmen Gericht (Operation Judgement).

The Fortified Region of Verdun (RFV) lay in a salient formed during the German invasion of 1914. General Joseph Joffre, the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, had concluded from the swift capture of the Belgian fortresses at the Battle of Liège and at the Siege of Namur in 1914 that fortifications had been made obsolete by German super-heavy siege artillery. In a directive of the General Staff of 5 August 1915, the RFV was to be stripped of 54 artillery batteries and 128,000 rounds of ammunition. Plans to demolish forts Douaumont and Vaux to deny them to the Germans were made and 11,000磅（5,000千克） of explosives had been placed in Douaumont by the time of the German offensive on 21 February. The 18 large forts and other batteries around Verdun were left with fewer than 300 guns and a small reserve of ammunition, while their garrisons had been reduced to small maintenance crews. The railway line from the south into Verdun had been cut during the Battle of Flirey in 1914, with the loss of Saint-Mihiel; the line west from Verdun to Paris was cut at Aubréville in mid-July 1915 by the German 3rd Army, which had attacked southwards through the Argonne Forest since the new year.

凡尔登防区

凡尔登战场地图

For centuries, Verdun, on the Meuse river, had played an important role in the defence of the French hinterland. Attila the Hun failed to seize the town in the fifth century and when the empire of Charlemagne was divided under the Treaty of Verdun (843), the town became part of the Holy Roman Empire; the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 awarded Verdun to France. At the heart of the city was a citadel built by Vauban in the 17th century. A double ring of 28 forts and smaller works (ouvrages) had been built around Verdun on commanding ground, at least 490英尺（150米） above the river valley, 1.6—5.0 mi（2.5—8 km） from the citadel. A programme had been devised by Séré de Rivières in the 1870s to build two lines of fortresses from Belfort to Épinal and from Verdun to Toul as defensive screens and to enclose towns intended to be the bases for counter-attacks. Many of the Verdun forts had been modernised and made more resistant to artillery, with a reconstruction programme begun at Douaumont in the 1880s. A sand cushion and thick, steel-reinforced concrete tops up to 8英尺2英寸（2.5米） thick, buried under 3英尺3英寸—13英尺1英寸（1—4米） of earth, were added. The forts and ouvrages were sited to overlook each other for mutual support and the outer ring had a circumference of 28 mi（45 km）. The outer forts had 79 guns in shellproof turrets and more than 200 light guns and machine-guns to protect the ditches around the forts. Six forts had 155 mm guns in retractable turrets and fourteen had retractable twin 75 mm turrets.

装载在列车上的SK L/45 38厘米舰炮（绰号长马克斯）

In 1903, Douaumont was equipped with a new concrete bunker (Casemate de Bourges), containing two 75 mm field guns to cover the south-western approach and the defensive works along the ridge to Ouvrage de Froideterre. More guns were added from 1903 to 1913 in four retractable steel turrets. The guns could rotate for all-round defence and two smaller versions, at the north-eastern and north-western corners of the fort, housed twin Hotchkiss machine-guns. On the east side of the fort, an armoured turret with a 155 mm short-barrelled gun faced north and north-east and another housed twin 75 mm guns at the north end, to cover the intervals between the neighbouring forts. The fort at Douaumont formed part of a complex of the village, fort, six ouvrages, five shelters, six concrete batteries, an underground infantry shelter, two ammunition depots and several concrete infantry trenches. The Verdun forts had a network of concrete infantry shelters, armoured observation posts, batteries, concrete trenches, command posts and underground shelters between the forts. The artillery comprised 约 1,000 guns, with 250 in reserve; the forts and ouvrages were linked by telephone and telegraph, a narrow-gauge railway system and a road network; on mobilisation, the RFV had a garrison of 66,000 men and rations for six months.

前奏

德军准备

凡尔登市与郊区的地图

Verdun had been isolated on three sides since 1914 and the mainline Paris–St Menehould–Les Islettes–Clermont-en-Argonne–Aubréville–Verdun railway in the Forest of Argonne was closed in mid-July 1915, by the right flank divisions of the 5th Army (Generalmajor Crown Prince Wilhelm) when it reached the La Morte Fille–Hill 285 ridge, after continuous local attacks, rendering the railway unusable. Only a light railway remained to the French to carry bulk supplies; German-controlled mainline railways lay only 15 mi（24 km） to the north of the front line. A corps was moved to the 5th Army to provide labour for the preparation of the offensive. Areas were emptied of French civilians and buildings requisitioned. Thousands of kilometres of telephone cable were laid, a huge amount of ammunition and rations was dumped under cover and hundreds of guns were emplaced and camouflaged. Ten new rail lines with twenty stations were built and vast underground shelters (Stollen) 15—46英尺（4.5—14米） deep were dug, each to accommodate up to 1,200 infantry.

The III Corps, VII Reserve Corps and XVIII Corps were transferred to the 5th Army, each corps being reinforced by 2,400 experienced troops and 2,000 trained recruits. V Corps was placed behind the front line, ready to advance if necessary when the assault divisions were moving up. XV Corps, with two divisions, was in 5th Army reserve, ready to advance and mop up as soon as the French defence collapsed. Special arrangements were made to maintain a high rate of artillery-fire during the offensive; 33+1⁄2 munitions trains per day were to deliver ammunition sufficient for 2,000,000 rounds to be fired in the first six days and another 2,000,000 shells in the next twelve. Five repair shops were built close to the front to reduce delays for maintenance and factories in Germany were made ready, rapidly to refurbish artillery needing more extensive repairs. A redeployment plan for the artillery was devised, to move field guns and mobile heavy artillery forward, under the covering fire of mortars and the super-heavy artillery. A total of 1,201 guns were massed on the Verdun front, two thirds of which were heavy- and super-heavy artillery, which was obtained by stripping modern German artillery from the rest of the Western Front and substituting for it older types and captured Russian and Belgian guns. The German artillery could fire into the Verdun salient from three directions yet remain dispersed around the edges.

德军计划

德国第五集团军预计分为数组作战区域，第8预备军将占领“甲区”、第18军将占领“乙区”、第3军将占领“丙区”、第15军将占领“丁区”。德军炮兵预计于2月12日上午开始轰击，而“甲区”至“丙区”的德军部队则在当天下午5点开始推进。

Wherever possible, the French advanced trenches were to be occupied and the second position reconnoitred for the artillery to bombard on the second day. Great emphasis was placed on limiting German infantry casualties by sending them to follow up destructive bombardments by the artillery, which was to carry the burden of the offensive in a series of large "attacks with limited objectives", to maintain a relentless pressure on the French. The initial objectives were the Meuse Heights, on a line from Froide Terre to Fort Souville and Fort Tavannes, which would provide a secure defensive position from which to repel French counter-attacks. "Relentless pressure" was a term added by the 5th Army staff and created ambiguity about the purpose of the offensive. Falkenhayn wanted land to be captured from which artillery could dominate the battlefield and the 5th Army wanted a quick capture of Verdun. The confusion caused by the ambiguity was left to the corps headquarters to sort out.

Control of the artillery was centralised by an Order for the Activities of the Artillery and Mortars, which stipulated that the corps Generals of Foot Artillery were responsible for local target selection, while co-ordination of flanking fire by neighbouring corps and the fire of certain batteries, was reserved to the 5th Army headquarters. French fortifications were to be engaged by the heaviest howitzers and enfilade fire. The heavy artillery was to maintain long-range bombardment of French supply routes and assembly areas; counter-battery fire was reserved for specialist batteries firing gas shells. Co-operation between the artillery and infantry was stressed, with accuracy of the artillery being given priority over rate of fire. The opening bombardment was to build up slowly and Trommelfeuer (a rate of fire so rapid that the sound of shell-explosions merged into a rumble) would not begin until the last hour. As the infantry advanced, the artillery would increase the range of the bombardment to destroy the French second position. Artillery observers were to advance with the infantry and communicate with the guns by field telephones, flares and coloured balloons. When the offensive began, the French were to be bombarded continuously, with harassing fire being maintained at night.

