Discussion: Which Battle was worse?

What battle was worse?

  • The Battle of Verdun

    Votes: 15 26.3%
  • The Battle of Stalingrad

    Votes: 35 61.4%
  • Other

    Votes: 7 12.3%

  • Total voters
    57
Which battle in your opinion, was a better incarnation of Hell on Earth, more terrible to fight, and over all a worse nightmare for the men involved?

The Battle of Verdun: 21, February - 20, December 1916.

The Battle of Stalingrad: 23, August, 1942 - 2, February 1943.

Other: A battle of your choosing.
 
Last edited:
Which battle in your opinion, was a better incarnation of Hell on Earth, more terrible to fight, and over all a worse nightmare for the men involved?

The Battle of Verdun: 21, February - 20, December 1916.

The Battle of Stalingrad: 23, August, 1941 - 2, February 1943.

Other: A battle of your choosing.

Erm I think you mean 23rd August 1942 there, not 1941.
 
Who for, the attacker or the defender? Both battles are defensive victories- horrible as they were they achieved something, the men who suffered there did not do so to no purpose.

Whether that actually makes it feel worse, to know that even while you are happy you have frostbite because that way you can't feel the lice anymore, and starvation and sleep deprivation aren't that that bad as long as the hallucinations are interesting, that you are actually doing something that matters, that there is a purpose to what you are going through-

and that means you can't stop, there's going to be more- is that actually worse than if the battle is completely senseless?

To judge from survivors' accounts, actually, no; it is possible to find accounts from both winning sides that are actually highly positive in tone; look at some to the things the graduates of the Stalingrad Academy of Street-Fighting said later on, of some of the things the survivors of Verdun said between the wars-

there is a lot of pride to be found in some of them, pride in having endured, survived and to an extent triumphed in those man- made hells.

The defeated tend to tell a different story, admittedly, and I did vote "other", thinking of a battle that both sides effectively lost, where the pain and misery was overwhelmingly for nothing; Passchendaele.

However good an idea it may have been to begin with, cockup piled on misfortune piled on unlucky accident turned the battle into a slow motion horrorshow of shellfire and mud, mud, mud, where the only solid objects were the burnt out tanks and the bodies of the dead, and those only temporarily.


Second place, have to admit I don't know enough about the details, have to look them up, but China, 1860-1950, from the Taiping rebellion to the end of the civil war, was the scene of many battles of astonishing brutality and futility, that achieved nothing and advanced no goal except possibly population reduction.
 

ThePest179

Banned
Stalingrad, because there weren't any civillians present in large numbers in Verdun, and because Stalingrad killed more human beings than all other batles in human history (or so I've been told).
 

Saphroneth

Banned
The Fairey Battle. Killed a lot of RAF pilots.



(Okay, sorry...)

I actually wonder if Fall Rot could count. Not for those involved, perhaps, but a different interpretation of hell for the civilians of France.
I can't imagine what it must have felt like to be French as that battle unfolded, as the country crumbled and fell apart... as the enemy who had been stopped twenty-five years ago at cost of great sacrifice blew aside all resistance in hours.
 
The battle for Berlin at the end of the Second World War made Verdun and Stalingrad put together look like a beach party.
 
I think the conditions in which they fought was worse during Verdun than during Stalingrad. Less people may have died, but it was less "hell on earth" in terms of conditions.
 
Seige of Leningrad the casualties were horrendous (anywhere between 3 and 4 million killed and wounded) and it lasted for 872 days.
 
I think the conditions in the First World War were probably slightly worse, but the combatants were more brutal on the Eastern Front in the Second World War. So I voted for Verdun.
 
For civilian panic factor I would choose either the battle of France or the Fall of Saigon. The Battle of France for the quick collapse of the French Government and the Fall of Saigon for the big mess that was called the evacuation.
 
I voted for Verdun, for three reasons:

1) this particular kind of slaughter, in which nations could support a continuous bloodbath including massive artillery strikes throughout the entire battle area, was then brand-new
2) it lasted longer
3) even the medical care potentially available was rather worse.



In truth, though, a rational person could easily argue the other way.
 
1) this particular kind of slaughter, in which nations could support a continuous bloodbath including massive artillery strikes throughout the entire battle area, was then brand-new
I wouldn't say brand-new. While maybe not on the same scale the American Civil War provides plenty of examples of where things were headed. However, the great military minds in Europe chose to ignore that messy little conflict on the other side of the pond.
 
1) this particular kind of slaughter, in which nations could support a continuous bloodbath including massive artillery strikes throughout the entire battle area, was then brand-new
I wouldn't say brand-new. While maybe not on the same scale the American Civil War provides plenty of examples of where things were headed. However, the great military minds in Europe chose to ignore that messy little conflict on the other side of the pond.

Even in the ACW, you could usually only come under artillery fire from batteries you could see. I was thinking mostly of artillery fire that could drop into every nook and fold of the battle area, so that one was never definitely safe.

Further, although the siege lines at St. Petersburg were bad, the constant casualty rates were, I think, much lower than at Verdun except on the brief occasions of assaults.

But I do see what you mean. The ACW should've pointed out where things were headed.
 
1) this particular kind of slaughter, in which nations could support a continuous bloodbath including massive artillery strikes throughout the entire battle area, was then brand-new
I wouldn't say brand-new. While maybe not on the same scale the American Civil War provides plenty of examples of where things were headed. However, the great military minds in Europe chose to ignore that messy little conflict on the other side of the pond.

Some of the battles late in the ACW were eerily close to the combat during world war 1.

However, by the time of world war 1 the civil war veterans were all old men (and many decided to romanticize the conflict, especially in the south), and the European leaders had ignored the conflict altogether. The horrors of World war 1 were something completely new and unexpected for almost everyone involved, including the Americans.

As for the battles, any of the major battles on the eastern front would trump Cerdun because they lasted longer, involved more people, killed more civillians, and had aerial bombardments.
 
Verdin had gas warfare, and particularly horrifying gas at that -tended to leave survivors in horrific pains for the whole of their lives.
 

takerma

Banned
For defenders, how about Okinawa? Civilians were really screwed there. Many of the island assaults while small in scale were incredibly brutal, Tarawa for example both for Marines(that first night waiting for a counter attack that they though would do them in) for Japanese it was just certain death, just matter of how and when.

i also wonder if some of the battles in Iraq Iran wat with full scale use of gas, kids used to clear midfields would qualify.

From the 2 choices Stalingrad maybe, both were hell.
 
Top