The Battle of Verdun was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse. The German 5th Army attacked the defences of the Fortified Region of Verdun and those of the French Second Army on the right (east) bank of the Meuse. Using the experience of the Second Battle of Champagne in 1915, the Germans planned to capture the Meuse Heights, an excellent defensive position, with good observation for artillery-fire on Verdun. The Germans hoped that the French would commit their strategic reserve to recapture the position and suffer catastrophic losses at little cost to the German infantry.
The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was fought during the Battle of the Somme in France, by the French Sixth Army and the British Fourth Army and Reserve Army, against the German 1st Army, during the First World War. The Anglo-French attack of 15 September began the third period of the Battle of the Somme but by its conclusion on 22 September, the strategic objective of a decisive victory had not been achieved. The infliction of many casualties on the German front divisions and the capture of the villages of Courcelette, Martinpuich and Flers had been a considerable tactical victory.
The Battle of Le Transloy was the last big attack by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the 1916 Battle of the Somme in France, during the First World War. The battle was fought in conjunction with attacks by the French Tenth and Sixth armies on the southern flank and the Reserve/5th Army on the northern flank, against Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria created on 28 August. General Ferdinand Foch, commander of groupe des armées du nord and co-ordinator of the armies on the Somme, was unable to continue the sequential attacks of September because persistent rain, mist and fog grounded aircraft, turned the battlefield into a swamp and greatly increased the difficulty of transporting supplies to the front over the roads land devastated since 1 July.
The Battle of Albert is the British name for the first two weeks of British–French offensive operations of the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment commenced on 24 June and the British–French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German 2nd Army but from near the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt, the British attack was a disaster, where most of the c. 57,000 British casualties of the day were incurred. Against the wishes of General Joseph Joffre, General Sir Douglas Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road to reinforce the success in the south, where the British–French forces pressed forward through several intermediate lines closer to the German second position.
The Battle of Mars-la-Tour was fought on 16 August 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, near the village of Mars-La-Tour in northeast France. One Prussian corps, reinforced by two more later in the day, encountered the entire French Army of the Rhine in a meeting engagement and, following the course of battle, the Army of the Rhine retreated toward the fortress of Metz.
Fort Douaumont was the largest and highest fort on the ring of 19 large defensive works which had protected the city of Verdun, France, since the 1890s. By 1915, the French General Staff had concluded that even the best-protected forts of Verdun could not withstand bombardments from the German 420 mm Gamma guns. These new super-heavy howitzers had easily taken several large Belgian forts out of action in August 1914. Fort Douaumont and other Verdun forts were judged ineffective and had been partly disarmed and left virtually undefended since 1915. On 25 February 1916, Fort Douaumont was entered and occupied without a fight by a small German raiding party comprising only 19 officers and 79 men, entering via an open window by the moat. The easy fall of Fort Douaumont, only three days after the beginning of the Battle of Verdun, shocked the French Army. It set the stage for the rest of a battle which lasted nine months, at enormous human cost. Douaumont was finally recaptured by three infantry divisions of the Second Army, during the First Offensive Battle of Verdun on 24 October 1916. This event brought closure to the battle in 1916.
Fort Vaux, in Vaux-Devant-Damloup, Meuse, France, was a polygonal fort forming part of the ring of 19 large defensive works intended to protect the city of Verdun. Built from 1881 to 1884 for 1,500,000 francs, it housed a garrison of 150 men. Vaux was the second fort to fall in the Battle of Verdun after Fort Douaumont, which was captured by a small German raiding party in February 1916 in the confusion of the French retreat from the Woëvre plain. Vaux had been modernised before 1914 with reinforced concrete top protection like Fort Douaumont and was not destroyed by German heavy artillery fire, which had included shelling by 16-inch (410 mm) howitzers. The superstructure of the fort was badly damaged but the garrison, the deep interior corridors and stations were intact when the fort was attacked on 2 June by German Stormtroops.
The Battle of Soissons (1918) was a battle fought on the Western Front during World War I. Waged from 18 to 22 July 1918 between the French and the German armies, the battle was part of the much larger Allied Aisne-Marne counter-offensive. It followed the final German Spring Offensive, Operation Marneschutz-Reims. The primary objective of the attack was to cut both the Soissons – Château-Thierry road and the railroad running south from Soissons to Château-Thierry. As these were the main supply routes for the German forces in the Marne salient, cutting them would severely impair the Germans' ability to supply its armies defending it. This would force them to retreat and give up their gains. This battle marked the turning point of the war as the Germans would be on the defensive for the remainder of the conflict.
The Battle of Turtucaia, also known as Tutrakan Epopee in Bulgaria, was the opening battle of the first Central Powers offensive during the Romanian Campaign of World War I. The battle lasted for five days and ended with the capture of the fortress of Turtucaia and the surrender of its Romanian defenders.