法军准备

1916年2月至3月的默兹河东岸

In 1915, 237 guns and 647 long ton（657 t） of ammunition in the forts of the RFV had been removed, leaving only the heavy guns in retractable turrets. The conversion of the RFV to a conventional linear defence, with trenches and barbed wire began but proceeded slowly, after resources were sent west from Verdun for the Second Battle of Champagne (25 September to 6 November 1915). In October 1915, building began on trench lines known as the first, second and third positions and in January 1916, an inspection by General Noël de Castelnau, Chief of Staff at French General Headquarters (GQG), reported that the new defences were satisfactory, except for small deficiencies in three areas. The fortress garrisons had been reduced to small maintenance crews and some of the forts had been readied for demolition. The maintenance garrisons were responsible to the central military bureaucracy in Paris and when the XXX Corps commander, Major-General Paul Chrétien, attempted to inspect Fort Douaumont in January 1916, he was refused entry.

Douaumont was the largest fort in the RFV and by February 1916, the only artillery left in the fort were the 75 mm and 155 mm turret guns and light guns covering the ditch. The fort was used as a barracks by 68 technicians under the command of Warrant Officer Chenot, the Gardien de Batterie. One of the rotating 6.1英寸（155 mm） turrets was partially manned and the other was left empty. The Hotchkiss machine-guns were stored in boxes and four 75 mm guns in the casemates had already been removed. The drawbridge had been jammed in the down position by a German shell and had not been repaired. The coffres (wall bunkers) with Hotchkiss revolver-cannons protecting the moats, were unmanned and over 5,000千克（11,000磅；4.9 long ton） of explosives had been placed in the fort to demolish it. Colonel Émile Driant was stationed at Verdun and criticised Joffre for removing the artillery guns and infantry from fortresses around Verdun. Joffre did not listen but Colonel Driant received the support of the Minister for War Joseph Gallieni. The formidable Verdun defences were a shell and were now threatened by a German offensive; Driant was to be proved correct by events.

1916年的默兹河西岸

In late January 1916, French intelligence obtained an accurate assessment of German military capacity and intentions at Verdun but Joffre considered that an attack would be a diversion, because of the lack of an obvious strategic objective. By the time of the German offensive, Joffre expected a bigger attack elsewhere but finally yielded to political pressure and ordered the VII Corps to Verdun on 23 January, to hold the north face of the west bank. XXX Corps held the salient east of the Meuse to the north and north-east and II Corps held the eastern face of the Meuse Heights; Herr had 8+1⁄2 divisions in the front line, with 2+1⁄2 divisions in close reserve. Groupe d'armées du centre (GAC, General De Langle de Cary) had the I and XX corps with two divisions each in reserve, plus most of the 19th Division; Joffre had 25 divisions in the French strategic reserve. French artillery reinforcements had brought the total at Verdun to 388 field guns and 244 heavy guns, against 1,201 German guns, two thirds of which were heavy and super heavy, including 14英寸（360 mm） and 202 mortars, some being 16英寸（410 mm）. Eight specialist flame-thrower companies were also sent to the 5th Army.

洛林省内的瓦夫尔地区（以绿色标示）

Castelnau met De Langle de Cary on 25 February, who doubted the east bank could be held. Castelnau disagreed and ordered General Frédéric-Georges Herr the corps commander, to hold the right (east) bank of the Meuse at all costs. Herr sent a division from the west bank and ordered XXX Corps to hold a line from Bras to Douaumont, Vaux and Eix. Pétain took over command of the defence of the RFV at 11:00 p.m., with Colonel Maurice de Barescut as chief of staff and Colonel Bernard Serrigny as head of operations, only to hear that Fort Douaumont had fallen. Pétain ordered the remaining Verdun forts to be re-garrisoned. Four groups were established, under the command of Generals Adolphe Guillaumat, Balfourier and Denis Duchêne on the right bank and Georges de Bazelaire on the left bank. A "line of resistance" was established on the east bank from Souville to Thiaumont, around Fort Douaumont to Fort Vaux, Moulainville and along the ridge of the Woëvre. On the west bank, the line ran from Cumières to Mort Homme, Côte 304 and Avocourt. A "line of panic" was planned in secret as a final line of defence north of Verdun, through forts Belleville, St. Michel and Moulainville. I Corps and XX Corps arrived from 24 to 26 February, increasing the number of divisions in the RFV to 14+1⁄2. By 6 March, the arrival of the XIII, XXI, XIV and XXXIII corps had increased the total to 20+1⁄2 divisions.

战斗

第一阶段：2月21日-3月1日

主条目：杜奥蒙要塞

2月21日–26日

战役前的杜奥蒙要塞，由德军航空兵摄

Unternehmen Gericht (Operation Judgement) was due to begin on 12 February but fog, heavy rain and high winds delayed the offensive until 7:15 a.m. on 21 February, when a 10-hour artillery bombardment by 808 guns began. The German artillery fired 约 1,000,000 shells along a front about 19 mi（30 km） long by 3.1 mi（5 km） wide. The main concentration of fire was on the right (east) bank of the Meuse river. Twenty-six super-heavy, long-range guns, up to 17英寸（420 mm）, fired on the forts and the city of Verdun; a rumble could be heard 99 mi（160 km） away.

The bombardment was paused at midday, as a ruse to prompt French survivors to reveal themselves, and German artillery-observation aircraft were able to fly over the battlefield unmolested by French aircraft. The III Corps, VII Corps and XVIII Corps attacked at 4:00 p.m.; the Germans used flamethrowers and stormtroopers followed closely with rifles slung, using hand grenades to kill the remaining defenders. This tactic had been developed by Captain Willy Rohr and Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr), the battalion which conducted the attack. French survivors engaged the attackers, yet the Germans suffered only 约 600 casualties.

战斗后的杜奥蒙要塞

By 22 February German troops had advanced 3.1 mi（5 km） and captured Bois des Caures at the edge of the village of Flabas. Two French battalions had held the bois (wood) for two days but were forced back to Samogneux, Beaumont-en-Auge and Ornes. Driant was killed, fighting with the 56th and 59th Bataillons de chasseurs à pied and only 118 of the Chasseurs managed to escape. Poor communications meant that only then did the French High Command realise the seriousness of the attack. The Germans managed to take the village of Haumont but French forces repulsed a German attack on the village of Bois de l'Herbebois. On 23 February, a French counter-attack at Bois des Caures was defeated.

Fighting for Bois de l'Herbebois continued until the Germans outflanked the French defenders from Bois de Wavrille. The German attackers suffered many casualties during their attack on Bois de Fosses and the French held on to Samogneux. German attacks continued on 24 February and the French XXX Corps was forced out of the second line of defence; XX Corps (General Maurice Balfourier) arrived at the last minute and was rushed forward. That evening Castelnau advised Joffre that the Second Army, under General Pétain, should be sent to the RFV. The Germans had captured Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Bois des Fosses and Bois des Caurières and were moving up ravin Hassoule, which led to Fort Douaumont.

At 3:00 p.m. on 25 February, infantry of Brandenburg Regiment 24 advanced with the II and III battalions side-by-side, each formed into two waves composed of two companies each. A delay in the arrival of orders to the regiments on the flanks, led to the III Battalion advancing without support on that flank. The Germans rushed French positions in the woods and on Côte 347, with the support of machine-gun fire from the edge of Bois Hermitage. The German infantry took many prisoners as the French on Côte 347 were outflanked and withdrew to Douaumont village. The German infantry had reached their objectives in under twenty minutes and pursued the French, until fired on by a machine-gun in Douaumont church. Some German troops took cover in woods and a ravine which led to the fort, when German artillery began to bombard the area, the gunners having refused to believe claims sent by field telephone that the German infantry were within a few hundred metres of the fort. Several German parties were forced to advance to find cover from the German shelling and two parties independently made for the fort. The Germans did not know that the French garrison was made up of only a small maintenance crew led by a warrant officer, since most of the Verdun forts had been partly disarmed, after the demolition of Belgian forts in 1914, by the German super-heavy Krupp 420 mm mortars.

