The battle of Verdun began in February 21, 1916 at 7:12 AM when a German soldier fired his gun. The battle of verdun became the most longest conflict of world war 1.
On 1916, June 15 French did not took the warning of attack seriously so they were found unprepared of Germany’s attack. Germany gained territories but both sides had loses and french had 60 percent casualties.
There were a lot of varieties of weapons used in the battle of verdun. Machine guns were used and tanks and rifles were used but the most main thing was trench warfare. Poisonous gases were also used such as phosgene gas.
French had a major loss of 143000 soldiers out of 337000. Germans had casualties of 162440 out of 377231 french. The german chief Hindenburg called for a stop of battle in december 18, 1916. Verdun became the most important battle of world war 1 and the most deadliest filled with blood.
Falkenhayn’s plan had Value. The forts were very much part of the French pride and they would fight to keep the Germans out of the area. However, Falkenhayn’s plan also had one major weakness. It assumed that the French would be an easy opponent and that it would be the French who would take massive casualties and not the Germans. All the forts around the area had been weakened as the French High Command had moved ammunition(arms) out of the forts to other areas on the Western Front. Also the trenches dug for defence had not been completed. Senior officers at the fort complex around Verdun complained to Joffre about the state of the defences in the area. He rejected their complaints.
140,000 German troops started the attack. They were supported by 1,200 artillery guns that targeted 2,500,000 shells at the Verdun region. 1,300 ammunition trains were needed to supply these guns. The Germans also had complete air supremacy(power)with 168 planes located in the area the largest use of planes in history up to that point. To start with, the French only had 30,000 troops to oppose the Germans. On the day the battle started, February 21st, 1000 German artillery guns fired on a six mile line along the French front.
The German attack and the subsequent(following) battle was to last over 300 days. Flame throwers were used in large numbers for the first time to help the Germans advance the eight miles they needed to if they were to capture Verdun. By February 25th, the Germans had captured 10,000 French prisoners.