WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.259 Welcome to this custom deep dive. So when you 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:05.700 read the translated journals of the French polio 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:08.119 or you analyze the after action reports from 00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:10.740 the German frontline officers from 1916, there's 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:13.099 this one word that just continually surfaces. 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:15.560 Yeah, and it isn't battle. It's furnace. Furnace, 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:19.019 exactly. And today we are analyzing the mechanics 00:00:19.019 --> 00:00:21.699 of that furnace. We've synthesized a massive 00:00:21.699 --> 00:00:24.079 stack of primary source materials for you military 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:27.300 dossiers, translated diaries, modern strategic 00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:30.140 analyses. All to explore a conflict so staggering, 00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:34.000 so relentless that it lasted for 302 uninterrupted 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:37.000 days. Right, 302 days. We are talking about an 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.740 event that fundamentally shifted how the world 00:00:39.740 --> 00:00:42.799 views human resilience and honestly, industrial 00:00:42.799 --> 00:00:44.859 scale destruction. It really remains one of the 00:00:44.859 --> 00:00:46.939 most sobering military engagements in recorded 00:00:46.939 --> 00:00:49.299 history. Today's Deep Dive centers on the Battle 00:00:49.299 --> 00:00:51.939 of Verdun, which is the longest single sustained 00:00:51.939 --> 00:00:54.359 battle of the First World War. Running from February 00:00:54.359 --> 00:00:57.640 21st to December 18th, 1916. Right. And the sheer 00:00:57.640 --> 00:00:59.520 density of the violence compressed into such 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.280 a narrow geographical space, it forces historians 00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:05.859 to constantly reevaluate our understanding of 00:01:05.859 --> 00:01:08.239 tactical endurance. Yeah, and our mission today 00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:10.859 is to take you directly into the tactical and 00:01:10.859 --> 00:01:13.640 psychological heart of this conflict. We're going 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.140 to uncover how a calculated strategy of pure 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:18.879 attrition turned a comparatively quiet sector 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:21.879 of the Western Front into a total nightmare of 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:24.560 mud and artillery. And we'll examine why this 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:27.359 specific theater of war remains such a potent 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:31.579 symbol today of both tragedy and ultimately reconciliation. 00:01:31.819 --> 00:01:34.829 OK, let's unpack this. To comprehend the horrific 00:01:34.829 --> 00:01:37.709 logic of Verdun, we have to establish the strategic 00:01:37.709 --> 00:01:40.629 reality of Europe in early 1916. Right, because 00:01:40.629 --> 00:01:43.209 by the dawn of 1916, the rapid war of movement 00:01:43.209 --> 00:01:45.829 was dead. It completely stagnated. The opposing 00:01:45.829 --> 00:01:48.290 armies had literally dug into the earth. Just 00:01:48.290 --> 00:01:50.750 a continuous network of trenches from the Swiss 00:01:50.750 --> 00:01:53.849 border to the North Sea. Exactly. So both sides 00:01:53.849 --> 00:01:56.090 are trapped in this strategic gridlock, suffering 00:01:56.090 --> 00:01:58.549 severe casualties for, I mean, territorial gains 00:01:58.549 --> 00:02:00.870 measured in yards. Both sides were looking for 00:02:00.870 --> 00:02:02.390 a way to break the stalemate, but the chief of 00:02:02.390 --> 00:02:05.189 the German general staff, Erich von Falkenhayn. 00:02:05.329 --> 00:02:08.509 He had a chillingly different idea. He deliberately 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:11.030 abandoned the idea of a decisive breakthrough, 00:02:11.150 --> 00:02:13.509 didn't he? He wasn't looking to punch a hole 00:02:13.509 --> 00:02:17.250 in the lines and march on Paris. No, not at all. 00:02:17.729 --> 00:02:20.569 What's fascinating here is that Falkenhayn literally 00:02:20.569 --> 00:02:23.590 aimed to bleed the forces of France to death. 