Far be it for me to defend Conrad. He's the one that stripped the front bare for the attack in Italy. The extra guns, better units and ammunition would make a big difference in Galicia. In fact he might prempt Brusilov, by accident and demolish his assembly areas. The AH army couldn't really replace the long serving multilingual officers and NCOs lost in 1914. The Russians had a similar problem plus a weak NCO corps.
REDUX: Place In The Sun: What If Italy Joined The Central Powers?
- Thread starter Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
- Start date
The alternatives for Hungary include a revolution with something like the First Hungarian Republic or Béla Kun's Communist Hungarian revolution as an outcome. They'll need the Austrian Army to bail them out as Romania
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Romania has been neutral till now so unlike all the rest of the nation of the region is not spent, the Austrian army it's a little spent and even the Austrian part of the Empire had his own problem...well they are really interesting time
Thanks! They're in a position to pick up/negotiate for Moldova thanks to the Russian civil war and local's fear of communism, and parts of Transylvania and other Romanian inhabited territories. Romania can parrot WW's lines.
Hungary seems caught between a rock and a hard place.
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And the fact that the war of going till 1917 at the very least, and the fact that the brusilov offensive means that even with Italian foodstuff the empire is in a world of hurt, and the anti Slavic sentiments in the war would only make incorporating the Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians and Croatians harder anyways.
I think we'd see A-H run for a little while longer post WWI, and fall due to the failure of the Austrians and Hungarians to reform the country.
OTL Austria Hungary held out until October 1918 (and as such didn't collapse much earlier than Germany) but when they are on the winning side in a shorter war (with a not quite as succesful blockade) their survival is unrealistic? Granted it will have troubles to deal with, but calling it all but doomed seems to be a rather hasty conclusion.
FJ and his clique were the main barrier to reform in Austria. FF's marriage should have resulted in more support from the Czech region as his wife was bohemian nobility. FJ's clique insisted on a morganatic marriage and they boycotted the wedding. This dispite the fact that Sophie was of royal blood by being a descendant of the Habsburgs.
"""
Sophia's position at the Imperial court was humiliating, aggravated by the Imperial Obersthofmeister(court-master), Alfred, 2nd Prince of Montenuovo, from a morganatic background rigorously enforce court protocol at Sophie's expense. Problems of protocol prevented many royal courts from hosting the couple despite Franz Ferdinand's position as heir to the throne. Nonetheless, some did so, including King George V and Queen Mary of the United Kingdom, who warmly welcomed the couple to Windsor Castle from 17–21 November 1913. Queen Mary's father, Francis, Duke of Teck, was the offspring of a morganatic marriage and was shunned by royal families in Europe.
"""
Montenuovo was a long-time enemy of Franz Ferdinand. Following the assassination at Sarajevo in 1914, and with the emperor's connivance, Montenuovo decided to turn the funeral into a massive and vicious snub. Even though most foreign royalty had planned to attend, they were pointedly disinvited and the funeral was attended by just the immediate imperial family, with the dead couple's three children excluded from the few public ceremonies. The officer corps was forbidden to salute the funeral train, and this led to a minor revolt led by Archduke Karl, the new heir to the throne. The public viewing of the coffins was curtailed severely and even more scandalously, Montenuovo tried unsuccessfully to make the children foot the bill. The Archduke and Duchess were interred at Artstetten Castle because the Duchess could not be buried in the Imperial Crypt.
"""
FJ was a piece of work.
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Oh, I believe you missunderstood me. The A-H is not going to collapse anytime soon. It will probably stumble along for half a decade or more and attempts of reform will happen. But after repeated failures to reform due to Hungarian opposition, the hungarian half would secede as they weren't all that suportive of the empire in the first place.
Some great discussion here on the future of Austria-Hungary: a subject I've always been interested in. We are still a long way from the end of the war, never mind a political crisis in the Dual Monarchy, but here's some of my general thoughts:
-The Italian minorities within the Empire are, for the moment, quiet- they fully expect to be annexed via plebiscite once the fighting is over and so have no reason to be disloyal. If the plebiscites don't go their way then things could get very messy very fast; it's worth remembering that Rome and Vienna are more partners of convenience bound together by common enemies and alliance with Germany, than genuine allies of conviction.
-Hungary will not under any circumstances accept more annexations which would distill their unique status within the Empire: Austria-Hungary will come away no larger than before, except maybe taking the coast of Montenegro to deny their Serbian puppet access to the sea. The western half of the empire is still very much dependent on the Hungarians for agricultural supplies. In general, the Hungarians are going to take the position that now the war is over, and the venerable Franz Joseph is dead, the Austrian half needs to pay them "due respect"- that is, any attempt to replicate the 1867 Compromise with Bohemians or South Slavs will end in secession. The Compromise came up for review every ten years- 1917 will be as much of a non-event as OTL, as the war is still nominally ongoing, but 1927 could bring about a major constitutional crisis, possibly escalating into civil war.
-Unlike OTL, Austro-Hungarian troops are occupying all of Poland; the German soldiers stationed there in OTL are at the front. This gives Vienna a lot more leverage regarding that country's fate than OTL- provided Germany can get the resources it wants, and annex its Border Strip after the war (something which, AFAIK, pretty much everyone in the military high command, not just Hindenburg and Ludendorff, favoured), it doesn't really care. This means Archduke Charles Stephen is going to become King of Poland in 1917 or 1918, tying the country to the Dual Monarchy. Rump Poland will be an Austro-Hungarian puppet, not a German one, for as long as the Dual Monarchy continues to exist.
