On the western front the Germans early in the year launched a great offen sive against Verdun with the object of so crippling France that she would cease to count as a factor in the war. Verdun was girdled by forts and woods, the outer positions of which the French held more or less securely in face of the menace from two formidable natural barriers which had been won by the Ger mans—Forges Wood on the French left, and a strong post on a sort of island that overlooked the Woevre Plain on the French right. The first line defenses, some miles north of the town, were strong, but the second and third had been neglected. The line was held by less than two army corps of territorials, while there was a lack of railroads to replace those cut by the Germans. Under these disadvantages the French commanders set out to defend the fortress, and from that defense came the world-famous phase: "They shall not pass." The at tack began before dawn on February 21, 1916, on the French left. The outer positions in Haumont, Caures and La Ville woods crumbled, despite a brave de fense, and the surviving French retired. Other outposts — Consenvoye Wood, Herbebois, Wayrillo and Brabant—also fell to the assailants. On February 24 the German advance broke through the French resistance round Fosses Wood, Beaumont, Le Chaume Wood and Les Chamrettes. The French situation thus became serious by the loss of a group of outposts that jeopardized the retention of the inner positions, on to which the Germans advanced. The latter, however, were temporarily checked by French counterattacks after the fighting had continued without cessation for four days and nights. Louvemont fell, and then the Germans turned their attention to Douaumont fort and village, the next point in the line of attack on the outer rim of the old permanent fortifications. On February 27 the struggle there was marked by ruthless hand-to-hand fight ing and bayonet charges, which forced the Germans to retreat with heavy losses. A renewed attempt had the same result; then came a two day's respite. On March 2 the Germans returned to the attack with an avalanche of shells and advanced in almost solid formation. They succeeded, despite the French de fense, in entering Douaumont, only to be ousted the following night, but the next morning they recovered it by bringing heavy re-enforcements. To even the line reached by the possession of Douaumont, the Germans, on March 6, attacked the French positions on the left—Dead Man Hill, Cumieres and Bethincourt. These points were west of the Meuse, where the German operations were menaced by French artillery. Cumieres and Bethin court and the lesser of the two summits forming Dead Man Hill (numbered re spectively Hills 265 and 295) were cap tured, while the higher summit remained in French hands. Terrible fighting en sued to obtain complete possession of the double hill. The Germans enlarged their front to outflank the defenders and threw in a fresh division against the new point of attack—Avocourt Wood and Hill 304. They captured the wood, but suffered appalling losses in attempting to take the hill, forcing them to pause to reorganize their hard-hit forces. The next day the attack changed to Douau mont against the French line there and also against a neighboring position Vaux fort and village. The first attacks failed; the second (March 11) was equally fruitless, so skillfully had the French planned their defenses. After four days of the most sanguinary fight ing the Germans had not succeeded in reaching even the nearest entanglements round the hilly position of Vaux. On March 16 they made five attacks on Vaux without breaking down the sorely tried defenders; two days later they attacked six times, and still the French held their ground. It was not until March 31 that they succeeded in occupying the western end of Vaux village, the overlooking fort remaining in French hands. Meantime (March 20) the Germans returned to their outflanking operations to obtain Dead Man Hill on the northwest. The struggle for this hill and Hill 304 devel oped into one of the most notable battles in the defense of Verdun. The battles round Douaumont and Vaux were also remarkable for the tenacity of purpose of both sides. At the beginning of May, after two months' fighting, the Germans had not got beyond Douaumont and Vaux on the right, while the French line on the left remained fixed on part of Dead Man Hill and the adjacent eleva tion, Hill 304. The German determina tion, however, to take these positions was not weakened, and during May they put forth their utmost strength to break the French resistance at both ends. Re newed attacks forced the French to yield parts of both hills. On the Douaumont and Vaux line the Germans also resumed their attacks to complete their possession of Vaux, where the French occupied near-by slopes that commanded the vil lage, which was held by the Germans and consisted of a single street. The French on their part were bent on recovering Douaumont fort, which they penetrated on May 22. They held it for two days, back to the extreme edge of the hills. A number of points next in line toward Verdun from Douaumont and Vaux—Thiaumont, Fleury, Chapitre Wood and Fumin—were savagely at tacked on June 23. Fleury was a pivotal point for capturing the fortress of Sou ville, about three miles from Verdun. The struggle for Thiaumont continued for several days; the place changed hands frequently, and on July 4 was finally held by the Germans, who also gained a footing in Chapitre Wood. The French were now just holding the inside line of Verdun forts—Belleville, Souville and Tavannes—with their backs to the river and with German trenches ap proaching right up to the ditches of these forts. In other words, the French were about in their last ditch before Verdun. Then the great Allied offensive on the bitter fighting at close quarters mean time taking place within its walls before they were ousted by Bavarian re-enforce ments. With June came an eight-day battle for the Vaux slopes. The strain became too terrible for the French garri son to endure, and the brave remnant finally were surrounded and yielded the position. The Germans were now in con tact with the inner defenses of Verdun, and the war situation elsewhere de manded that the crushing blow to France be delivered without delay. They had pushed out from Douaumont and cap tured Vaux, had crowded up and over Dead Man Hill and up the slope of Hill 304, forcing the French Somme intervened, and the Germans gained nothing more in their final at tempt to reach the city. On July 12 they
were halted by the French on the Fleury and Souville road and four days later the struggle for Verdun ceased. The devel opment of Allied operations on the Somme compelled the Germans to make _ftat sector their principal preoccupation on the western front. A long strip of the outer defenses of Verdun, averaging three miles in breadth north and north east, fell to the attackers; some three miles to the south from the nearest points reached by the Germans lay the beleaguered city, shell torn but safe. In a five-months' combat 3,000 cannon and about two million men had defended or attacked the stronghold, and it was esti mated that the losses on both sides ex ceeded 200,000. The French, to whom the initiative had passed, by nibbling methods began to recover their lost positions and recaptured forts Donau mont and Vaux among other points.