00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:26.169 He didn't necessarily want to capture territory. 00:02:26.430 --> 00:02:29.280 His goal was demographic. This is the attrition 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:31.719 strategy, right? The armatang strategy. Yes, 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.099 the strategy of attrition. He wanted to force 00:02:34.099 --> 00:02:36.120 the French to commit all their reserves to a 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:38.479 place they couldn't bear to lose so the German 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:40.500 artillery could just systematically destroy them. 00:02:41.020 --> 00:02:43.620 And the bait he chose for this trap was Verdun. 00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:47.580 But why Verdun specifically? Well, it was a historic 00:02:47.580 --> 00:02:50.379 fortified region, the RFE. It was surrounded 00:02:50.379 --> 00:02:53.800 by this massive double ring of 28 concrete forts. 00:02:54.039 --> 00:02:56.860 It projected this aura of total French invulnerability. 00:02:56.969 --> 00:02:59.490 Falkenhayn calculated that the French would accept 00:02:59.490 --> 00:03:01.909 total annihilation before letting Verdun fall. 00:03:02.090 --> 00:03:04.849 But there is a huge, almost haunting irony here 00:03:04.849 --> 00:03:06.969 when you look at the sources regarding those 00:03:06.969 --> 00:03:09.050 forts. All of the logistical decisions by the 00:03:09.050 --> 00:03:11.759 French High Command. Yeah. General Joffre, the 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:13.900 French commander -in -chief, he actually thought 00:03:13.900 --> 00:03:16.300 static forts were obsolete after seeing the Belgian 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:18.659 fortresses crushed by German siege mortars in 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:22.719 1914. So he quietly just dismantled his own defenses. 00:03:23.020 --> 00:03:25.900 Completely in secret, he had been systematically 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:29.560 stripping Verdun's forts. They removed 54 artillery 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:32.560 batteries. And 128 ,000 rounds of ammunition. 00:03:32.620 --> 00:03:35.919 Just gone. They reduced the garrisons to skeleton 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:39.199 maintenance crews. They even placed 11 ,000 pounds 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.219 of explosives inside Fort Dumas, the biggest 00:03:42.219 --> 00:03:44.199 fort in the ring, just to blow it up so the enemy 00:03:44.199 --> 00:03:45.919 couldn't use it. Which is just staggering when 00:03:45.919 --> 00:03:47.539 you think about it. Right. I mean, I want you 00:03:47.539 --> 00:03:49.840 to just imagine the sheer panic of the frontline 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:52.400 French officers. The Germans are planning the 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:54.419 biggest artillery assault in history against 00:03:54.419 --> 00:03:56.419 what they think is an impenetrable fortress, 00:03:56.759 --> 00:03:59.039 but the French high command has basically left 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:01.580 the back door wide open. And that storm finally 00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:04.539 broke on the morning of February... 21st, 1916. 00:04:04.780 --> 00:04:07.560 Operation Judgment. Yes. After a delay caused 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.960 by winter storms, which must have been agonizing 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:12.699 for the defenders waiting in the trenches, a 00:04:12.699 --> 00:04:15.900 10 -hour preliminary bombardment begins. From 00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:19.459 808 heavy guns. Dropping roughly one million 00:04:19.459 --> 00:04:22.899 shells. A million shells in 10 hours. The intensity 00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:26.480 birthed the term Trommelführ, or drum fire. The 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:28.959 explosions were so rapid they merged into a single 