1916年2月21日－26日的凡尔登，该地位于默兹河东岸

The German party of 约 100 soldiers tried to signal to the artillery with flares but twilight and falling snow obscured them from view. Some of the party began to cut through the wire around the fort, while French machine-gun fire from Douaumont village ceased. The French had seen the German flares and took the Germans on the fort to be Zouaves retreating from Côte 378. The Germans were able to reach the north-east end of the fort before the French resumed firing. The German party found a way through the railings on top of the ditch and climbed down without being fired on, since the machine-gun bunkers (coffres de contrescarpe) at each corner of the ditch had been left unmanned. The German parties continued and found a way inside the fort through one of the unoccupied ditch bunkers and then reached the central Rue de Rempart.

After quietly moving inside, the Germans heard voices and persuaded a French prisoner, captured in an observation post, to lead them to the lower floor, where they found Warrant Officer Chenot and about 25 French troops, most of the skeleton garrison of the fort, and took them prisoner. On 26 February, the Germans had advanced 1.9 mi（3 km） on a 6.2 mi（10 km） front; French losses were 24,000 men and German losses were 约 25,000 men. A French counter-attack on Fort Douaumont failed and Pétain ordered that no more attempts were to be made; existing lines were to be consolidated and other forts were to be occupied, rearmed and supplied to withstand a siege if surrounded.

2月27日–29日

由于融雪导致的地面泥泞，德军的进攻在2月27日几乎没有进展。法国援军的抵达也增强了法军阵地的防御。一些德军火炮变得无法使用，另一些则被困在泥泞中。德军步兵开始受困于劳累和无预料的高伤亡，约有500名德军士兵在杜奥蒙村附近的战斗阵亡。 2月29日，由于大雪和法国第33步兵团的防御，德军的进攻在杜奥蒙被阻遏。 德军的延误使法军即时从巴勒迪克运送9万名士兵和2.1万公吨的弹药至凡尔登。由于泥泞的阻碍，德军炮兵仅能缓慢推进，而德军步兵推进的距离已经超出己方火炮的有效射程。向南推进的德军暴露在默兹河西岸的法军炮兵的射程内，并受到比先前的战斗还更惨重的打击。

第二阶段：3月6日-4月15日

3月6日–11日

勒莫罗姆与304号山

法金汉在攻势发起前预估西岸的法军炮兵将会被德军炮火压制，但最终未能成真。其中德军设立了一支特别炮兵部队以反击西岸法军的炮兵，但未能减少德军步兵的伤亡。第五集团军在2月下旬向法金汉要求更多援兵，但出于德军在东岸顺利的进攻，以及保留有生力量以发起另一波攻势的考量，法金汉拒绝了他们的提议。德军在2月27日的受阻使法金汉必须思考将叫停攻势或继续进攻。2月29日，第五集团军参谋长冯·克诺贝尔斯多夫从预备队中挑选了两个师，以占领西岸的高地。由第10预备军支援的第6预备军计划攻占阿沃库尔以南、304号山以北、勒莫罗姆、屈米耶尔森林和205号山一线，如果成功控制该线，法军在西岸的炮兵即可被德军摧毁。

The artillery of the two-corps assault group on the west bank was reinforced by 25 heavy artillery batteries, artillery command was centralised under one officer and arrangements were made for the artillery on the east bank to fire in support. The attack was planned by General Heinrich von Gossler in two parts, on Mort-Homme and Côte 265 on 6 March, followed by attacks on Avocourt and Côte 304 on 9 March. The German bombardment reduced the top of Côte 304 from a height of 997英尺（304米） to 980英尺（300米）; Mort-Homme sheltered batteries of French field guns, which hindered German progress towards Verdun on the right bank; the hills also provided commanding views of the left bank. After storming the Bois des Corbeaux and then losing it to a French counter-attack, the Germans launched another assault on Mort-Homme on 9 March, from the direction of Béthincourt to the north-west. Bois des Corbeaux was captured again at great cost in casualties, before the Germans took parts of Mort-Homme, Côte 304, Cumières and Chattancourt on 14 March.

3月11日-4月9日

1916年5月31日德军在凡尔登的部署

After a week, the German attack had reached the first-day objectives, to find that French guns behind Côte de Marre and Bois Bourrus were still operational and inflicting many casualties among the Germans on the east bank. German artillery moved to Côte 265, was subjected to systematic artillery fire by the French, which left the Germans needing to implement the second part of the west bank offensive, to protect the gains of the first phase. German attacks changed from large operations on broad fronts, to narrow-front attacks with limited objectives.

On 14 March a German attack captured Côte 265 at the west end of Mort-Homme but the French 75th Infantry Brigade managed to hold Côte 295 at the east end. On 20 March, after a bombardment by 13,000 trench mortar rounds, the 11th Bavarian and 11th Reserve divisions attacked Bois d'Avocourt and Bois de Malancourt and reached their initial objectives easily. Gossler ordered a pause in the attack, to consolidate the captured ground and to prepare another big bombardment for the next day. On 22 March, two divisions attacked "Termite Hill" near Côte 304 but were met by a mass of artillery fire, which also fell on assembly points and the German lines of communication, ending the German advance.

The limited German success had been costly and French artillery inflicted more casualties as the German infantry tried to dig in. By 30 March, Gossler had captured Bois de Malancourt at a cost of 20,000 casualties and the Germans were still short of Côte 304. On 30 March, the XXII Reserve Corps arrived as reinforcements and General Max von Gallwitz took command of a new Attack Group West (Angriffsgruppe West). Malancourt village was captured on 31 March, Haucourt fell on 5 April and Béthincourt on 8 April. On the east bank, German attacks near Vaux reached Bois Caillette and the Vaux–Fleury railway but were then driven back by the French 5th Division. An attack was made on a wider front along both banks by the Germans at noon on 9 April, with five divisions on the left bank but this was repulsed except at Mort-Homme, where the French 42nd Division was forced back from the north-east face. On the right bank an attack on Côte-du-Poivre failed.

德军步兵对勒莫罗姆的进攻

In March the German attacks had no advantage of surprise and faced a determined and well-supplied adversary in superior defensive positions. German artillery could still devastate French defensive positions but could not prevent French artillery fire from inflicting many casualties on German infantry and isolating them from their supplies. Massed artillery fire could enable German infantry to make small advances but massed French artillery fire could do the same for French infantry when they counter-attacked, which often repulsed the German infantry and subjected them to constant losses, even when captured ground was held. The German effort on the west bank also showed that capturing a vital point was not sufficient, because it would be found to be overlooked by another terrain feature, which had to be captured to ensure the defence of the original point, which made it impossible for the Germans to terminate their attacks, unless they were willing to retire to the original front line of February 1916.

By the end of March the offensive had cost the Germans 81,607 casualties and Falkenhayn began to think of ending the offensive, lest it become another costly and indecisive engagement similar to the First Battle of Ypres in late 1914. The 5th Army staff requested more reinforcements from Falkenhayn on 31 March with an optimistic report claiming that the French were close to exhaustion and incapable of a big offensive. The 5th Army command wanted to continue the east bank offensive until a line from Ouvrage de Thiaumont, to Fleury, Fort Souville and Fort de Tavannes had been reached, while on the west bank the French would be destroyed by their own counter-attacks. On 4 April, Falkenhayn replied that the French had retained a considerable reserve and that German resources were limited and not sufficient to replace continuously men and munitions. If the resumed offensive on the east bank failed to reach the Meuse Heights, Falkenhayn was willing to accept that the offensive had failed and end it.

第三阶段：4月16日-7月1日

4月

《凡尔登，世界的血泵》
1916年的德军宣传奖章

The failure of German attacks in early April by Angriffsgruppe Ost, led Knobelsdorf to take soundings from the 5th Army corps commanders, who unanimously wanted to continue. The German infantry were exposed to continuous artillery fire from the flanks and rear; communications from the rear and reserve positions were equally vulnerable, which caused a constant drain of casualties. Defensive positions were difficult to build, because existing positions were on ground which had been swept clear by German bombardments early in the offensive, leaving German infantry with very little cover. General Berthold von Deimling, commander of XV Corps, also wrote that French heavy artillery and gas bombardments were undermining the morale of the German infantry, which made it necessary to keep going to reach safer defensive positions. Knobelsdorf reported these findings to Falkenhayn on 20 April, adding that if the Germans did not go forward, they must go back to the start line of 21 February.

