By reason
of its strategic position, it is absolutely essential that an invading
army have possession of Verdun before thought of a successful advance on
Paris can be entertained; and it was upon the capture of Paris that the
German emperor laid his hopes, in spite of the collapse of a similar
offensive launched in the first days of the war.
But Wilhelm II had learned a lesson. Verdun must be taken before he
ordered his armies upon the French capital; and so it was that, upon
February twenty-third, 1916, the German Crown Prince began a determined
assault upon the historic French fortress.
In sheer human interest the battle of Verdun surpassed all other
individual events of the war. For six months and more the defenders of
the gateway to France withstood a storm at the fury of which the world
stood aghast.
Foot by foot, almost inch by inch, the Germans forged ahead with a
reckless disregard of their lives, a tenacity and cool courage which was
only equalled by the cool determination of the French. Five months after
the opening of this great battle, the unofficial estimate of German dead
was a half million men. The assailants fought their way to within three
miles and a half of the fortress itself, but there they were finally
halted.
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