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:31.220 continuous rumble. They said you could hear it 00:04:31.220 --> 00:04:34.060 99 miles away. Seismic stations were picking 00:04:34.060 --> 00:04:35.740 it up like an earthquake. And then the ground 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:38.259 assault begins, and the Germans used terrifying 00:04:38.259 --> 00:04:40.339 new tactics. They didn't just walk in a line. 00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:43.579 They used highly trained Sto -Struppen storm 00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:46.819 troopers led by Captain Willie Rohr, bypassing 00:04:46.819 --> 00:04:49.540 strong points, infiltrating the shattered lines, 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:52.759 and armed with a horrifying new weapon, flamethrowers. 00:04:52.980 --> 00:04:55.560 They were clearing dugouts with targeted fire. 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:58.540 The initial thrust was devastating. They shattered 00:04:58.540 --> 00:05:01.370 the forward trench networks in days. But the 00:05:01.370 --> 00:05:03.569 defining event of this early phase involved the 00:05:03.569 --> 00:05:06.930 fort we mentioned earlier, Dolman. Oh, man. Here's 00:05:06.930 --> 00:05:08.730 where it gets really interesting because you 00:05:08.730 --> 00:05:11.290 have to hear the unbelievable story of how Fort 00:05:11.290 --> 00:05:14.250 Dolman actually fell on February 25th. It's one 00:05:14.250 --> 00:05:16.290 of the most astonishing tactical anomalies of 00:05:16.290 --> 00:05:19.009 the war. Remember, Joffrey stripped this crown 00:05:19.009 --> 00:05:22.189 jewel of its guns and men. So a small German 00:05:22.189 --> 00:05:24.750 party, about 100 men, are wandering up to the 00:05:24.750 --> 00:05:27.069 fort in the falling snow and fading twilight. 00:05:27.370 --> 00:05:29.209 They were actually just looking for shelter from 00:05:29.209 --> 00:05:31.670 their own heavy artillery, which was firing too 00:05:31.670 --> 00:05:34.269 short. Right. So they climbed down into the massive 00:05:34.269 --> 00:05:37.250 moat. They find the heavy drawbridge is jammed 00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:39.670 in the down position. The machine gun bunkers 00:05:39.670 --> 00:05:42.310 that are supposed to sweep the moat, totally 00:05:42.310 --> 00:05:44.829 unmanned. So they just walk right in. They literally 00:05:44.829 --> 00:05:47.029 climb through a bunker window, walk down the 00:05:47.029 --> 00:05:49.170 corridor and capture the skeleton maintenance 00:05:49.170 --> 00:05:52.430 crew, warrant officer Shana and about 25 guys 00:05:52.430 --> 00:05:54.779 without a major fight. The greatest fortress 00:05:54.779 --> 00:05:57.319 in France just handed over. The psychological 00:05:57.319 --> 00:06:00.420 shock of that loss forced a massive French reaction. 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:03.779 General Philippe Pétain takes over command of 00:06:03.779 --> 00:06:05.959 the second army. He realizes it's a battle of 00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:09.079 logistical endurance now. Exactly. He implements 00:06:09.079 --> 00:06:12.519 the Norea system. It was a rapid, continuous 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:15.399 rotation of troops to keep the army from psychologically 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:18.180 and physically breaking. They would cycle units 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:20.379 into the meat grinder for a short time, then 00:06:20.379 --> 00:06:23.279 pull them out. Ultimately, something like 78 00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:26.560 % of all French infantry battalions would rotate 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:28.959 through Verdun. If we connect this to the bigger 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:33.040 picture, Falkenhayn's master plan actually backfired 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:35.120 terribly here because of geography. Because of 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:37.519 the west bank of the river, right? Yes. The Germans 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:39.680 only attacked the east bank of the Meuse River 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:42.720 initially. But French artillery on the elevated 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.180 west bank started pouring devastating flanking 00:06:45.180 --> 00:06:48.639 fire right into the advancing Germans. They were 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:51.230 shredding them. So the strategy to bleed the 00:06:51.230 --> 00:06:53.670 French was suddenly heavily bleeding the Germans. 