The Bavarian Ersatz Division was a Bavarian division of the Imperial German Army in World War I. It was formed in August 1914 and dissolved on 6 October 1918. It was initially a Bavarian formation but soon received several non-Bavarian units which served with the division until 1917.
The Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial is a memorial site in France dedicated to the commemoration of Dominion of Newfoundland forces members who were killed during World War I. The 74-acre (300,000 m2) preserved battlefield park encompasses the grounds over which the Newfoundland Regiment made their unsuccessful attack on 1 July 1916 during the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
The siege of Toul was the siege of the fortified French town of Toul from 16 August to 23 September 1870 by Prussian, Bavarian and Württemberg forces during the Franco-Prussian War. Toul controlled a railway line leading to Germany and it was vital for the Germans to secure it to resupply and reinforce their armies in northern France.
The 12th Field Artillery Regiment is a unit of the United States Army.
The 320th Field Artillery Regiment is a field artillery regiment of the United States Army. A parent regiment under the U.S. Army Regimental System, the 320th FAR currently has two active elements in the 101st Airborne Division : 1st Battalion, 320th FAR "Top Guns" in 2nd Brigade Combat Team; and 3rd Battalion, 320th FAR "Red Knight Rakkasans" in 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The regiment served with the 82nd Airborne Division during World Wars I and II, and regimental elements have served with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division, the 193rd Infantry Brigade and the Berlin Brigade, and conducted combat operations in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Grenada, Operations Desert Shield and Storm, and the Global War on Terror.
The Battle of La Malmaison from 23 to 27 October, was the final French action of the 1917 campaign in the First World War, which had begun with the Nivelle Offensive. The French captured the village and fort of La Malmaison and took control of the Chemin des Dames ridge. The German 7th Army had discovered French preparations for the attack and also identified the date and time. Boehn chose to defend the front positions, rather than treat them as an advanced zone and to conduct the main defence north of the Oise–Aisne Canal. The German artillery was outnumbered three-to-one and on the front of the 14th Division, 32 German batteries were confronted by 125 French, which silenced most of the German guns before the attack. Gas from French bombardments on low-lying land near the Oise–Aisne Canal in the Ailette valley, became so dense that it was impossible to carry ammunition and supplies forward or to remove the wounded.
The Capture of Combles was a tactical incident that took place during the Battle of Morval, part of the Battle of the Somme, during the First World War. Combles lies 30 mi (48 km) north-east of Amiens and 10 mi (16 km) east of Albert, on the D 20 Rancourt–Guillemont road, 8 mi (13 km) south of Bapaume, in the Combles valley a hollow between outcrops of Bazentin Ridge, between Morval to the north, Ginchy to the north-west and Falfemont Farm to the west. North of the village the valley widens into a basin, which forks north-east around the Morval Spur. In late September 1914, military operations took place in the vicinity, when the II Bavarian Corps was engaged by French Territorial divisions in an encounter battle. The French divisions were forced back and the two divisions of the II Bavarian Corps, advanced westwards on the north side of the Somme, eventually being stopped around Maricourt, Montauban and Fricourt.
The 3rd Algerian Tirailleurs Regiment was an infantry unit of the Army of Africa in the French Army. Recruited primarily from Algerian Muslims, it was mainly commanded by French officers. The racial boundaries were not absolute, with some French volunteers serving in the ranks and a limited number of Muslims being appointed as officers. After 1913 a selective form of conscription was applied to Algerian Muslims but the majority of Muslim soldiers serving in the 3e R.T.A continued to be voluntarily enlisted.
The German attack on Vimy Ridge was a local attack on the Western Front on 21 May 1916, during the First World War. The Germans intended to prevent mines being blown under German positions by capturing the British front line and mine gallery entrances. After the Third Battle of Artois the French Tenth Army had held positions on the western slope of Vimy Ridge and the German 6th Army occupied positions on the steeper eastern slope. During the Battle of Verdun, the Tenth Army was withdrawn and the British First Army and Third Army on either flank, took over the French positions.
Kléber Dupuy was a French army officer. The son of an oyster farmer, he was conscripted into the French Army in 1913. He served in the First World War as an enlisted soldier in the 9th Infantry Regiment but was accepted for a commission and in 1915 joined the 7th Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. Dupuy commanded a force of 60 men at Fort Souville during the 1916 Battle of Verdun and, on 12 July, repelled a German attack. He was honoured with the Croix de Guerre. Later in the war he was wounded in action and had part of his right leg amputated. After the war Dupuy worked for the government's veterans' office and, during the Second World War, joined the French Resistance. Dupuy was appointed a grand officier of the Legion of Honour.