-South Slavic nationalism is dead and buried, quite by design. Everyone with ties to the prewar Serbian government, never mind the Black Hand and similar terrorist groups, is going to face brutal persecution wherever they go. Finding a legitimate monarch to rule the country will be tricky- the Obrenovics had a nasty habit of getting assassinated. A Wikipedia dive tells me the best candidate for the throne is Prince Mirko of Montenegro, who married the great granddaughter of nineteenth-century prince Mihailo Obrenovic. Given his age (he died in 1918) and the fact that Austria-Hungary occupied his native country, the most likely scenario in my mind is a Serbia-Montenegro union under Mirko's son Michael, who was all of ten years old at this point. Habsburg "advisers" can run the country, and when Michael comes of age, he can marry a Hohenzollern/Habsburg princess and forge a dynasty with ties to the Central Powers.
-Austria-Hungary's domestic situation is still not great by 1918, but it could also be worse: Italian and Polish foodstuffs are making a positive difference, and the lack of an Italian front has freed up men to help bring in the harvests. Times are still lean, but we're also not seeing malnourished boys in the streets of Vienna. This will give the regime some of the breathing room it lacked in OTL.
-Victory over the Serbs and Russians, plus less subordination to Germany than OTL, has given the Habsburg Dynasty a legitimacy boost which it lost in OTL 1918: it's much easier to blame economic problems on "the damned war" when you're winning said conflict. By the end, the country is also shielded from the worst of the fighting: France is a long way off, Italy is friendly or at least a co-belligerent, Serbia is crushed, Romania neutral, Poland occupied, and Russia, at minimum, is not an existential threat. No threat of the Allies knocking Bulgaria out of the war and attacking from the south at the eleventh hour.
In general, I don't want to comment on who's right and who's wrong. This is in part because I haven't made a final decision yet myself on where to take the country, and because I want to foster discussion: that gives me new ideas and dispels bad ones (such as that Britain would sooner drag out the war indefinitely than give back a single German Colony), which makes the timeline better. I take every comment into consideration so thank you all for your feedback.
@Skulduggery, I was glad to see you mention The Habsburg Empire, A New History: Judson's work was the first to open my eyes to the Habsburg Empire seen "from the inside" as opposed to the traditional, post-Versailles view.
As an aside, has anyone read John Connolly's From Peoples into Nations? Picked it up in spring 2022 and while I was disappointed to see it omit Ukraine, it was still an excellent read and helped form my views on Eastern Europe in this time period. I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on it, or any similar books worth reading.
Thanks as always for reading and commenting.
-The Italian minorities within the Empire are, for the moment, quiet- they fully expect to be annexed via plebiscite once the fighting is over and so have no reason to be disloyal. If the plebiscites don't go their way then things could get very messy very fast; it's worth remembering that Rome and Vienna are more partners of convenience bound together by common enemies and alliance with Germany, than genuine allies of conviction.
-Hungary will not under any circumstances accept more annexations which would distill their unique status within the Empire: Austria-Hungary will come away no larger than before, except maybe taking the coast of Montenegro to deny their Serbian puppet access to the sea. The western half of the empire is still very much dependent on the Hungarians for agricultural supplies. In general, the Hungarians are going to take the position that now the war is over, and the venerable Franz Joseph is dead, the Austrian half needs to pay them "due respect"- that is, any attempt to replicate the 1867 Compromise with Bohemians or South Slavs will end in secession. The Compromise came up for review every ten years- 1917 will be as much of a non-event as OTL, as the war is still nominally ongoing, but 1927 could bring about a major constitutional crisis, possibly escalating into civil war.
-Unlike OTL, Austro-Hungarian troops are occupying all of Poland; the German soldiers stationed there in OTL are at the front. This gives Vienna a lot more leverage regarding that country's fate than OTL- provided Germany can get the resources it wants, and annex its Border Strip after the war (something which, AFAIK, pretty much everyone in the military high command, not just Hindenburg and Ludendorff, favoured), it doesn't really care. This means Archduke Charles Stephen is going to become King of Poland in 1917 or 1918, tying the country to the Dual Monarchy. Rump Poland will be an Austro-Hungarian puppet, not a German one, for as long as the Dual Monarchy continues to exist.
-South Slavic nationalism is dead and buried, quite by design. Everyone with ties to the prewar Serbian government, never mind the Black Hand and similar terrorist groups, is going to face brutal persecution wherever they go. Finding a legitimate monarch to rule the country will be tricky- the Obrenovics had a nasty habit of getting assassinated. A Wikipedia dive tells me the best candidate for the throne is Prince Mirko of Montenegro, who married the great granddaughter of nineteenth-century prince Mihailo Obrenovic. Given his age (he died in 1918) and the fact that Austria-Hungary occupied his native country, the most likely scenario in my mind is a Serbia-Montenegro union under Mirko's son Michael, who was all of ten years old at this point. Habsburg "advisers" can run the country, and when Michael comes of age, he can marry a Hohenzollern/Habsburg princess and forge a dynasty with ties to the Central Powers.
-Austria-Hungary's domestic situation is still not great by 1918, but it could also be worse: Italian and Polish foodstuffs are making a positive difference, and the lack of an Italian front has freed up men to help bring in the harvests. Times are still lean, but we're also not seeing malnourished boys in the streets of Vienna. This will give the regime some of the breathing room it lacked in OTL.