The Somme offensive had been under taken to relieve the pressure on Ver dun, as well as to prevent the trans ference of large bodies of troops from the west to the eastern front, where Russian troops under General Brussilov had begun a sweeping drive against the Austro-German lines to the south. The front attacked extended twenty-five miles in Picardy, where the river Somme flows with many crooked turns, its main con figuration in the battle area being a horse-shoe loop which gave the river east and west banks as well as north and south. The line ran north and south. The British had the hardest task in the N. and failed to achieve their objectives at first; in the S. a substantial success was immediately accomplished by the French. In the initial attack on July 1, the Brit ish encountered a series of strongly for tified villages—Gommecourt, Serre, Beau mont-Hamel, and Thiepval—but the Ger man resistance was so destructive to their ranks that they struggled back to their own line. Lower down the British struck deep in the German positions. After five days' fighting they made fur ther substantial progress, though hard hit at several points. Five days later they had methodically completed the capture of the enemy's first line system of defenses on a front of 14,000 yards. The defenses consisted of numerous and continuous lines of trenches, extending to various depths of from 2,000 to 4,000 yards and included five strongly forti fied villages, many heavily wired and in trenched woods and strong redoubts. In the second phase of the battle, beginning July 14, the British cut their way through a four-mile line toward Longue val, Pozieres, Delville Wood and Ba zentin. By nightfall they succeeded in capturing the whole of the German second line from Bazentin-le-Petit to Longueval, a front of over three miles. A fierce struggle waged round Longue val and Delville Wood which continued without pause for thirteen days. Or villers, an obstacle to a general attack on Pozieres, was taken, but it was not until July 24 that the greater part of Pozieres was captured. Later the points to the N., including the obstinate forti fied village of Thiepval, which the Brit ish had failed to overcome were stormed and occupied.
The French under General Foch ad vanced in the same methodical order as the British. They achieved their suc cesses at less cost, due to less resistance by the enemy. In their attacks N. and S. of the Somme loop they won all their objectives and something more. On a front of ten miles they penetrated in less than two weeks a maximum depth of six and a half miles, or fifty square miles, of enemy territory, containing similar military works encountered by the British.
The Somme offensive duly lost its in itial momentum, yet continued through out the rest of the year as part of the regular fighting operations on the west ern front. A number of additional im portant points were captured after hard fighting. British successes N. of the Ancre finally resulted in the retirement of the Germans from that stream in the Somme sector.
The Russian front that was relieved from German re-enforcements extended W. of Riga to Dvinsk, Pinsk, Dubno and Czernowitz. This line roughly represent ed the stage of the German advance on January 1, 1916. W. of it lay a vast region of Russian territory overrun by the Central Powers. Disregarding cli matic conditions, the Russians, at a heavy cost, made strong attempts to break through by local drives during the open ing months of the year; then restricted their activities to artillery duels and trench forays. They seemed to have wearied of vainly beating against an unyielding foe, but as the summer came their gun fire began to acquire an omi nous strength and violence on the Aus tro-German line from Pinsk S. to the Ru manian border, especially in the region of the three Volhynian fortresses of Rovno, Dubno, and Lutsk on a front of some seventeen miles. A great attack, hurled mainly against the Austro-Hun garian sectors, began on June 4, tim ing with the Austrian offensive on the Italian front. Austria discovered that she could not undertake two large opera tions at the same time—one an invasion of Italy, the other a defensive stand against a sweeping Russian advance on a 300-mile front. The result was she succeeded in neither. Germany like Aus tria, had withdrawn many troops from the eastern front to aid her Verdun adventure, and Austria had sent similar drafts to swell her forces attacking Talv. No matter how strong the natural defenses nor how skillful the artificial obstacles, the Russians swept on in over whelming numbers until their offensive threatened not only the pushing back of the Austrian lines but the very exist ence of the Austrian armies. The opera tions during June compelled Germany and Austria to recognize the magnitude of the Russian success. Lutsk, Dubno, and Rovno were retaken; an advance of forty miles in the N. threatened Kovel and Lemberg; twice as extensive an ad vance in the S. had reconquered Buko wina and east Galicia and had brought the Cossacks to the Carpathians. Ger many was doubly forced to renounce Verdun by having to direct large re-en forcements to Volhynia and Galicia to save Lemberg, as well as to the Somme to resist the French and British. This leaving a considerable dent in the battle line made by Russia.