Knobelsdorf rejected the policy of limited piecemeal attacks tried by Mudra as commander of Angriffsgruppe Ost and advocated a return to wide-front attacks with unlimited objectives, swiftly to reach the line from Ouvrage de Thiaumont to Fleury, Fort Souville and Fort de Tavannes. Falkenhayn was persuaded to agree to the change and by the end of April, 21 divisions, most of the OHL reserve, had been sent to Verdun and troops had also been transferred from the Eastern Front. The resort to large, unlimited attacks was costly for both sides but the German advance proceeded only slowly. Rather than causing devastating French casualties by heavy artillery with the infantry in secure defensive positions, which the French were compelled to attack, the Germans inflicted casualties by attacks which provoked French counter-attacks and assumed that the process inflicted five French casualties for two German losses.

In mid-March, Falkenhayn had reminded the 5th Army to use tactics intended to conserve infantry, after the corps commanders had been allowed discretion to choose between the cautious, "step by step" tactics desired by Falkenhayn and maximum efforts, intended to obtain quick results. On the third day of the offensive, the 6th Division of the III Corps (General Ewald von Lochow), had ordered that Herbebois be taken regardless of loss and the 5th Division had attacked Wavrille to the accompaniment of its band. Falkenhayn urged the 5th Army to use Stoßtruppen (storm units) composed of two infantry squads and one of engineers, armed with automatic weapons, hand grenades, trench mortars and flame-throwers, to advance in front of the main infantry body. The Stoßtruppen would conceal their advance by shrewd use of terrain and capture any blockhouses which remained after the artillery preparation. Strongpoints which could not be taken were to be by-passed and captured by follow-up troops. Falkenhayn ordered that the command of field and heavy artillery units was to be combined, with a commander at each corps headquarters. Common observers and communication systems would ensure that batteries in different places could bring targets under converging fire, which would be allotted systematically to support divisions.

法军步兵从战壕中出击

In mid-April, Falkenhayn ordered that infantry should advance close to the barrage, to exploit the neutralising effect of the shellfire on surviving defenders, because fresh troops at Verdun had not been trained in these methods. Knobelsdorf persisted with attempts to maintain momentum, which was incompatible with casualty conservation by limited attacks, with pauses to consolidate and prepare. Mudra and other commanders who disagreed were sacked. Falkenhayn also intervened to change German defensive tactics, advocating a dispersed defence with the second line to be held as a main line of resistance and jumping-off point for counter-attacks. Machine-guns were to be set up with overlapping fields of fire and infantry given specific areas to defend. When French infantry attacked, they were to be isolated by Sperrfeuer (barrage-fire) on their former front line, to increase French infantry casualties. The changes desired by Falkenhayn had little effect, because the main cause of German casualties was artillery fire, just as it was for the French.

5月4日–22日

自5月10日起，德军的攻势开始仅限于局部进攻，要么回应法军在4月上中旬的各处反击，或是夺取有战术价值的目标。贝当将军在5月被升职为中央集团军群司令（GAC），罗贝尔·讷韦尔将军则接管驻扎在凡尔登的第二集团军。5月4日至24日，德军在西岸莫尔翁附近发动进攻。于4日夺下304号山的北坡，于5日和6日击退法军的反击。位于304号山山顶的法军守军于5月7日被迫撤退，但由于法军炮兵大量的轰炸，德军步兵也无法夺下山脊线。当法军开始对杜奥蒙要塞发起反攻之时，屈米耶尔和考雷特于5月24日沦陷。

5月22日–24日

1916年5月的勒莫罗姆前线

In May, General Nivelle, who had taken over the Second Army, ordered General Charles Mangin, commander of the 5th Division to plan a counter-attack on Fort Douaumont. The initial plan was for an attack on a 1.9 mi（3 km） front but several minor German attacks captured the Fausse-Côte and Couleuvre ravines on the south-east and west sides of the fort. A further attack took the ridge south of the ravin de Couleuvre, which gave the Germans better routes for counter-attacks and observation over the French lines to the south and south-west. Mangin proposed a preliminary attack to retake the area of the ravines, to obstruct the routes by which a German counter-attack on the fort could be made. More divisions were necessary but these were refused to preserve the troops needed for the forthcoming offensive on the Somme; Mangin was limited to one division for the attack with one in reserve. Nivelle reduced the attack to an assault on Morchée Trench, Bonnet-d'Evèque, Fontaine Trench, Fort Douaumont, a machine-gun turret and Hongrois Trench, which would require an advance of 1,600英尺（500米） on a 3,770英尺（1,150米） front.

1916年在凡尔登战役中的法军防空炮，由奥托克罗姆技术拍摄的彩色影像

III Corps was to command the attack by the 5th Division and the 71st Brigade, with support from three balloon companies for artillery observation and a fighter group. The main effort was to be conducted by two battalions of the 129th Infantry Regiment, each with a pioneer company and a machine-gun company attached. The 2nd Battalion was to attack from the south and the 1st Battalion was to move along the west side of the fort to the north end, taking Fontaine Trench and linking with the 6th Company. Two battalions of the 74th Infantry Regiment were to advance along the east and south-east sides of the fort and take a machine-gun turret on a ridge to the east. Flank support was arranged with neighbouring regiments and diversions were planned near Fort Vaux and the ravin de Dame. Preparations for the attack included the digging of 7.5 mi（12 km） of trenches and the building of large numbers of depots and stores but little progress was made due to a shortage of pioneers. French troops captured on 13 May, disclosed the plan to the Germans, who responded by subjecting the area to more artillery harassing fire, which also slowed French preparations.

The French preliminary bombardment by four 370 mm mortars and 300 heavy guns, began on 17 May and by 21 May, the French artillery commander claimed that the fort had been severely damaged. During the bombardment the German garrison in the fort experienced great strain, as French heavy shells smashed holes in the walls and concrete dust, exhaust fumes from an electricity generator and gas from disinterred corpses polluted the air. Water ran short but until 20 May, the fort remained operational, reports being passed back and reinforcements moving forward until the afternoon, when the Bourges Casemate was isolated and the wireless station in the north-western machine-gun turret burnt down.

Conditions for the German infantry in the vicinity were far worse and by 18 May, the French destructive bombardment had obliterated many defensive positions, the survivors sheltering in shell-holes and dips of the ground. Communication with the rear was severed and food and water ran out by the time of the French attack on 22 May. The troops of Infantry Regiment 52 in front of Fort Douaumont had been reduced to 37 men near Thiaumont Farm and German counter-barrages inflicted similar losses on French troops. On 22 May, French Nieuport fighters attacked eight observation balloons and shot down six for the loss of one Nieuport 16; other French aircraft attacked the 5th Army headquarters at Stenay. German artillery fire increased and twenty minutes before zero hour, a German bombardment began, which reduced the 129th Infantry Regiment companies to about 45 men each.

法军火炮连被德军部队占领（可能为第34步兵师）

The assault began at 11:50 a. m. on 22 May on a 0.62 mi（1 km） front. On the left flank the 36th Infantry Regiment attack quickly captured Morchée Trench and Bonnet-d'Evèque but suffered many casualties and the regiment could advance no further. The flank guard on the right was pinned down, except for one company which disappeared and in Bois Caillette, a battalion of the 74th Infantry Regiment was unable to leave its trenches; the other battalion managed to reach its objectives at an ammunition depot, shelter DV1 at the edge of Bois Caillette and the machine-gun turret east of the fort, where the battalion found its flanks unsupported.

