Customer Reviews

Verdun 1916: 'They Shall Not Pass' (Campaign)

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The name Verdun has become synonymous with the bloodiest fighting in human history and along with "Somme" evokes the sense of the massive slaughter of the First World War.

That is the commonly held knowledge of the battle and apart from a few names of forts known to scholars not much else comes out. Martin, within the limits set by Osprey has managed to flesh out the battle significantly. He focuses on the key drives by each side while going into very fine detail over a handful of actions that proceeds to give the reader an view of the fighting that is more than just men getting out of trenches, being machine gunned and falling down. Without becoming bogged down in each probe and feint he paints a picture of what the battle was like for the men on the ground without losing site of the overall picture of what it was for.

The book has many pictures. Some period and some by the author of the little changed forts today. If there is a fault with the book it is the lack of maps. There is one strategic map and several close details of some of the forts but I would have found it very helpful to have fewer pictures of fortress tunnels, that all look the same, and one of more helpful maps.

In the 21st century it is common and possibly deserved to have a low opinion of the fighting qualities of the French Army. But Martin harkens back to that time when the French knew how to fight and did it in a manner that no one could question their skill or determination. The German army spent 10 months trying to win a battle of attrition and bleed France white. In the end loses were almost on a par with one another and the front lines had barely moved. Having gone onto the fields of battle in 1914 with uniforms and tactics that were antiquated, the pilou of 1916 showed they could adapt to the new ways of war, and Martin within the severe limits created by Osprey has helped remember their courage their sacrifice and when elan failed, cran.

While, as other reviewers have mentioned, this book provides the usual detail seen in most Osprey "campaign" series books, in the narrative such detail is reserved solely for the French, ultimately leaving us with little insight into the Germans' experience of the battle; while we hear of the exploits of individual French platoons, commanders, and even "poilus", the Germans appear almost exclusively as massed units who are acted upon by the brave frenchmen. Moreover, I wonder why the author felt it necessary to comment upon the later Nazi involvement of those Germens he deigns to mention, except perhaps to continue his apparent bias against them. Finally, in an unrelated matter, the connection between the excellent maps and OB's and the narrative isn't always clear.
A fine introduction and overview, but decidedly one-sided in its analysis.

Verdun 1916: They Shall Not Pass is written in the standard Osprey manner and is an example of the linmitations of the series. The book is so full of information and troop movements that it is next to imppossible to follow without a map in front of you. The maps provided by the author are not a substitue. As a result the death and slaughter that was caused by the battle is completly lost on the reader.

When not caught up in the details the book is very good. The chapters on the background, leaders and the armies are good examples of why Osprey is so sucessful. That made the discussion of the battle all the more disappointing.

The latest Osprey Campaign Series, Verdun 1916, is a concise and useful summary of the battle of that name. The immensely popular 1960 book by Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory, heavily influences Verdun 1916. Indeed, this Osprey title reflects many of the same strengths and weaknesses of Horne's great book. Historians and those interested in visiting the Verdun battlefield will find this a useful adjunct to Horne, but probably insufficient to stand on its own merit.

This volume follows the standard Osprey campaign format, with sections on the origins of the campaign, the opposing armies, opposing commanders and opposing plans. There are three 3-D "bird's eye view" maps that depict Colonel Driant's Last Stand (22 February 1916), the French attack on Fort Douamont (22 May 1916) and the Battle for Fleury (11 July 1916). Although there are several excellent 2-D maps that depict the layout and action around Fort Douamont and Fort Vaux, there is only one 2-D maps that depicts the entire Verdun battle area. While the maps provided are interesting, they still do not depict the entire Verdun battle area (e.g. Mort Homme). In addition to many interesting photographs, there are three battle scenes: Colonel Driant's Last Stand, the "Sacred Way" and underground fighting in Fort Vaux. Overall, I would rate the graphic appeal of this volume as very high, which is one of the reasons to use this volume as a supplement to Horne.

The author, a retired British sailor, presents an adequate - if not original - summary of the Verdun campaign from February to October 1916. For those readers who have read Horne's Price of Glory, they will notice many similarities in this account, although the author does use some French sources to enhance the narrative. Essentially, the bulk of the narrative focuses on the initial German attack, the surprise capture of Fort Douamont, then the bitter struggle for Fort Vaux, followed by the German loss of initiative and the final French counterattacks. Although there is some discussion of the fighting on the west bank of the Meuse River, around Mort Homme and the surrounding hills, it is quick and has no supporting maps of photographs. This is probably the greatest weakness of this account: the author focused primarily on the area around the two forts because they are the nexus of the battle's mythology and also easy to visit. When I visited Verdun this year, I certainly found Vaux and Douamont much more accessible than other parts of the battlefield. However, the fighting on the west bank was very important to the overall campaign and this tends to be downplayed in favor of the more dramatic struggles for the forts.

A few minor glitches appear in the author's apparent lack of sufficient research on contemporary army tactics and doctrines. The author asserts that 1916 was a watershed year in military history and that armies had evolved into very different formations from 1914, which is a half-truth at best. After two years of bloody stalemate the armies of both sides were still in the process of seeking solutions to conducting a breakthrough attack against entrenched machineguns, but they had yet to arrive at the solution. Neither tanks, "Hutier" infiltration tactics or close air support were in evidence at Verdun in 1916. While the armies had indeed added more specialist troops like engineers and abandoned some of the sillier pre-war tactics, the bulk of the infantry fought using evolutionary, not revolutionary tactics. Infantry platoons were not "all arms formations" as the author asserts (nor are modern infantry platoons), and the handful of the new infantry support weapons were concentrated at company, battalion or regimental level. Certainly the dreaded German Minenwerfer was too heavy to be carried around by assault infantry platoons. Also, the author notes that the German 21st Infantry Division attacked with four full-strength regiments with a total of 12 battalions of infantry, but a "square" division only had 8 infantry battalions.

Nor does the author make any real effort to assess the battle or its aftermath, other than to recount the casualty estimates. Could the German strategy have worked? Were the French skillful or lucky? How did the Verdun Campaign influence combat in 1917-1918? No effort is made to address such questions, but the author does waste effort - as Horne did - in recounting the Second World War celebrities who fought at Verdun as junior officers. Is it really relevant that Wilhelm Keitel was a staff officer at Verdun (anymore than he was a staff officer in other First World campaigns)?

Verdun 1916 should be appreciated for the fact that there are so few English-language books on this subject and for its graphic value. The other main reason for buying this book is the excellent six pages of order of battle data, which lists all infantry units down to regiment or separate battalion level, as well as artillery and engineer units. The lack of order of battle data was one of the biggest weaknesses in Horne's otherwise excellent book, but Verdun 1916 redresses that omission.

this is a concise well mapped and detailed description of the 1916 battle of Verdun which involved primarily France vs. Germany.At the same time Germany was also fighting the British commonwealth and the Russian alliance.In other books about Verdun the authors spent alot of time on the different time frames of the offensives and counteroffensives.the reason for this is to indicate a lack of co-ordination between the allies which gave Germany the opportunity to shift troops around to troubled areas.Too often instead of fighting 3 enemies at once Germany was allowed to engage only 1 alliance at a time.That's why I would have liked to also see some other small maps of the other fronts at the same time period.The alliances almost always accuse their partners of "holding back",waiting until their cohorts are"bled to death" before going into action.This Machiavellian twist has proved true in some conflicts.The casualty rates are appalling,almost half a million for each side.Ther are alot of human interest stories that keep the book rolling,and it is definitely not one of those dry analytical types.