-Victory over the Serbs and Russians, plus less subordination to Germany than OTL, has given the Habsburg Dynasty a legitimacy boost which it lost in OTL 1918: it's much easier to blame economic problems on "the damned war" when you're winning said conflict. By the end, the country is also shielded from the worst of the fighting: France is a long way off, Italy is friendly or at least a co-belligerent, Serbia is crushed, Romania neutral, Poland occupied, and Russia, at minimum, is not an existential threat. No threat of the Allies knocking Bulgaria out of the war and attacking from the south at the eleventh hour.
In general, I don't want to comment on who's right and who's wrong. This is in part because I haven't made a final decision yet myself on where to take the country, and because I want to foster discussion: that gives me new ideas and dispels bad ones (such as that Britain would sooner drag out the war indefinitely than give back a single German Colony), which makes the timeline better. I take every comment into consideration so thank you all for your feedback.
@Skulduggery, I was glad to see you mention The Habsburg Empire, A New History: Judson's work was the first to open my eyes to the Habsburg Empire seen "from the inside" as opposed to the traditional, post-Versailles view.
As an aside, has anyone read John Connolly's From Peoples into Nations? Picked it up in spring 2022 and while I was disappointed to see it omit Ukraine, it was still an excellent read and helped form my views on Eastern Europe in this time period. I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on it, or any similar books worth reading.
Thanks as always for reading and commenting.
So it sounds like for the short term Austria-Hungary is stable. It has long term internal politics which it has to figure out how to resolve, but that's something for future Austria-Hungary to figure out. There doesn't seem any imminent chance of the various states dissolving or hemorrhaging into thier constituent ethnic groups for at least the next few years.
The Central Powers seem like they'll have enough food and resources to be mostly stable (if not prosperous) and so long as they're winning. Romania will be neutral or possibly a co-belligerent (if they go to get adventurous and take chunks out of Russia). That means that Romania will also likely be willing to sell the CP lots of food and oil (and lots of peasants to work in the fields).
Without the US involved the blockade won't be nearly as tight as it was going into 1917. There's not going to be a lot of trade but there's not going to be the huge pressure politically that stopped most neutral nations from being willing to export things to Germany. And given that's how they got Italy into the war Britain might not be quite as willing to push hard on 'trade' to neutral nations. Or the US might not be as willing to tolerate them stopping sales by US firms to Sweden/Denmark/Spain/etc. Wilson will do his 'he kept us out of the war' thing and hopefully with the CP doing better Zimmerman won't do his ridiculous telegram to Mexico (though if you want to include something like it, the British had the German diplomatic code completely broken so they could likely fake such a telegram or do other things to embarrass Germany and keep the US reasonably hostile).
The Central Powers seem like they'll have enough food and resources to be mostly stable (if not prosperous) and so long as they're winning. Romania will be neutral or possibly a co-belligerent (if they go to get adventurous and take chunks out of Russia). That means that Romania will also likely be willing to sell the CP lots of food and oil (and lots of peasants to work in the fields).
Without the US involved the blockade won't be nearly as tight as it was going into 1917. There's not going to be a lot of trade but there's not going to be the huge pressure politically that stopped most neutral nations from being willing to export things to Germany. And given that's how they got Italy into the war Britain might not be quite as willing to push hard on 'trade' to neutral nations. Or the US might not be as willing to tolerate them stopping sales by US firms to Sweden/Denmark/Spain/etc. Wilson will do his 'he kept us out of the war' thing and hopefully with the CP doing better Zimmerman won't do his ridiculous telegram to Mexico (though if you want to include something like it, the British had the German diplomatic code completely broken so they could likely fake such a telegram or do other things to embarrass Germany and keep the US reasonably hostile).
It seems like FJ was at the root of a lot of problems of the Empire.
I think this is the key part. While the Hungarians have a fairly strong position now cause the Empire can hardly take another war and more disturbances to the food situation, they won't have that luxury in 27'. Austria holds the industrial base, and Hungary's minorities would revolt against them at the first chance. If it comes to civil war it'll be short and decisive one.
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If you took a liking to Conolly, and want something about specifically the Jewish diaspora in Central and Eastern Europe, I can recommend the book 'Uprooting the Diaspora', by Dr. Sarah Cramsey. She, if I recall correctly, did her PhD under Conolly, and was my professor on Habsburg history last year.
I'm not sure its something directly useful to your research, but considering how intertwined the diaspora has been with central/east european history, it might be worth checking out.
Chapter XXIII: "It Is A Mincing Machine"
Chapter XXIII
"It Is A Mincing Machine"
The Battle of Fort Sartelles becomes all the more tragic when one realizes how little good it did. For close to a month, Frenchmen and Germans died in droves to deny the position to the enemy and control the supply lines into the city of Verdun. Yet, Germany's triumph achieved nothing except killing the French soldiers of whom the city's defenders were in dire need. Multiple scholars have argued that Germany could have refrained from attacking the west bank at all: the French had to garrison the forts there, tying down their men regardless, while the ten extra German divisions might have let Falkenhayn enter Verdun proper two months earlier, and at far lower cost, than he actually did. It is worth noting that after Petain suspended the Fort Sartelles counteroffensive, rather than double down on the push south, the Kronprinz focused on building a tactical reserve with which to hit Verdun from the west, and did not sever la Voie Sacree until German troops were already inside the city, by which time it was already too late for the French. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means every casualty of the Battle of Fort Sartelles, on both sides, died in vain.
