Battle of Verdun

Battle of Verdun
Part of the Western Front of the First World War
A French trench in north-east France
Date 21 February – 18 December 1916 Location Verdun, France Result French victory
Belligerents
French Third Republic	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Philippe Pétain Robert Nivelle	Erich von Falkenhayn Crown Prince Wilhelm
Strength
75 divisions (1,140,000 soldiers)	50 divisions (1,250,000 soldiers)
Casualties and losses
542,000.–400,000; 163,000 of those died.	434,000.–355,000; 143,000 of those died

The Battle of Verdun was a battle of World War I that started when the German Fifth Army attacked French positions, near Verdun, on February 21, 1916. It ended on December 18, but the front line had not changed very much. Both sides lost about 337,000 soldiers each. Never before had industrialization been so visible in war. The Battle of Verdun is considered the largest and longest in world history and has been called the "Hell of Verdun" or the "Blood Pump".

The battle had more men than any other, and the battlefield was not even 10 km (6 mi) long. There were many attacks and counterattacks; one small village changed hands 16 times. The battle, which lasted 303 days caused over an estimated 700,000 casualties, and about 300,000 deaths. From a strategic point of view, there can be no justification for these terrible losses. The battle lowered the prestige for the two nations, and started being fought for the sake of fighting and honor, according to the German commander, Paul von Hindenburg.

The French commander, Marshall Philippe Pétain, used a system of rotation by which every division in France fought for a short time at Verdun. After the battle, the landscape was left as one of the worst battlegrounds on all of France and was filled with craters of the artillery, the trenches, the odor left by the dead, etc. During the battle, the chief of the German General Staff, Erich Von Falkenhayn, was relieved from duty and sent to lead a joint Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian attack on Romania, which left Hindenburg as Chief of Staff.