Despite German small-arms fire, the 129th Infantry Regiment reached the fort in a few minutes and managed to get in through the west and south sides. By nightfall, about half of the fort had been recaptured and next day, the 34th Division was sent to reinforce the French troops in the fort. The attempt to reinforce the fort failed and German reserves managed to cut off the French troops inside and force them to surrender, 1,000 French prisoners being taken. After three days, the French had suffered 5,640 casualties from the 12,000 men in the attack and the Germans suffered 4,500 casualties in Infantry Regiment 52, Grenadier Regiment 12 and Leib-Grenadier Regiment 8 of the 5th Division.

5月30日-6月7日

主条目：攻占沃要塞

拉绍姆要塞视角东北方的凡尔登战场，1917年

1916年5月下旬，德军的进攻从西岸的莫罗姆和304号山转移至东岸杜奥蒙要塞的南方。德军进攻至法军的最后一道防线弗勒里山脊，这次进攻的目的是夺取法国防线东北部的蒂奥蒙要塞、弗勒里、苏维耶要塞和沃要塞，这些地区自攻势开始后每天被约8,000颗炮弹轰炸。10,000名德军士兵在6月1日发起进攻，于6月2日占领了沃要塞的顶端。战斗持续进行直到守军将储备的水耗尽，574名幸存者于6月7日投降，德军则有多达2,742人伤亡或失踪。 当沃要塞沦陷的消息传到凡尔登时，市民和守军紧急在城市边界挖掘战壕和防线。在西岸，德军从304号山、莫罗姆和屈米耶尔一线向法军控制的阿沃库尔和沙唐库尔进军。大雨拖慢了德军对苏维耶要塞的进攻，该处将在接下来的两个月不断被双方交替控制。

6月22日–25日

德国第五集团军从2月至6月占领的凡尔登地区

6月22日，德军炮兵向法军炮兵阵地发射超过11.6万发双光气化学武器，导致超过1,600人伤亡和大量火炮的暂时停火。 隔天清晨5点，德军向五公里长的防线发动攻击，并建立一个3乘2公里的突出部。攻势进行得十分顺利，直到上午9点时一些法军部队才得以进行后卫行动。在南方的蒂奥蒙要塞和富瓦德特尔要塞被德军占领，弗勒里和沙佩勒圣凡村被控制。攻势发生于自4月以来遭到3.8万颗炮弹袭击的苏维耶要塞附近，德军此时距离凡尔登要塞仅剩下5公里。

1916年6月23日，讷韦尔下令

Vous ne les laisserez pas passer, mes camarades（他们绝不能通过，我的战友们。）

沙佩勒圣凡迅速重归法军的控制，德军的进攻被迫停止。德军步兵的供水补给陷入危机，突出部在三面受到打击下变得脆弱，德军在缺乏双光气补给的情况下无法继续进攻，沙佩勒圣凡成为德军在凡尔登战役中到达的最远处。6月24日英法联军开始对索姆河岸进行轰炸。 弗勒里自6月23日至8月17日被法德双方交替控制了十六次，同时四个法国师从索姆河调至凡尔登。6月24日，法军火炮恢复到足以切断德军前线与后方的联系。到了6月25日双方陷入胶着，克诺贝尔斯多夫下令停止进攻。

第四阶段：7月1日-12月17日

主条目：布鲁西洛夫攻势和索姆河战役

5月结束时在凡尔登的法军伤亡已达到18.5万人，德军伤亡则在6月达到20万人。 法国和英国联军在索姆河战役初期的突破以及布鲁西洛夫攻势对奥匈军队的打击，使德军将部分火炮从凡尔登转移，法国获得了战略性的成功。

7月9日–15日

法军步兵在炮火下进攻

苏维耶要塞控制了弗勒里东南方1公里的山峰，是2月攻势的原先计划目标之一。占领该要塞将使德军德以俯视凡尔登。 德军于7月9日开始进行预备炮击，试图利用超过6万发毒气炮弹压制法军的炮火，但由于法军装备改良的M2防毒面具效果微乎其微。 苏维耶要塞和其周围被超过30万枚炮弹轰炸，包含直接打击要塞的500枚360毫米炮弹。

7月11日，德军三个师发起进攻，但德军步兵挤在前往苏维耶要塞的道路上并遭到法军炮兵的炮击，幸存的部队则被占据要塞上层的60名法军士兵射击。来自第140步兵团的30名士兵成功在7月12日抵达要塞顶，德军士兵已经可以看到凡尔登市建筑的屋顶和大教堂的尖塔。在由克莱贝尔·迪皮中尉领导的反击后，入侵的德军部队皆投降或撤退。 7月11日，法金汉下令威廉皇储将部队转入守势。7月15日，法军发动一次大型反击但未能夺回领土。在此月的下半月，法军仅发动一些小型攻势。

8月1日-9月17日

8月一日，德军对苏维耶要塞发动900米的突击，使法国发动长达两周的反击，夺回一些被占据的领土。 8月18日，弗勒里被法军收复。到了9月，法军已经夺回于7月和8月损失的领土。 8月29日，保罗·冯·兴登堡和第一军需将军埃里希·鲁登道夫取代法金汉成为总参谋长。 9月3日，法军对弗勒里两翼的进攻使法军防线推进数百米，德军9月4日和5日的反击以失败告终。法军在9月9日、13日和15日至17日持续进攻，除了在9月4日于塔瓦讷隧道因火灾导致474名法军士兵死亡以外，整体伤亡十分轻微。

10月20日–11月2日

第一次凡尔登攻势，1916年10月24日–9月2日

1916年10月20日，法国发动第一次凡尔登攻势（1ère Bataille Offensive de Verdun）以夺回杜奥蒙要塞，成功推进超过2公里。22个位于凡尔登的师有7个在10月中旬被替换，法军步兵排重组为包含步枪手、掷弹兵和机枪手的混合部队。在为期六天的初步炮击中，700门法军野战炮与榴弹炮发射855,264枚炮弹，包含超过50万枚75毫米野战炮弹、10万枚155枚中型炮弹和373枚370毫米与400毫米超级重炮弹。

位于西南方13公里的贝莱考的两门法国圣沙蒙列车炮发射400毫米超重型炮弹，每枚重达0.91公吨。 法军已经识别位于东岸的800门火炮所在，这些火炮足以支持德军第34、第54、第9和第33预备步兵师，以及作为预备队的第10与第5师。 至少有20枚法军超重型炮弹击中德军控制的杜奥蒙要塞，其中六枚穿过屋顶并在仓库中爆炸，引发火灾并摧毁7,000枚手榴弹。

法军步兵重夺杜奥蒙

芒然将军指挥的法国第38、第133和第74师于10月24日上午11点40分发动攻击。 法军步兵在火炮弹幕和雾气的掩护下冲出战壕，并利用讷韦尔将军研发的徐进弹幕推进。 法军在第38师指挥官阿瑟·德·萨兰的率领下占领杜奥蒙要塞，并推进至沃要塞附近。法军在一系列的行动中损失轻微，成功俘虏超过6,000名敌军和15门重炮。 10月25日对沃要塞的进攻失败了，但法军得以转移他们的火炮至沃要塞附近，这将对下周的军事行动产生积极影响。

欧迪奥蒙采石场、蒂奥蒙要塞、蒂奥蒙农场、杜奥蒙村、凯莱特森林、沃池塘、布瓦菲米东侧和当卢炮台等一系列地区被收复。 法军重炮于11月2日开始轰炸沃要塞，德军在一次由220毫米炮弹引起的爆炸后撤出了要塞。法军偶然窃听到德军宣布撤离的无线电电报，一个法军步兵连在不开一枪的情况下成功进入要塞。11月5日，法军推进至原先2月24日的战线，并停止进攻行动直到12月中旬。

12月15日–17日

第二次凡尔登攻势，1916年12月15–16日

第二次凡尔登攻势（2ième Bataille Offensive de Verdun）由贝当和讷韦尔制定，并由芒然执行。第126师、第38师、第37师和第133师在4个预备师和740门重炮的帮助下发动攻击。 在6天内从827门火炮发射117万枚炮弹后，法军于12月15日上午10点发起攻击。法军最后的轰炸经过侦察机的引导落入战壕、掩体和观察哨。5个德军师在533门火炮的支援下占据防守位置，其中有3分之2的兵力部署在战区，剩余部分则作为预备队。

