Late in the afternoon General Petain arrived at Verdun. A few hours later came the 20th corps. The new conunander seized the situa tion promptly.' The new troops were ordered to the front and the next morning they delivered a counterattack which drove all the Germans from the crest around Douaumont, except a few Brandenburgers who managed to hold out in the ruins of the fort. The 25th of February had proved a Black Friday for the Germans. At a tremendous loss they had won a precarious hold on the crest of a ridge, and at an early hour next morning they lost it.
Now followed three days of hard and des perate lunges at first one and then another place in the French defense. A great many lives were sacrificed uselessly in an attempt to cut through in the centre, between Poivre and Douaumont Another effort was an attempt to make a great flanking movement by way of the Woevre Plain to the Heights south of the line of defense. but the two corps to which the task was assigned were crushed when they at tempted to climb from the plain to the Heights. When Castelnau arrived in Verdun on the 24th the officers there were ready to give up the place. He declared that it must be held. Petain took the same ground. It was then that the French soldiers, high and low, joined in the vow, *ifs ne passeront pas) ((They shall not passp). All France poured its soul out in those words. To have given up Verdun after that would have been a moral defeat.
The first week of the fighting had shown the Germans that they could not break through the French lines by frontal attacks and they decided to shift their efforts to the western side of the Meuse. Now came a pause while the heavy artillery was being transferred. The first stage of the battle of Verdun was over, and it had yielded the Germans nothing but a serious loss of men. It is true their lines had been advanced four miles along the northern portion of the Heights of the Meuse, but against this gain place the fact that the element of surprise was expended and the French, thoroughly aroused, were present in force and bringing up men all the time. West of the river the French were placed on a ridge known as Cote de l'Oie (Goose Heights), shaped something like a ham The small end is on the river opposite Brabant and is about a mile wide, while the large end is five miles due west and is two and a half miles wide. This ridge is bordered on the north and on the west by a brook with narrow meadows above which the ground rises to a height of from 150 to 225 feet, the highest point being at the western end, an elevation known as Mort Homme (Dead Man). Still farther
west are two hills, known as Hills 304 and 287, whose slopes reach to the vicinity of Avo court, eight miles west of the Meuse. In the beginning of the battle the French lines ran along the narrow part of the ridge for three miles at the foot of the northern slope and then crossed the brook and took in the villages of, Bethincourt, Haucourt and Malancourt, and then it ran southwesterly until it took in Avocourt and proceeded thence to the Ar gonne. Since the Germans had carried their line fonvard on the east bank for four miles, this strong position on the west bank enfiladed their advance along the eastern bank and con vinced them that nothing could be done until they had cleared die west bank. The key of this ridge was Mort Homme, its highest point. It stood at the centre of the position and if held and fortified by the Germans it would force the relinquishment of the positions on each side. If this hill could not be taken the next best tactics was to sweep around Hills 304 and 287 at Avocourt, turning the whole elevated area. Such was the work to which the German army gave itself as soon as it real ized that the way along the Heights of the Meuse was blocked at Douaumont and Poivre. The fighting in this region falls into two phases, which we may recognize as the second and third stages of the battle of Verdun. The first concerned the capture of the Cote de l'Oie, the second was an attempt to turn the defenses by way of Avocourt. But we must remember that while these operations were in progress there were many supporting blows on the east ern side of the river, designed mainly to hold French troops in that section while superior forces attacked on the western side.
The second stage of the battle opened on 2 March, when the Germans began an active bombardment on the line from the Meuse to the Argonne. It steadily grew stronger until it was intense on the 5th. General Petain interpreted it correctly as the precursor of a new movement and prepared accordingly. He was not deceived by a holding attack made on Douaumont, which resulted in the loss of the village of that name but did not shake the French hold on the ridge above it.