La Voie Sacree was not living up to the expectations both sides attached to it. French soldiers may have called it sacred, but that aura was fast wearing off as April dragged on. Joseph Joffre had decreed that if the nation could spare Petain no reinforcements, they ought to make it up to him in materiel. Quartermasters across the whole country were stripping their dumps clean and sending everything they could spare to Verdun. This took its toll on the road, and the rate of accidents increased throughout the month (while one American reporter wrote home that "the congestion of motor vehicles as far as the eye can see makes New York City seem an open plain through which horses can run freely!")
Attrition was eating not just at the French soldiers, but at their logistics train. Before the war, France had fewer than two hundred motor vehicles in its Army, hence the need to commandeer taxis to save the day during the Battle of the Marne. Wartime demands had made shells, boots, and weapons the foci of production; new technologies were luxuries at best and a waste at worst. Whatever the merits of this from a production perspective, it bound the French Army to trains and horses for transport, neither of which would do it any good in its present crisis. Few soldiers knew how to drive, and even fewer knew anything about maintaining cars. A round-trip from Bar-le-duc to Verdun is ninety miles, and it was not uncommon for drivers to spend two or three days straight at the wheel. Men and machines broke down with no hope of repair, while the road grew less and less capable of bearing the burden. By the time Fort Sartelles finally fell, the men who worked la Voie Sacree were unsure how much longer they could keep driving even if the Germans did not advance another inch.
The ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu declared in his Art of War that the line between order and disorder lay in logistics. It was a line which Philippe Petain now found himself on the wrong side of.
France's General Staff estimated that holding Verdun would require a minimum of two thousand tons of supplies a day, to say nothing of the need to take casualties to the rear and bring whatever reinforcements Joffre could scrape together to the front. Even ignoring mechanical failure and fuel shortages, this was a tremendous task for three and a half thousand vehicles souped up from all walks of life. By the end of the Fort Sartelles counteroffensive, the road had decayed past the point of easy repair while nearly half the French vehicles had broken down or had their drivers killed without a replacement. The flood of necessary supplies slowed to a trickle just as the Germans began advancing on the eastern bank. Pre-stocked emergency supplies in Verdun would keep Guillaumat and Balfourier's joint corps going for a little while longer- but would it be enough? What would happen when la Voie Sacree was no longer useable, or when there weren't enough cars and trucks to get the job done, or when the defenders of the city needed more than they had on hand?
Philippe Petain knew the answer in his bones. His diary entry for April 18th- six days after the end of the Fort Sartelles counteroffensive- expressed his desire to give up and withdraw the Second Army's blood-soaked remnants from the danger zone. The worst-case scenario, that France would lose fifteen percent of her army in one battle, loomed larger by the day, and due to something as humble as one road breaking down. Petain was of two minds. Every instinct in him told him to stand and fight, that France's honour and morale hinged on this one battle, that the nation- to say nothing of himself- had put too much in to give up now. Yet pragmatism balanced pride. Petain understood that he hadn't been able to implement his theories of artillery-based defence in the opening days of the battle, and when he took command it was already too late. Continuing to stand on the Meuse without the prospect of victory would only condemn more Frenchmen to death. From a strategic, to say nothing of moral, perspective this was indefensible. As de Bazelaire had visited him a week ago, he would go to Joseph Joffre and get permission to withdraw. A case of him "thinking too much about the French and not enough about France", but he saw no alternative.
Joffre laboured under something Petain never had to face: his position as Chief of the Army Staff made him in equal measures politician and soldier, and thus answerable to civilians without any understanding of how the war worked. Petain could view events from a tactical and strategic perspective, but Joffre had to consider the political ramifications if he wanted to keep his job. That tore the Chief of the Army Staff even more than it did his subordinate. Joffre understood the situation and agreed that from a military perspective, pulling back to Bar-le-Duc or a similar position was the only viable option. Petain said it might take half a million losses to drive the Germans back to their February 21 lines, to which Joffre replied that as a soldier, he would sooner contain an enemy breakthrough. Verdun was not essential to continuing the war, and there was ample space in eastern France on which to fall back. Provided the German and Italian armies were never able to link hands at the Swiss border, which both men knew to be impossible, there was nothing to lose by trading land for lives. After all, Joffre said with a wry smile, it was not as though the French would be launching many offensives any time soon. Yet Joffre had to consider the political question. As the visible head of the French Army, he had taken all the criticism for its failures thus far, some justified, most of it not. The "miracle on the Marne" was old news, and France's military and political elites associated him with the failed offensives in Champagne, the pointless slaughter of Menton, and now Verdun. Losing the city would spell the end of Joffre's career, and for that reason alone the battle had to go on.
Despite not being able to get Petain off the hook, Joffre offered him the next best thing: he promised to defend him from "any and all" charges of incompetence or slander which would come if the city fell. This did Petain less good than he might have hoped- Joseph Joffre's recommendation in the war's aftermath was perhaps the only thing worth less than the franc- but it went a long way towards rehabilitating the man after his death. Petain understood that all he could do was minimise defeat, not avert it, but as a good soldier he was determined to give the process everything he had.
Whatever dreams Petain might have had would never come to pass. That night, as he journeyed back to Verdun, Erich von Falkenhayn launched the final attack of Operation Gericht.
