No battle of Verdun

I'm just curious if Germany didn't attack at Verdun there's a good chance that Petain might have elss prominience. If this is so there is agian a good chance France might have resisied Germany altering WW2 significantly
 

Deleted member 1487

a question: I seem to have a hazy recollection that the crown prince also got aggressive in the opening phases of the war, when he was supposed to hold on the defensive in the center (per the Schlieffen plan) and instead decided to counterattack the french.

Am I recollecting right?

No, the 5th army was part of the wheel through Belgium/Lorraine. I think you mean Rupprecht's 6th army, which was led by the Bavarian Crown Prince. Different guy, but an easily understandable misunderstanding.
 
Question: what happens if the French simply withdraw from Verdun, before suffering the shattering casualties of OTL? Was it a city worth holding?

And, reading this thread, it's strange how similar Verdun and the Somme are in some respects. The massive casualties, the clash in high command between attritional plans and holding land/breaking through the enemy (von Falkenhayn vs. Fifth Army being similar to Haig vs. Rawlinson), and so on. Indeed, in the same way that the RAF and British Army in WWII wanted to avoid 'another Somme', you hear Hitler in his speeches proclaiming how his tactics in Stalingrad are intended to avoid 'a second Verdun'.
 
Question: what happens if the French simply withdraw from Verdun, before suffering the shattering casualties of OTL? Was it a city worth holding?

And, reading this thread, it's strange how similar Verdun and the Somme are in some respects. The massive casualties, the clash in high command between attritional plans and holding land/breaking through the enemy (von Falkenhayn vs. Fifth Army being similar to Haig vs. Rawlinson), and so on. Indeed, in the same way that the RAF and British Army in WWII wanted to avoid 'another Somme', you hear Hitler in his speeches proclaiming how his tactics in Stalingrad are intended to avoid 'a second Verdun'.


If they withdrew it would be bad for morale, Verdun had cultural significance but it also had existing fortifications so it's fall would leave a gap that would have to be plugged it was just as logical to fight there as anywhere else.
 

Deleted member 1487

Question: what happens if the French simply withdraw from Verdun, before suffering the shattering casualties of OTL? Was it a city worth holding?
Petain ordered this initially only to be overruled by the politicians, because Verdun was such an important city historically and emotionally for France (and Germany). The treaty of Verdun in 900 meant it was the birthplace of both Germany and France; losing it would have caused the government to fall and the public to potentially slip into defeatism. Militarily it made the most sense to abandon it and hold from the West Bank of the Meuse, but politically it was too dangerous to let go of.


And, reading this thread, it's strange how similar Verdun and the Somme are in some respects. The massive casualties, the clash in high command between attritional plans and holding land/breaking through the enemy (von Falkenhayn vs. Fifth Army being similar to Haig vs. Rawlinson), and so on. Indeed, in the same way that the RAF and British Army in WWII wanted to avoid 'another Somme', you hear Hitler in his speeches proclaiming how his tactics in Stalingrad are intended to avoid 'a second Verdun'.

That gets into a whole other issue about remembrance. Verdun was used by Ludendorff to slander him and get him fired so that Ludendorff and Hindenburg could take over OHL; H-L had their hands on the Somme, which was a worse battle for Germany, but they didn't want to get blamed for their handling of things, so kept the focus on the 'waste of Verdun', which, to be fair, was a battle of choice, rather than the Somme, which was a defensive battle of necessity (of sorts). In that sense Verdun can be viewed as a 'battle of choice' to be avoided in the future, while the Somme wasn't in the same class as Stalingrad as a matter of choice. Actually the Verdun-Stalingrad comparison is very apt.

It would perhaps be interesting to consider what would have happened if the Germans withdrew from the Somme like they did in 1917 before the Entente attacked in July. It would disjoint their offensive, shorten the line thus freeing up many more German soldiers, prevent major casualties, force the British and French to build totally new infrastructure (especially if the Germans scorch the earth), and preserve their army for future battles.
The British wouldn't gain experience in the battle, though they would keep their new army intact and get to train it up, while the French wouldn't suffer as many losses in 1916, so would be stronger in 1917. In effect it would delay the Somme by a year, but would give the CPs a chance to absorb the other losses of 1916 instead of it badly degrading their performance.
 
