BATTLE // February 21, 1916

Battle of Verdun

Name: Battle of Verdun
Start: 1916-02-21
End: 1916-02-21
Location: Battle of Verdun

LOADING MAP TELEMETRY…

Significance

The Battle of Verdun, fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916, was the longest battle of the First World War. The German 5th Army attacked the Fortified Region of Verdun and the French Second Army on the right bank of the Meuse, aiming to seize the Meuse Heights — a dominant position offering superior artillery observation over Verdun. The underlying German operational design, drawing on experience from the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, was to compel France to commit its strategic reserve to retake the lost ground, inflicting catastrophic attrition on the French army at relatively low cost to German infantry. The combined casualties — over 330,000 on the German side and nearly 400,000 on the French — marked Verdun as one of the bloodiest engagements of the entire war. The battle's duration and scale placed enormous strain on French military manpower and command structures, elevating figures such as Philippe Pétain, Robert Nivelle, and Charles Mangin to prominence in French operational leadership, and cementing Verdun as a defining ordeal of the French war effort on the Western Front.

Tactics

The Germans planned to capture the Meuse Heights on the right bank of the Meuse, terrain that offered an excellent defensive position and strong observation for artillery fire against Verdun. Drawing on lessons from the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, the operational concept centered on using the seized heights as a killing ground: the expectation was that France would be compelled to feed its strategic reserve into costly counterattacks to recapture the position, suffering heavy infantry losses while German forces held defensible high ground and leveraged artillery dominance.