Germany had begun the Battle of Verdun with sixty divisions: ten on the west bank of the Meuse and another fifty on the right bank. Of these, ten had advanced along the southern length of the right bank to stretch out the French defenders, while forty divisions had broken through a narrow sector and headed due south for Verdun, smashing French fortifications and soldiers aside. Two months in, and only the city of Verdun itself held. The forts surrounding it- Douaumont, Vaux, and Belleville- were all in German hands, along with everything south of the city. Petain had consolidated two French corps into one and charged them with holding the city itself. Falkenhayn had hoped that losing Fort Sartelles, and with it the security of their supply lines, might persuade the defenders to give up. If not, he explained to Kronprinz Wilhelm, his men would have to storm the city. Falkenhayn's original battle plan had called for prolonging the fight to maximise enemy casualties regardless of German losses. Things had gone better than expected, but he was more than comfortable with reverting to this if it meant eradicating the final strongpoint.
At dawn on April 21, 1916, thirty German divisions began an attack against the city on a twelve-mile front spanning both banks of the Meuse. As had been the case throughout the whole battle, German forces were stronger on the eastern bank; three-fourths of their men and four-fifths of their artillery. Whereas German troops had already conquered every possible obstacle on the eastern bank, on the west the French enjoyed a three-mile buffer between the frontline and the city, including several elevated positions from which to fire what they could spare.
Within hours, the men of the 1st Bavarian Division had broken into the city proper. Guillaumat and Balfourier debated withdrawing, but there was no need: the Bavarians and all who followed them found in their "victory" a greater challenge than ever before. All the civilians were long gone, with some having been marched at gunpoint through open fields so as not to clog up la Voie Sacree. Verdun gave the French all the advantages of a tight urban defence, with none of the concerns about rules of engagement. Not for the first time in their history, the French took to the barricades against a hated enemy, the only difference being that this time, the foe spoke a different language.
Against all the odds, Guillaumat and Balfourier were still determined to hold the city. There was, of course, no hope for an oversized corps to defeat thirty divisions, but nothing in their correspondence or Petain's memoirs suggests that either contemplated withdrawal. Petain's Order for the Day sums up this brave but stupid mentality- "not one step backwards!" Following against all the odds would kill thousands; many more would die after their building was surrounded by men in feldgrau and they could not run fast enough.
Falkenhayn's men fired all of their gas shells into the city, turning it into a toxic wasteland where every man needed a mask to survive. Had Eastern France not been so chilly in the spring, heat exhaustion and suffocation from wearing the rubber masks day in and day out would have killed many. As it was, by the time the Germans ran out of gas shells, Verdun made the wreckage of Fort Sartelles seem like a mountain paradise. The air took on a stench of phosgene and chlorine; southerly winds blew the witch's brew onto la Voie Sacree, killing many drivers whose automobiles lacked windows to close. That exhausted, the Germans resorted to saturation bombardments. Falkenhayn declared on April 30th that "not a single edifice should remain standing in that city unless it is occupied by German soldiers", and his gunners lived up to his wish as best they could. Half a million shells fell on the city in one week, many splashing into the Meuse and starting floods, yet enough buildings stayed upright for the French to hold on. In fact, the rubble was often easier to defend than standing buildings- barrages could no longer do anything but throw the rock around, and fragments provided excellent cover for infantry.
High ground became the most precious tactical commodity: it let a sniper or machine-gunner dominate as far as his eye could see. Provided no one on the ground noticed him, he could rain bullets on enemy troops powerless to respond, or provide cover fire that might mean the difference between success and failure for a counteroffensive. Snipers fought their own parallel war as each picked out a rooftop of which he was fond, and then tried to discover and eliminate his enemies without being found himself. Such men became terrors for the grunts in the rubble. Rumours spread that captured snipers faced, not a bullet to the back of the head, but a punishment pulled from the Middle Ages: their first two fingers were cut off of each hand to render them unable to shoot, and then the infantry left them to bleed to death or be finished off.
Flammenwerfen were another terror for the French, and it was in Verdun proper that they made a name for themselves. There had been to few at Fort Sartelles, but here every man brave enough to volunteer received a tank and a hose. Jets of fire shot up into the sky, cutting through the chemical haze to burn some building down or push some French platoon from the rubble under which they had hid. Soon half of Verdun seemed to be on fire. Thick black smoke curled into the sky and seemed to blend with the clouds. Visible for miles around, it struck terror into the hearts of all who saw it. German soldiers dreaded being shoved into the inferno. Frenchmen saw the perfect metaphor for their country's fate. Surrounded by hostile states, forced to fight for its life against overwhelming odds, France herself was burning down and no one seemed able to quench the blaze.
Captured Flammenwerfen faced punishments which would have made even the hardest veterans of any prior battle recoil. The case of Sergeant Gunther Harzburg of the 44th Reserve Division, who was captured during a night raid on May 3, with his flame-thrower on his back, stands in for at least two dozen other men. A dozen poilus dragged Harzburg to the rear, stripped him of his clothes, and tied him to a wooden wheel taken from a damaged supply wagon, which they then lit alight. Harzburg burned to death as thirty Frenchmen, including the company commander, looked on and cheered. Once the 44th Reserve Division's commander, a lieutenant colonel who had been promoted after all his superiors were killed in action, found out about his fate, he had all the prisoners in the division's custody executed, for which he faced a court-martial after the war. Coincidentally, the military judge had been an infantry officer at Verdun, who had passed his judge's exam before the war but fought at the front out of patriotic convictions. He found the lieutenant colonel guilty- executing prisoners violated the Geneva Convention- but gave him the lightest possible sentence, and the man retired with an honourable discharge. The two crossed paths at a commemoration in spring 1941, where the judge told the lieutenant colonel that "my only regret in your case is that I was obliged to impose some sentence on you. I am a man of principle and a Christian, but I would have done the same in your shoes- we all left our principles and our faith behind us on the right bank of the Meuse."
