Douaument near Verdun

We left Roger and Anne’s house in St. Dizier, chauffeured by Roger, for a wonderful day’s tour of Verdun, a bit less than an hour to the north. Verdun was a critical obstacle for the Germans in the First World War, and became the site of a ten- months-long battle in 1916; they were held back, a critical defeat in the midst of the war. We first toured the Citadel in the center of the city, a huge fortress with over seven kilometers (four miles) of underground tunnels—automated vehicles take small groups through a superb audiovisual tour.

After lunch we visited the battlefield to the northeast of the city; most fascinating was the fortress of Douaument, which had been barely 50 kilometers (thirty miles) from the German border. It was taken relatively early in1916 by the Germans, but then recaptured by the French. This image, taken at the top of the fortress, shows a huge turret on the left, which housed a 155 millimeter artillery piece (the shells were 6 inches in diameter). The turret could be raised quickly and then lowered, and rotated 360 degrees to aim it. The operators number eighteen—everything was done by hand.

In the background the land around the fortress still shows the pockmarks of the shelling by the Germans, which endured for much of 1916. It was altogether a very intense lesson in history.