Like I said casualty figures are hard.

I was never arguing for Edmonds numbers just noting that different armies use different systems. The point on the German system is that the sanits lightly wounded figure appears to be excluded from other german origin casualty figures , on the reasonable grounds that many of these men never left the firing line and for all practical purposes were not casualties even though recorded as such.
I don’t know what the British or French reporting system was but unless it broke down casualties in the same way and were summarised in the same way we are comparing different base numbers leading to different results statistically and that the only reliable numbers would be ‘irreplaceable losses’ KIA, MIA and POW,, plus a proportion of severely wounded, some of which would have been returned to duty in a very short period, others maimed for life. But the fact remains that whatever the cause that individual was no longer a factor in the war.
The figure 164k probably reflects the fact that the battle of the Somme, british terminology is 1 July 18 November but the numbers and the numbers you quote are from 21 July – 26 november i.e. missing i.e. missing 12 days casualties (and including 8 days after major action completed.) a casualty rate of 1750 per day which does not seem unreasonable.
Overall of course the Germans lost 10% of their force per day during the course of the war and the allies 5-6% but that’s the course of the war, the british losing 20% of strength on 1 July 16.

More important for the course of the war is the effect the fighting had on the troops and army commands. The net result of the 1916 fighting was the German army retreating to new positions in order to economise on manpower, changing their defensive doctrine and a general deterioration in combat power for a given unit vs the British and imperial forces in particular. Not suprising as the Germans had started with a better cadre who were dying and the British and imperial with a more amateur cadre who were becoming veterans.
 

Deleted member 1487

Like I said casualty figures are hard.

I was never arguing for Edmonds numbers just noting that different armies use different systems. The point on the German system is that the sanits lightly wounded figure appears to be excluded from other german origin casualty figures , on the reasonable grounds that many of these men never left the firing line and for all practical purposes were not casualties even though recorded as such.
I don’t know what the British or French reporting system was but unless it broke down casualties in the same way and were summarised in the same way we are comparing different base numbers leading to different results statistically and that the only reliable numbers would be ‘irreplaceable losses’ KIA, MIA and POW,, plus a proportion of severely wounded, some of which would have been returned to duty in a very short period, others maimed for life. But the fact remains that whatever the cause that individual was no longer a factor in the war.
The figure 164k probably reflects the fact that the battle of the Somme, british terminology is 1 July 18 November but the numbers and the numbers you quote are from 21 July – 26 november i.e. missing i.e. missing 12 days casualties (and including 8 days after major action completed.) a casualty rate of 1750 per day which does not seem unreasonable.
Overall of course the Germans lost 10% of their force per day during the course of the war and the allies 5-6% but that’s the course of the war, the british losing 20% of strength on 1 July 16..
Check again, those numbers are from JUNE 21st, not July.

Germany did not lose 164 kia on the Somme, as that number included POWs as well, which turned out to be some 31k.

Edit:
Looking through the official numbers from late June through November, here were German losses:
http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=129974

Forgive me if I post another Sanits tabulation - it's hard to digest these statistics - but here is its compilation for the Somme from June 21st to November 26th 1916:
Killed 57,987
Missing 85,683
Wounded 273,132


So if there were 31,000 POWs during the Somme, then that means German dead totalled: 112,670
If not and all the missing were dead then the total is: 143,670.
I'm not sure where the death toll of 164,000 is coming from.

More important for the course of the war is the effect the fighting had on the troops and army commands. The net result of the 1916 fighting was the German army retreating to new positions in order to economise on manpower, changing their defensive doctrine and a general deterioration in combat power for a given unit vs the British and imperial forces in particular. Not suprising as the Germans had started with a better cadre who were dying and the British and imperial with a more amateur cadre who were becoming veterans.
Agreed.
 
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