No quarter was asked for nor given.
***
Pierre Soilon was now a lieutenant, but in charge of a company after the Captain got himself killed. Only four original Alphas Alpines- Mathieu Blanc, Georges, Mathieu "jambonais" the machine-gunner, and Henri the sergeant- were still alive out of twenty. Everyone else had been killed, most on the banks of the Meuse. No more fancy names for his unit now, no more glory or camaraderie- just a job to be done. His back still ached from the Italian sniper's bullet, but he would have given anything to be back at Menton again. Never thought I'd say that, he thought with a sour grin. From everything he heard, the line was still holding at Nice even with everything the country could spare heading up here.
"We're ready, sir." A sergeant sketched a salute and broke his reverie. "Everything is loaded up into the boats and ready to go."
"Tres bien." Pierre stared across the River Meuse, jet-black in the dark, Bodies, blood, debris, and chemicals choked it, and the Germans had plenty of men on the west side, but it still represented something. The last physical barrier between him and the battle which everyone had dreaded, what men were already calling the tenth circle of hell, reserved for those who'd committed the unforgivable sin of being born male in time for this great war. Nothing for it, though. "Allons-y!"
The 202nd Line Regiment was ferried over the Meuse, every man praying no German artilleryman spotted them. Night provided the best cover- it was a little after one in the morning- but if this war had taught him one thing, you never could tell. For the first time, the stench hit Pierre. Blood mixed with gas and the stench of decaying bodies, yes, but something worse, something not just putrid but alien, something absent in the Alps. Not just dread, but the certainty of death. Crossing the Meuse was a one-way journey; no man had any reason to think he'd come back alive. Pierre gave the polluted waters a longing glance. A moment's jump and it would all be over- he would get to be the master of his own death, at least. Even if he drowned or was shot for a deserter, it would be better than ceding his life to some damned kraut who he didn't know and had no reason to hate, when this whole damned war was nothing but a charade- it was all a lie, none of it served any purpose- to see who could kill more of their own people to no end. Better to end it all on his own terms, at least.
Too late- the boat reached the opposite bank of the Meuse. The regimental commander began barking orders, and the rational part of Pierre's mind switched on again. Men climbed onto the riverbanks, and weary sergeants gathered them up like small children. No screaming orders, no parade-ground nonsense. They were all in this together now.
An officer from the corps walked over. He was probably Pierre's age but looked, in the most literal sense, like Death. Pale flesh clung to his skull and black bags hung under his bloodshot eyes. One of his front teeth was missing and the others were all yellow. His beard spiralled out of control and layers of blood and grime coated his blue uniform. This is what Verdun does to a man, Pierre thought- and soon enough, that will be me. He ran a hand along his smooth cheek to wish it farewell.
The officer gave the regiment its orders, and the Frenchmen fanned out across their sector, turning building after building into strongholds. It was still dark, but the enemy could come at you at the first glimmer of light. That was how it had worked in Italy, and it would only be worse here. Pierre took Platoon A into a three-storey building on a street corner; his men occupied the first level, the company medics the second, and the top level became a makeshift headquarters. Four snipers belonging to a special unit attached to the 202nd Regiment looked out of the top windows while Pierre sat at a desk in what had once been an accountant's office, watching his men haul everything in.
Gunfire rumbled in the distance as the small hours dragged on. The first machine gun rattled to life around five AM- Pierre could not tell whose- and then the whoosh of a mortar, followed by an explosion. Once upon a time, that would have made him jump. No more. It was nowhere near him and so why would he care? Pierre kept his head down, gnawed on his Army chocolate to keep his eyes open, and chewed on the paperwork division HQ wanted. Even on the edge of the Inferno, someone wanted forms filled out. It was, he supposed, the cost of being an officer.
At around six in the morning, the gunfire grew louder and Pierre reached for his sidearm. The Modele 1892 could have been stronger, but it would get the job done in an emergency. Extra rounds jingled in his breast pocket next to his binoculars, just in case. He stared out the window through the haze and got his first look at the Germans. Tiny little men in grey, crouched underneath the rubble, creeping forward towards tiny little men in a different shade of grey, crouched underneath the rubble. Nothing to separate them, but... they are the enemy. And if those men do not drive them back, they'll have no qualms about killing everyone in this building and all of France. Now it all made sense. If he didn't hold these little grey men back, they would overrun the building, and all of Verdun, and break through into la Nation just as they had in 1914. If they got Julie, or her sister, or her parents... His fist clenched around the Modele 1892. That would not, could not, happen, and if he had to kill every last one of the Boches, then so be it.
The snipers opened fire as Pierre walked to the second floor. The company medics came to attention and saluted him. "Tout bien?", he asked.
"Oui, lieutenant", they said. "Nothing to do here.. yet." The medic's mouth twisted into something that was not a smile. "How long, sir, before..."