其中2个德军师人力不足，仅有约3,000名步兵，而非平常建立的7,000名步兵。法军依靠着双重的火炮弹幕掩护进攻，一波炮击发射榴霰弹在距离法军前线64米之处，另一波则发射爆裂弹在距离法军前线140米之处，直接打击德军的第二条防线，切断德军的撤退路径和阻止增援。德军的防线陷入崩溃，5个德军师中的13,500人死亡或被俘，大部分被困在掩体下并被法军步兵俘虏。

法军在糟糕的天气下收复了于2月失去的瓦什罗维尔和卢沃蒙，以及奥道蒙和卢沃蒙-科特迪普瓦夫尔。德军预备队直到傍晚才抵达前线，2个奉命在傍晚前抵达的反击师（Eingreif）到了晚上时仍在23公里外。到了12月16日的夜晚，法军在德军预备队和反击师得以进行反击前，建立了一条位于于杜奥蒙要塞以北约2至3公里，从伯宗沃到科特迪普瓦夫尔的新战线。杜奥蒙要塞中的155毫米重炮被修复以支援法军的进攻。 距离凡尔登最近的德军阵地已被驱至7.5公里外，所有的主要观察点皆被夺回。法军在第二次攻势中俘虏11,387人和115门火炮。 一些德军军官向芒然抱怨囚室的舒适度，他向他们回复：“绅士们，我们对此感到抱歉，没想到会有这么多人。” 第五集团军司令洛克豪和第十四预备兵团司令约翰·冯·茨维尔于12月16日被解职。

后果

分析

法金汉在他的回忆录写道，他在1915年12月向德皇表达对战略局势的看好

法国的弦已经达到临界点。大规模突破（无论如何都超出我们的能力）是不必要的。我们在能力所及之内仍可保留部分力量，法国总参谋部则将被迫投入他们所有的人力。如果他们这么做，法国将会流血至死。

——法金汉

The German strategy in 1916 was to inflict mass casualties on the French, a goal achieved against the Russians from 1914 to 1915, to weaken the French Army to the point of collapse. The French had to be drawn into circumstances from which the Army could not escape, for reasons of strategy and prestige. The Germans planned to use a large number of heavy and super-heavy guns to inflict a greater number of casualties than French artillery, which relied mostly upon the 75 mm field gun. In 2007, Robert Foley wrote that Falkenhayn intended a battle of attrition from the beginning, contrary to the views of Wolfgang Foerster in 1937, Gerd Krumeich in 1996 and others but the loss of documents led to many interpretations of the strategy. In 1916, critics of Falkenhayn claimed that the battle demonstrated that he was indecisive and unfit for command, echoed by Foerster in 1937. In 1994, Holger Afflerbach questioned the authenticity of the "Christmas Memorandum"; after studying the evidence that had survived in the Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres (Army Military History Research Institute) files, he concluded that the memorandum had been written after the war but that it was an accurate reflection of Falkenhayn's thinking at the end of 1915.

法军的补给马匹在前往凡尔登的途中在河边休息

Krumeich wrote that the Christmas Memorandum was fabricated to justify a failed strategy and that attrition had been substituted for the capture of Verdun only after the attack failed. Foley wrote that after the failure of the Ypres Offensive of 1914, Falkenhayn had returned to the pre-war strategic thinking of Moltke the Elder and Hans Delbrück on Ermattungsstrategie (attrition strategy), because the coalition fighting Germany was too powerful to be defeated decisively. Falkenhayn wanted to divide the Allies by forcing at least one of the Entente powers into a negotiated peace. An attempt at attrition lay behind the offensive in the east in 1915 but the Russians had refused to accept German peace feelers, despite the huge defeats inflicted on them by the Austro-Germans.

With insufficient forces to break through the Western Front and to overcome the reserves behind it, Falkenhayn tried to force the French to attack instead, by threatening a sensitive point close to the front line and chose Verdun. Huge losses were to be inflicted on the French by German artillery on the dominating heights around the city. The 5th Army would begin a big offensive but with the objectives limited to seizing the Meuse Heights on the east bank, on which the German heavy artillery would dominate the battlefield. The French Army would "bleed itself white" in hopeless attempts to recapture the heights. The British would be forced to launch a hasty relief offensive and suffer an equally costly defeat. If the French refused to negotiate, a German offensive would mop up the remnants of the Franco-British armies, breaking the Entente "once and for all".

In a revised instruction to the French Army in January 1916, the General Staff (GQG) wrote that equipment could not be fought by men. Firepower could conserve infantry but attrition prolonged the war and consumed troops that had been preserved in earlier battles. In 1915 and early 1916, German industry quintupled the output of heavy artillery and doubled the production of super-heavy artillery. French production had also recovered since 1914 and by February 1916 the army had 3,500 heavy guns. In May Joffre began to issue each division with two groups of 155 mm guns and each corps with four groups of long-range guns. Both sides at Verdun had the means to fire huge numbers of heavy shells to suppress the opposing defences before risking infantry in the open. At the end of May, the Germans had 1,730 heavy guns at Verdun and the French 548, sufficient to contain the Germans but not enough for a counter-offensive.

“凡尔登的保卫者”让·纳瓦拉的纽波特11战斗机

French infantry survived bombardment better because their positions were dispersed and tended to be on dominating ground, not always visible to the Germans. As soon as a German attack began, the French replied with machine-gun and rapid field-artillery fire. On 22 April, the Germans suffered 1,000 casualties and in mid-April, the French fired 26,000 field artillery shells against an attack to the south-east of Fort Douaumont. A few days after taking over at Verdun, Pétain ordered the air commander, Commandant Charles Tricornot de Rose to sweep away German fighter aircraft and to provide artillery observation. German air superiority was reversed by concentrating the French fighters in escadrilles rather than distributing them piecemeal across the front, unable to concentrate against large German formations. The fighter escadrilles drove away the German Fokker Eindeckers and the two-seater reconnaissance and artillery-observation aircraft that they protected.

The fighting at Verdun was less costly to both sides than the war of movement in 1914, when the French suffered 约 850,000 casualties and the Germans 约 670,000 from August to the end of 1914. The 5th Army had a lower rate of loss than armies on the Eastern Front in 1915 and the French had a lower average rate of loss at Verdun than the rate over three weeks during the Second Battle of Champagne (September–October 1915), which were not deliberately fought as battles of attrition. German loss rates increased relative to losses from 1:2.2 in early 1915 to close to 1:1 by the end of the battle, a trend which continued during the Nivelle Offensive in 1917. The penalty of attrition tactics was indecision, because limited-objective attacks under an umbrella of massed heavy artillery fire could succeed but led to battles of unlimited duration. Pétain used a noria‎ (rotation) system quickly to relieve French troops at Verdun, which involved most of the French Army in the battle but for shorter periods than the German troops in the 5th Army. The symbolic importance of Verdun proved a rallying point and the French did not collapse. Falkenhayn was forced to conduct the offensive for much longer and commit far more infantry than intended. By the end of April, most of the German strategic reserve was at Verdun, suffering similar casualties to the French army.

The Germans believed that they were inflicting losses at a rate of 5:2; German military intelligence thought that by 11 March the French had suffered 100,000 casualties and Falkenhayn was confident that German artillery could easily inflict another 100,000 losses. In May, Falkenhayn estimated that French casualties had increased to 525,000 men against 250,000 German and that the French strategic reserve was down to 300,000 men. Actual French losses were 约 130,000 by 1 May; 42 French divisions had been withdrawn and rested by the noria‎ system, once infantry casualties reached 50 percent. Of the 330 infantry battalions of the French metropolitan army, 259 (78 per cent) went to Verdun, against 48 German divisions, 25 percent of the Westheer (western army). Afflerbach wrote that 85 French divisions fought at Verdun and that from February to August, the ratio of German to French losses was 1:1.1, not the third of French losses assumed by Falkenhayn. By 31 August, the 5th Army had suffered 281,000 casualties and the French 315,000.

