Germans capture Thiaumont

At dawn on 23 June 1916 more than a dozen German regiments attacked at Verdun the last ridge of hills that separated them from the town. The previous night German artillery had smothered the French batteries with more than a hundred thousand shells filled with a new war gas. By midday the Germans had taken the Thiaumont work, most of the village of Fleury and reached Fort Souville, a few kilometres from the citadel of Verdun. It was the most dangerous day of the battle since February. The French nevertheless managed to halt the attack, and the commander of the Second Army, General Robert Nivelle, issued an order that day which gave rise to the slogan “Ils ne passeront pas” (“They shall not pass”).

The last ridge before the town

After the capture of Fort Vaux, the chief of staff of the German Fifth Army, General Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf, wanted to seize the Thiaumont – Fleury – Souville line as quickly as possible. Behind it there remained only the heights with Forts Belleville and Saint-Michel, and then the town. Time was pressing, because on 4 June the Brusilov offensive had begun in the east and the German Supreme Army Command had to send divisions there, while on the Somme the British and French were completing preparations for a great offensive. The Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, agreed to one more great attack.

Thiaumont was not a fort, although the British chronology of the war calls it one. It was a small intermediate work (ouvrage) on the ridge between Fort Douaumont and the Froideterre work, with a concrete shelter, a casemate for two guns and a machine-gun turret. In 1915 its guns had been removed, and from February 1916 it was shelled by German artillery, which in the end literally wiped it off the face of the earth. About 800 metres to the north-east lay Thiaumont Farm, which had been fought over since the beginning of June: the Germans took it on 1 June, the French retook it the next day, and on 9 June the Germans captured it again and from then on threatened the work itself.

Green Cross

The German command hoped that this time it would break the French defence with a new kind of weapon. On the evening of 22 June the artillery began shelling the Froideterre – Fleury – Souville – Tavannes area with shells marked with a green cross, filled with diphosgene, a choking gas more powerful than the chlorine used earlier. By various counts more than 100,000 of them were fired, and some studies speak of 116,000. The bombardment was aimed above all at the French artillery and supply routes. The French gas masks of the day gave poor protection against the new gas. According to figures cited in the literature, more than 1,600 Frenchmen were gassed, many batteries fell silent, and the gas cut off from the rear the men carrying water and ammunition to the front.

At about five or six in the morning of 23 June, according to French sources, seventeen German regiments went into the attack on a front about five kilometres long. According to French accounts, Bavarian corps attacked Thiaumont and Froideterre, the Alpenkorps, which included the Bavarian Life Guards Regiment, attacked Fleury, and the 103rd Infantry Division attacked Souville. The first waves advanced almost unopposed, because the French artillery was largely silent. The Thiaumont work fell that morning, and the Bavarians broke onto the Froideterre ridge, from which, however, a counter-attack with grenades and bayonets drove them back. The Alpenkorps took most of Fleury and reached the Sainte-Fine chapel, on the road to Verdun. On the right wing the French 13th Division stopped the 103rd Division before Fort Souville. According to some studies, about 2,400 Frenchmen were taken prisoner.

“You will not let them pass”

In the afternoon the attack began to weaken. The gas dispersed, and the French artillery, reinforced by batteries from other sectors, began to pound the German salient from three sides. On the captured ground the German infantry ran short of water, and without further gas shells the command could not repeat the attack with the same force. The French quickly retook the Sainte-Fine chapel, which became the furthest point the Germans reached in June.

For the French it was a day of dread. General Philippe Pétain, commander of the Centre Army Group, to which Verdun belonged, according to many studies was preparing for the worst and pressed the Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Joffre, to send reinforcements and to start the Somme offensive as soon as possible. Nivelle ended his order of the day to the Second Army with the words “Vous ne les laisserez pas passer, mes camarades” (“You will not let them pass, comrades”). The shortened version, “Ils ne passeront pas”, became one of the most famous slogans of the war, later painted on French posters.

The British chronology records under 23 June that Thiaumont was “finally captured” by the Germans, and adds in a footnote that most of the position had been taken on 23 May, and that this date marks the limit of the German advance on Verdun. The May date finds no confirmation in other sources. At the end of May Thiaumont still lay about a kilometre from the German lines, and the work itself fell on 23 June. Most probably this is a misprint and the footnote refers to 23 June. The word “finally” is also misleading. The next day the French began to counter-attack, and Thiaumont and Fleury were fought over for several more weeks. The work changed hands many times, and Fleury, according to various accounts, as many as a dozen or more times. The Germans tried once more to break through in July, at Fort Souville, but they never significantly crossed the line they had reached on 23 June. The French did not recover the ruins of Thiaumont until 24 October 1916.