"Not long enough." Pierre grimaced. How could two men with the simplest of instruments save all the Frenchmen about to be wounded? How could an ambulance hope to collect all of the wounded? How could anyone be expected to rest if the battle closed in over their heads? How could anyone be evacuated across the Meuse? "The Boches are moving faster than we'd thought, damn them. If I was you, I would pull out now. We have enough stretchers, n'est-ce pas?" The medic nodded. "Well then, head back just as far as you can- maybe back to the Regiment's headquarters, even the Division's if they will let you. The men can carry their own wounded back- I can designate a squad for that purpose. That way, you have..." The words died on his tongue. Saying a chance would have told the medics the truth. This position couldn't hold for more than a few days, and it would never be safe enough for an aid station. From everything he had seen, Verdun itself could not hold for much longer- so what chance did any of them have? Saying nothing wasn't an option, though. "That way, you have some space between you and the enemy, and your wounded have a place to rest up."
"Oui, lieutenant." The medic's grey eyes stared through Pierre, through the concrete wall, out at the enemy creeping closer every minute. Never in eighteen months of war had Pierre felt so helpless. Good men, who trusted their commanders and doctors like their fathers, were about to die and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
An explosion shook the building, throwing both men to the ground. Pierre scrambled back up. "What the hell?" That felt like a mortar blast, or artillery... Fear twisted his stomach. Were the Germans trying to shell him to death from long-range? Would he not even be able to fight back, crushed under the weight of metal like an insect? It was almost offensive. He wanted to fight back even if he died, to get some lick in against the Boches.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" Henri the sergeant rushed in and sketched a salute. "They have mortars and they're coming forward!"
"Montrez-moi." Pierre stormed forward, brushing Henri aside, fists clenched. They went back to the third floor and he grabbed his binoculars. Sure enough, the enemy was moving forward and his men were falling back to the largest building in sight. About fucking time, he thought. Let's show them why we're in this damned battle to start with. Pierre turned to the sentry. "Tell everyone to shoot anything that moves and speaks German. If they want to try and get after it, they are welcome to see what we can do!" Fire lit up his belly and his green eyes shone.
Against all the odds, Henri smiled. That was when Pierre knew the men would get the job done- or at least die with honour.
"Tell Jambonais and his belt-loader to come up here", Pierre said, "and get a few others with him to knock these tables apart, whatever else we don't need. Once les Boches get too close to fire on, we can drop things on their heads, make them pay attention." Just about the only place France seemed ahead of the invaders was in its helmets. Poilus wore metal helmets that would blunt shrapnel or a falling object, even if they couldn't stop a direct hit. Germans still wore leather spiked hats. A falling beam or chunk of concrete might give a Frenchman a concussion- it would fracture a German's skull. "Then go tell the medics not to bother about pulling back. They'll... they will have to go into the basement." He hated not giving them a chance to get back of the line, but pulling out in the middle of an enemy attack would just be too dangerous. Besides, the men too wounded to fight would need somewhere to go, and why not a place with professionals on hand? "What rations do we have?"
"Just what the men carry, sir." Henri shrugged; Pierre spat an obscenity. "Do you think, sir, that we will be here long enough for that to matter?"
"I have heard of whole companies battling it out for buildings such as these, mais oui. If things get to that point, Henri, we will need the extra supplies. Look at our comrades in Sartelles- nothing to eat nor drink. Speaking of- what about gas masks?"
Henri nodded. "Everyone has his, sir. I checked, and I believe the other sergeants did as well. If not, well..." Henri's mouth twisted and his eyes lit up. "If not, we won't need to worry about how many rations we have stored up, sir."
Despite all the darkness- or perhaps because of it- Pierre chuckled. "Tres bien, Sergeant. Now tell the men to be ready. We need to get after it." Henri sketched a salute and dashed off.
Pierre sat on the first floor, sidearm in hand, as the German attack began. Gunfire, screams, confusion, and stench filled the room, but not pure chaos. Every man here was a veteran who knew their job; they did the best they could with what they had. If they didn't, it would only have put them in more danger. As the morning dragged on, the battle took on a rhythm of its own. Pierre had seen that in Italy: each man focused on his own job and staying above the bedlam. You couldn't go far wrong there- but as an officer, Pierre had to see through the chaos. Men shot out of the windows; the Germans shot back. Stretcher-bearers carried the wounded to the basement, where the medics did their best. Most, Pierre knew, would not make it, but some would. That had been him not so long ago- his back ached at the memory.
Two mortar rounds burst just short of the window, tossing the men about like rag dolls and throwing Pierre to the ground. His wrist howled as he got up, heart racing. Curses filled the room, but most of the poilus got back to their feet and kept fighting. A few, though, stayed down- one of whom was the medic. Blood flowed from a wound in his chest and his face contorted with pain. His eyes, once grey, were now bloodshot red. Pierre dashed over.
"Come on", he said, "we have to get you downstairs. Your assistant can.. your assistant..." There was no point in finishing. Both men knew the medic was dying. A steel fragment had pierced his chest, and it looked to be almost an inch deep. Even a simple infantry officer could tell there was no coming back from that. But what was there to do? Pierre dragged the medic into the basement, where a dozen wounded men lay prostrate. Their faces were strained and pale, and their bandages were dirty and clotted with blood. Some stared at the wall or ceiling with grey eyes, never to see anything again. Wouldn't be such a bad thing, Pierre thought. He left the medic where he was and waved down a private. "What can you do for him?"