位于凡尔登的304号山的法军战壕

In June 1916, the French had 2,708 guns at Verdun, including 1,138 field guns; from February to December, the French and German armies fired 约10,000,000 shells, weighing 1,350,000 long ton（1,370,000 t）. By May, the German offensive had been defeated by French reinforcements, difficulties of terrain and the weather. The 5th Army infantry was stuck in tactically dangerous positions, overlooked by the French on both banks of the Meuse, instead of dug in on the Meuse Heights. French casualties were inflicted by constant infantry attacks which were far more costly in men than destroying counter-attacks with artillery. The stalemate was broken by the Brusilov Offensive and the Anglo-French relief offensive on the Somme, which Falkehayn had expected to begin the collapse of the Anglo-French armies. Falkenhayn had begun to remove divisions from the Western Front in June for the strategic reserve but only twelve divisions could be spared. Four divisions were sent to the Somme, where three defensive positions had been built, based on the experience of the Herbstschlacht. Before the battle on the Somme began, Falkenhayn thought that German preparations were better than ever and the British offensive would easily be defeated. The 6th Army, further north, had 17+1⁄2 divisions and plenty of heavy artillery, ready to attack once the British had been defeated.

The strength of the Anglo-French attack on the Somme surprised Falkenhayn and his staff, despite the British casualties on 1 July. Artillery losses to "overwhelming" Anglo-French counter-battery fire and the German tactic of instant counter-attacks, led to far more German infantry casualties than at the height of the fighting at Verdun, where the 5th Army suffered 25,989 casualties in the first ten days, against 40,187 2nd Army casualties on the Somme. The Russians attacked again, causing more casualties in June and July. Falkenhayn was called on to justify his strategy to the Kaiser on 8 July and again advocated the minimal reinforcement of the east in favour of the "decisive" battle in France; the Somme offensive was the "last throw of the dice" for the Entente. Falkenhayn had already given up the plan for a counter-offensive by the 6th Army and sent 18 divisions to the 2nd Army and to the Russian front from the reserve and from the 6th Army; only one division remaining uncommitted by the end of August. The 5th Army had been ordered to limit its attacks at Verdun in June but a final effort was made in July to capture Fort Souville. The attack failed and on 12 July Falkenhayn ordered a strict defensive policy, permitting only small local attacks to limit the number of troops the French could transfer to the Somme.

Falkenhayn had underestimated the French, for whom victory at all costs was the only way to justify the sacrifices already made; the French army never came close to collapsing and causing a premature British relief offensive. The ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses had also been overestimated, in part because the 5th Army commanders had tried to capture Verdun and attacked regardless of loss. Even when reconciled to the attrition strategy, they continued with Vernichtungsstrategie (strategy of annihilation) and the tactics of Bewegungskrieg (manoeuvre warfare). Failure to reach the Meuse Heights left the 5th Army in poor tactical positions and reduced to inflicting casualties by infantry attacks and counter-attacks. The length of the offensive made Verdun a matter of prestige for the Germans as it was for the French and Falkenhayn became dependent on a British relief offensive being destroyed to end the stalemate. When it came, the collapse in Russia and the power of the Anglo-French attack on the Somme reduced the German armies to holding their positions as best they could. On 29 August, Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who ended the German offensive at Verdun on 2 September.

伤亡

1919年发现的士兵遗骸

In 2013, Paul Jankowski wrote that since the beginning of the war, French army units had produced numerical loss states (états numériques des pertes) every five days for the Bureau of Personnel at GQG. The Health Service (Service de Santé) at the Ministry of War received daily counts of wounded taken in by hospitals and other services but casualty data was dispersed among regimental depots, GQG, the Registry Office (État Civil), which recorded deaths, the Service de Santé, which counted injuries and illnesses and Renseignements aux Familles (Family Liaison), which communicated with next of kin. Regimental depots were ordered to keep fiches de position (position sheets) to record losses continuously and the Première Bureau of GQG began to compare the five-day états numériques des pertes with the records of hospital admissions. The new system was used to calculate losses back to August 1914, which took several months; the system had become established by February 1916. The états numériques des pertes were used to calculate casualty figures published in the Journal Officiel, the French Official History and other publications.

The German armies compiled Verlustlisten (loss lists) every ten days, which were published by the Reichsarchiv in the deutsches Jahrbuch of 1924–1925. German medical units kept detailed records of medical treatment at the front and in hospital and in 1923 the Zentral Nachweiseamt (Central Information Office) published an amended edition of the lists produced during the war, incorporating medical service data not in the Verlustlisten. Monthly figures of wounded and ill servicemen that received medical treatment were published in 1934 in the Sanitätsbericht (Medical Report). Using such sources for comparison is difficult because the information recorded losses over time, rather than place. Losses calculated for a battle could be inconsistent, as in the Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War 1914–1920 (1922). In the early 1920s, Louis Marin reported to the Chamber of Deputies but could not give figures per battle, except for some by using numerical reports from the armies, which were unreliable unless reconciled with the system established in 1916.

Some French data excluded those lightly wounded but some did not. In April 1917, GQG required that the états numériques des pertes discriminate between lightly wounded, treated locally for 20 to 30 days and severely wounded evacuated to hospitals. Uncertainty over the criteria had not been resolved before the war ended. Verlustlisten excluded lightly wounded and the Zentral Nachweiseamt records included them. Churchill revised German statistics by adding 2 per cent for unrecorded wounded in The World Crisis, written in the 1920s and James Edmonds, the British official historian, added 30 per cent. For the Battle of Verdun, the Sanitätsbericht contained incomplete data for the Verdun area, did not define "wounded" and the 5th Army field reports exclude them. The Marin Report and Service de Santé covered different periods but included lightly wounded. Churchill used a Reichsarchiv figure of 428,000 casualties and took a figure of 532,500 casualties from the Marin Report, for March to June and November to December 1916, for all the Western Front.

The états numériques des pertes give French casualties as 348,000 to 378,000 and in 1930, Hermann Wendt recorded French Second Army and German 5th Army casualties of 362,000 and 336,831 respectively from 21 February to 20 December, not taking account of the inclusion or exclusion of lightly wounded. In 2006, McRandle and Quirk used the Sanitätsbericht to increase the Verlustlisten by 约 11 per cent, which gave 373,882 casualties, compared to the French Official History record to 20 December 1916, of 373,231 French casualties. The Sanitätsbericht, which explicitly excluded lightly wounded, compared German losses at Verdun in 1916, averaging 37.7 casualties per thousand men, with the 9th Army in Poland 1914 which had a casualty average of 48.1 per 1,000, the 11th Army in Galicia 1915 averaging 52.4 per 1,000 men, the 1st Army on the Somme 1916 average of 54.7 per 1,000 and the 2nd Army average for the Somme 1916 of 39.1 per 1,000 men. Jankowski estimated an equivalent figure for the French Second Army of 40.9 men per 1,000 including lightly wounded. With a 约 11 per cent adjustment to the German figure of 37.7 per 1,000 to include lightly wounded, following the views of McRandle and Quirk; the loss rate is similar to the estimate for French casualties.

1927年的杜奥蒙墓地

In the second edition of The World Crisis (1938), Churchill wrote that the figure of 442,000 was for other ranks and the figure of "probably" 460,000 casualties included officers. Churchill gave a figure of 278,000 German casualties, 72,000 fatal and expressed dismay that French casualties had exceeded German by about 3:2. Churchill wrote that an eighth needed to be deducted from his figures to account for casualties on other sectors, giving 403,000 French and 244,000 German casualties. In 1980, John Terraine calculated 约 750,000 French and German casualties in 299 days; Dupuy and Dupuy (1993) 542,000 French casualties. In 2000, Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann calculated 377,231 French and 337,000 German casualties, a monthly average of 70,000. In 2000, Holger Afflerbach used calculations made by Hermann Wendt in 1931 to give German casualties at Verdun from 21 February to 31 August 1916 as 336,000 German and 365,000 French at Verdun from February to December 1916. David Mason wrote in 2000 that there had been 378,000 French and 337,000 German casualties. In 2003, Anthony Clayton quoted 330,000 German casualties, of whom 143,000 were killed or missing; the French suffered 351,000 casualties, 56,000 killed, 100,000 missing or prisoners and 195,000 wounded.