00:06:53.990 --> 00:06:56.350 To stop this flanking fire, the Germans were 00:06:56.350 --> 00:06:58.649 forced to expand their attacks across the river 00:06:58.649 --> 00:07:01.769 to places like Mordholm Dead Man's Hill and Coat 00:07:01.769 --> 00:07:04.810 304. Taking massive casualties themselves just 00:07:04.810 --> 00:07:08.110 to secure those hills and right around this compounding 00:07:08.110 --> 00:07:10.329 slaughter, General Robert Nivelle takes over 00:07:10.329 --> 00:07:13.370 the Second Army and issues his famous defiant 00:07:13.370 --> 00:07:17.920 order. You will not let them pass. That became 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:20.040 the rallying cry for the whole nation as they 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:23.060 headed into the summer of horrors. And it truly 00:07:23.060 --> 00:07:26.819 was a horror. The battle devolved into brutal, 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:30.639 localized extremes. Take the siege of Fort Vaux 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:33.100 in June. That was entirely underground, wasn't 00:07:33.100 --> 00:07:35.519 it? Yes. The Germans breached the top and the 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:37.300 fighting went into the pitch -black corridors. 00:07:38.100 --> 00:07:40.779 It was grenades and bayonets in tunnels barely 00:07:40.779 --> 00:07:43.139 wide enough for two men. And the French water 00:07:43.139 --> 00:07:47.750 cisterns ruptured. The 574 French survivors resorted 00:07:47.750 --> 00:07:50.470 to drinking condensation from the walls. They 00:07:50.470 --> 00:07:52.370 only surrendered when they were physically dying 00:07:52.370 --> 00:07:55.089 of dehydration. Above ground wasn't any better. 00:07:55.410 --> 00:07:57.949 The village of Fleury changed hands a staggering 00:07:57.949 --> 00:08:01.329 16 times between June and August. The Germans 00:08:01.329 --> 00:08:04.709 unleashed Defazgine gas, Green Cross, to silence 00:08:04.709 --> 00:08:07.230 the French artillery. The landscape was utterly 00:08:07.230 --> 00:08:10.170 obliterated. Ten million shells were fired over 00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:12.990 the course of the battle. That is 1 .35 million 00:08:12.990 --> 00:08:15.769 tons of steel raining down on a few square miles. 00:08:15.949 --> 00:08:17.730 Eventually, the relentless pressure of Verdun 00:08:17.730 --> 00:08:19.970 had to wane, largely due to global pressures 00:08:19.970 --> 00:08:22.209 elsewhere. Verdun didn't happen in a vacuum. 00:08:22.410 --> 00:08:24.629 Right, because by July, the British launched 00:08:24.629 --> 00:08:27.209 the Battle of the Somme to the north. And the 00:08:27.209 --> 00:08:29.329 Russians launched the Brusilov Offensive in the 00:08:29.329 --> 00:08:31.410 east. The Germans were suddenly fighting massive 00:08:31.410 --> 00:08:34.049 crises on multiple fronts. They had to pull artillery 00:08:34.049 --> 00:08:36.669 and troops away from Verdun. Falkenhayn's whole 00:08:36.669 --> 00:08:39.909 attrition theory collapsed. He was sacked, replaced 00:08:39.909 --> 00:08:42.470 by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and that's when 00:08:42.470 --> 00:08:44.450 the French counteroffenses began in the auto. 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:49.919 utilizing highly coordinated creeping barrages. 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:53.179 A moving wall of explosions walking just ahead 00:08:53.179 --> 00:08:55.720 of the advancing French infantry. Plus, they 00:08:55.720 --> 00:08:57.860 brought up massive railway guns. We're talking 00:08:57.860 --> 00:09:01.980 16 inch guns firing one ton armor piercing shells 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:04.899 to shatter the German hold fasts. They recaptured 00:09:04.899 --> 00:09:08.360 Dumont in October and Vaux shortly after. By 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:10.720 December 1916, the French had pushed the Germans 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:13.080 back almost exactly to their starting lines from 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:15.440 