"Not much, I fear, lieutenant. Of all the people to catch it here and now... merde." He didn't notice that he'd sworn in front of a superior officer and Pierre didn't care. Only a fool would spend his last hours caring about military discipline. "I shall do everything I can, and he will be the priority, but..." Both men stared at the medic's chest, still rising and falling, grating against the mortar fragment, making the wound that much worse. If a collapsed lung didn't kill him, blood loss would, and if he somehow stayed alive long enough to get to a proper hospital, infection would deliver the final blow.
Pierre shook his head. "A good man. He did his job and now we have to keep doing ours." The soldier sketched a salute and Pierre dashed up to the ground floor.
The sounds of battle died down. "They're pulling back, sir", said Sergeant Henri. "The Boche commander must have thought he could buy this on the cheap, n'est-ce pas? We showed him- didn't we men?" A few cheered, but most gave him little more than a weary smile, the din of battle still ringing in their ears and their friends dying over and over again on repeat before them. Everyone's heart threatened to pound out of their chests.
Once more, Pierre shook his head. "We may have showed them this time, but they'll be back in force. Oh yes they will." He ran a hand along his cheek, now scratchy. "This isn't like the old days, damn it." Bitterness poisoned his whisper. Italy had been a waste, true, but it had been a fair fight. Les Alphas Alpines had bonded in the mountains and fought with honour, in pursuit of la glorie. None of them had found it, but the hope had been there. This... this was a mincing machine, not a war. Or was war nothing more than a mincing machine, and Pierre and everyone else had gotten it wrong the whole time?
"What should we do, sir?"
Henri snapped Pierre out of his thoughts. The rational part of his brain switched back on. "Get a head count. How many are still alive, how many wounded, how much ammunition do we have left. Second thing, get in touch with division headquarters. You'll need to send a runner, no chance you'll find a field telephone anywhere in this damned mess. Let them know the company's still holding this position, but we need reinforcements as fast as they can get here." Pierre grimaced. Verdun had one hell of a lot of defensive positions, most of which weren't even intact buildings. Every junior officer in the city had to be screaming for reinforcements... and he was on the far side of the Meuse. What were the odds anyone could spare something for him, only a few hours after his unit had arrived. No time to think about that now. "Third, if you can make it happen, try and get the wounded to safety, see if you can get them on a boat across the Meuse. Oh- and whatever heavy weapons you have, save some cartridges for an emergency. We're liable to need them. And for the love of le bon Dieu, make sure everyone has their gas masks on hand. Boches are going to hit us with chemicals, I expect, just like at Sartelles. Vite, vite!" Henri saluted and dashed off. Once more, Pierre grabbed his binoculars- how the hell did they wind up back in my pocket?- and went up to the top floor.
Only two of the four snipers remained. "Benoit's dead, Jude was wounded", explained one. "We dropped all of that rubbish on the Boches, it worked better than I'd thought." Pierre nodded and, taking a sip of water- he was, he realised, drenched in sweat- stared out the window, and got his first good look at the town for which he and his men were supposed to die. An enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke mixed with dust and gas enveloped Verdun; columns of black smoke shot up as far as the eye could see. Dozens of rifles popped off every second, making a constant low-level humming, as if thousands of birds were chirping poison, broken every few seconds by a grenade blast. French and German corpses, some whole, some mutilated, lay in the street, half-hanging out of windows, strewn atop rubble. Heaps of bricks, floods of blood, fragments of furniture and half-clothed men lay strewn about as if they were toys thrown about by some bored giant. Pierre shook his head and turned away. And all this in just one morning. "You men", he said, "how long have you been here?"
The snipers stared at him with coal-black eyes. He could read their thoughts- here was some new officer only just realising what he'd gotten himself into. For the first time since the war started, Pierre was ashamed of how little he'd done. "How long, lieutenant? Eighty days and eighty nights. Eighty days and eighty nights of hand-to-hand struggles, of watching la Nation tear itself apart. Eighty days of ferocious combat, picking off the foe from afar as these fanatics, these wild beasts, hurl themselves at us, and eighty scorching, howling, bleeding nights, nights when the rats die of gas-poisoning and even the hounds plunge into the Marne and swim desperately to reach the other bank." He scowled at Pierre. "Not even animals, lieutenant, can flee this hell, not even the hardest stones nor tallest edifices can bear it for long. Only us men endure. Verdun is not a town, lieutenant. It is a mincing machine."
"A mincing machine", Pierre repeated. "A mincing machine." He stared at the carnage once more and saw the Germans creeping forward as the thunder of guns drew close. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Pierre Soilon grabbed his sidearm and ran downstairs, though he couldn't have said why. Here lie the men of Platoon A, 202nd Line Regiment, he thought as he took aim. Here they fought and died for their country.
It's always frustrating being someone who really enjoys French TLs but also German TLs, because in a WWI scenario, one of them has to lose - in this case, I feel very bad for the French. We can't all have an Es Geloybte Aretz situation. Oh well.
Regardless, this is exceptionally well-written. You can really feel the despair of the French. Well done!
Regardless, this is exceptionally well-written. You can really feel the despair of the French. Well done!
Yes, now that you mention, I would certainly love a TL where France, Germany, Russia, and well, basically all European powers shake hands and go Britannia Delenda Est!
French troops parading down Trafalgar Square? Russians flying the Imperial tricolor from Westminster Palace? German ships anchored in the Thames? Yes please.
Honestly Joffre and the French government will cry and beg the Russian to launch an offensive to relieve some pressure or even berate the Royal Navy to leave all the fight in the Med to them
That...was a haunting ending of a chapter...god, it was incredibly written. Chills, I tell you, chills!