Writing in 2005, Robert A. Doughty gave French casualties (21 February to 20 December 1916) as 377,231 and casualties of 579,798 at Verdun and the Somme; 16 per cent of the casualties at Verdun were fatal, 56 per cent were wounded and 28 per cent missing, many of whom were eventually presumed dead. Doughty wrote that other historians had followed Winston Churchill (1927) who gave a figure of 442,000 casualties by mistakenly including all French losses on the Western Front. R. G. Grant gave a figure of 355,000 German and 400,000 French casualties in 2005. In 2005, Robert Foley used the Wendt calculations of 1931 to give German casualties at Verdun from 21 February to 31 August 1916 of 281,000, against 315,000 French. (In 2014, William Philpott recorded 377,000 French casualties, of whom 162,000 had been killed; German casualties were 337,000 and noted a recent estimate of casualties at Verdun from 1914 to 1918 of 1,250,000).

纪念

凡尔登战役纪念奖章

凡尔登已经成为法国最为人所知的第一次世界大战代表性事件。安托万·普罗斯写到“如奥斯威辛一般，凡尔登象征着对人类处境极限的侵犯”。 从1918年至1939年，法国发起两次大规模的纪念，第一次是在战场上建造的纪念碑与引用由罗贝尔·讷韦尔所述的“他们绝不能通过”的爱国主义观点，第二次则是以幸存者的角度回想他人的死亡、受难与牺牲。1920年，凡尔登城堡举行一项仪式，选定一位烈士的遗体将其埋葬于凯旋门下的无名战士墓。

弗勒里德旺杜奥蒙附近战场的凡尔登纪念碑，开放于1967年，献给阵亡士兵与平民

Six destroyed villages in the area were not rebuilt but were given special status as uninhabited communes of Beaumont-en-Verdunois, Bezonvaux, Cumières-le-Mort-Homme, Fleury-devant-Douaumont, Haumont-près-Samogneux and Louvemont-Côte-du-Poivre. Alain Denizot included period photographs that show overlapping shell craters in an area of about 39 sq mi（100 km²）. Forests planted in the 1930s have grown and hide most of the Zone rouge (Red Zone) but the battlefield remains a vast graveyard, containing the mortal remains of over 100,000 missing soldiers, except for those discovered by the French Forestry Service and laid in the Douaumont ossuary.

In the 1960s, Verdun became a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation, through remembrance of common suffering and in the 1980s it became a capital of peace. Organisations were formed and old museums were dedicated to the ideals of peace and human rights. On 22 September 1984, the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (whose father had fought near Verdun) and French President François Mitterrand (who had been taken prisoner nearby in the Second World War), stood at the Douaumont cemetery, holding hands for several minutes in driving rain as a gesture of Franco-German reconciliation.

画廊

• 
  凡尔登战役的纪念品，上有一名法军士兵
• 
  2005年拍摄的凡尔登战场的一部分，显示火炮轰炸的痕迹
• 
  《凡尔登战役的场景》，由费利克斯·瓦洛东绘制于1917年

参考文献

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百科全书

• Dupuy, E. R.; Dupuy, T. N. The Harper's Encyclopaedia of Military History: From 3,500 BC to the Present 4th. New York: Harper Reference. 1993 [6 October 2019]. ISBN 978-0-06-270056-8.  含有内容需登入查看的页面 (link)

期刊

• Barcellini, S. Memoire et Memoires de Verdun 1916–1996 [Memory and Memoirs of Verdun 1916–1996]. Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (Paris: Presses universitaires de France). 1996, 46 (182): 77–98. ISSN 0984-2292. JSTOR 25732329. 
• Förster, W. Falkenhayns Plan für 1916 ein Beitrag zur Frage: Wie gelangt man aus dem Stellungskrieg zu Entscheidungsuchender Operation? [Falkenhayn's plan for 1916: A Contribution to the Question: How to get out of Trench Warfare and Attain a Decisive Decision?]. Militärwissenschaftliche Rundschau 2nd part 3 (Berlin: Mittler). 1937. ISSN 0935-3623 （德语）. 
• Krumeich, G. "Saigner la France"? Mythes et Realite de la Strategie Allemande de la Bataille de Verdun ["Bleed France"? Myths and Reality of the German Strategy of the Battle of Verdun]. Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (Paris: Presses universitaires de France). 1996, 46 (182): 17–29. ISSN 0984-2292. JSTOR 25732324 （法语）. 

延伸阅读

书籍

• Afflerbach, H. On a Knife Edge: How Germany Lost the First World War [Auf Messers Schneide: Wie das Deutsche Reich den Ersten Weltkrieg verlor]. 由Buckley, Anne; Summers, Caroline翻译 Hbk. Cambridge University Press. München: C. H. Beck. 2022 [2018]. ISBN 978-1-108-83288-5. 
• Bourachot, A. Marshal Joffre: The Triumphs, Failures and Controversies of France's Commander-in-Chief in the Great War. 由Uffindell, A.翻译 Hbk. Pen & Sword Military, Barnsley. Paris: Bernard Giovanangeli Éditeur. 2014 [2010]. ISBN 978-1-78346-165-3. 
• Brown, M. Verdun 1916. Stroud: Tempus. 1999. ISBN 978-0-7524-1774-5. 
• Holstein, C. Walking Verdun. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. 2009. ISBN 978-1-84415-867-6. 
• Keegan, J. The First World War. London: Hutchinson. 1998. ISBN 978-0-09-180178-6. 
• MacKenzie, D. A. The Story of the Great War. Glasgow: Blackie & Son. 1920. OCLC 179279677. 
• McDannald, A. H. The Encyclopedia Americana 38. New York: J. B. Lyon. 1920. OCLC 506108219. 
• Martin, W. Verdun 1916. London: Osprey. 2001. ISBN 978-1-85532-993-5. 
• Mosier, J. The Myth of the Great War. London: Profile Books. 2001. ISBN 978-1-86197-276-7. 
• Romains, J. Prélude à Verdun and Verdun [Prelude to Verdun and Verdun] Prion Lost Treasures. Paris: Flammarion. 1999 [1938]. ISBN 978-1-85375-358-9 （法语）. 
• Rouquerol, J. J. Le Drame de Douaumont [The Drama of Verdun]. Paris: Payot. 1931. OCLC 248000026 （法语）. 
• Sandler, S. (编). Ground Warfare: an International Encyclopedia. International Warfare Encyclopedias from ABC Clio I. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. 2002. ISBN 978-1-57607-344-5. 
• Serrigny, B. Trente Ans avec Pétain [Thirty Years with Pétain]. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1959. OCLC 469408701 （法语）. 
• Zweig, A. Education Before Verdun [Erziehung vor Verdun]. 由Sutton, Eric翻译 2nd. trans. Viking Press, New York. Amsterdam: Querido Verlag. 1936 [1935]. OCLC 1016268225. 

期刊

• Bruce, Robert B. To the Last Limits of Their Strength The French Army and the Logistics of Attrition at the Battle of Verdun 21 February – 18 December 1916. Army History (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History). 1998, 45 (45): 9–21. ISSN 1546-5330. JSTOR 26304799. 

论文

• Sonnenberger, M. Initiative Within the Philosophy of Auftragstaktik: Determining Factors of the Understanding of Initiative in the German Army 1806–1955 (学位论文). Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College. 2013 [12 June 2014]. OCLC 875682161. 

外部链接

• NASA satellite map
• Map of the Verdun battlefield, showing fortifications
• Underground at Verdun
• The Battle of Verdun
• Info from firstworldwar.com
• Verdun (excerpt)
• Dutch/Flemish Forum
• Verdun, A Battle of the Great War
• Douaumont Bataille Ossuaire Three panoramas
• Map of Europe, 1916
• The Battle of Verdun – The Greatest Battle Ever
• Sturm-Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) at German Wikipedia
• Contemporary Schneider artillery catalogue
• Chlumberg, H. "The Miracle at Verdun"