February. So what does this all mean when the 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:17.659 guns finally stop in December? What is the sheer 00:09:17.659 --> 00:09:20.220 human cost of this? The math of this attrition 00:09:20.220 --> 00:09:22.860 is just horrifying. Over 302 days, there were 00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:26.899 roughly 714 ,000 casualties. That's killed, wounded, 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:31.539 missing. Yes, about 377 ,000 French and 337 ,000 00:09:31.539 --> 00:09:34.179 German casualties. That averages out to 70 ,000 00:09:34.179 --> 00:09:36.159 casualties a month. And look at the ratio. It 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:39.120 was nearly one to one. Falkenhayn's arrogant 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:41.460 prediction to the Kaiser was that he could kill 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:44.659 five Frenchmen for every two Germans. And he 00:09:44.659 --> 00:09:47.759 completely failed. Entirely disapproved. He permanently 00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:50.639 degraded his own army, trying to bleed France 00:09:50.639 --> 00:09:53.019 white. Not to mention the psychological toll. 00:09:53.620 --> 00:09:56.340 The battle caused severe shell shock, and French 00:09:56.340 --> 00:09:59.620 troops even experienced mutinous collective indiscipline, 00:09:59.799 --> 00:10:02.639 which the military called défiance. The human 00:10:02.639 --> 00:10:05.970 mind simply reached its breaking point. The massive 00:10:05.970 --> 00:10:08.570 psychological scars left on the soldiers were 00:10:08.570 --> 00:10:11.049 mirrored by the physical scars left on the land 00:10:11.049 --> 00:10:13.370 itself Yeah, if you visit the area today, you'll 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:17.019 find the zone rouge the red zone Six completely 00:10:17.019 --> 00:10:19.720 destroyed villages like Beaumont and Fleury were 00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:22.620 never rebuilt. They exist today only as uninhabited 00:10:22.620 --> 00:10:25.259 memorials. The Zone Rouge remains this vast, 00:10:25.340 --> 00:10:28.840 toxic graveyard. It's just a forest of overlapping 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:30.960 shell craters planted with pine trees to hide 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.179 the damage. But out of that incredible destruction, 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:35.980 there's a really poignant shift in Verdun's legacy. 00:10:36.549 --> 00:10:39.509 By 1984, it actually became a symbol of Franco 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:42.450 -German reconciliation. Oh, that archival footage 00:10:42.450 --> 00:10:45.090 is incredibly powerful. German Chancellor Helmut 00:10:45.090 --> 00:10:47.730 Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand 00:10:47.730 --> 00:10:50.149 standing together at the Dumas Cemetery. Holding 00:10:50.149 --> 00:10:52.990 hands in the driving rain. Two nations that used 00:10:52.990 --> 00:10:56.029 every tool of the industrial age to annihilate 00:10:56.029 --> 00:10:59.029 each other on that exact soil, publicly forging 00:10:59.029 --> 00:11:02.330 a lasting peace. It's a beautiful image to contrast 00:11:02.330 --> 00:11:05.009 against such a dark history. It is. And this 00:11:05.009 --> 00:11:07.809 raises an important question. When a military 00:11:07.809 --> 00:11:10.129 strategy is designed purely around attrition, 00:11:10.509 --> 00:11:12.950 where the entire goal is simply to endure more 00:11:12.950 --> 00:11:15.009 suffering and death than the person across from 00:11:15.009 --> 00:11:17.990 you, how does the society subsequently define 00:11:17.990 --> 00:11:21.350 the line between victory and defeat? Can anyone 00:11:21.350 --> 00:11:24.169 truly be said to have won a battle that was designed 00:11:24.169 --> 00:11:26.570 to be a mutual slaughterhouse? That is something 00:11:26.570 --> 00:11:28.409 you really have to mull over when you think about 00:11:28.409 --> 00:11:30.909 the true cost of warfare. Thank you for joining 00:11:30.909 --> 00:11:33.230 us on this deep dive into the Battle of Verdun. 00:11:33.549 --> 00:11:35.350 We hope we gave you a new perspective on the 00:11:35.350 --> 00:11:38.669 staggering reality of 1916. Keep exploring, keep 00:11:38.669 --> 00:11:40.250 questioning, and keep learning.