Today in 1916 marked the end of the Battle of Verdun. It's chalked up as a French victory because the Germans didn't achieve their strategic objectives, but with over 1 million casualties on both sides and nearly 300,000 killed over 10 months, it's a Pyrrhic victory at best.
The Germans attacked the French in the area of Verdun on 21 February 1916. The German objective was not to acquire territory (although that would have suited them just fine), but to defeat the French in a battle of attrition and cause so many casualties that the French would just give up. It would have worked except that the Germans vastly underestimated the French attachment to the area around Verdun. This area, in the northeast of France, was a natural corridor through which invasions had come since the Dark Ages. The French, starting in the 1880s had continually improved the fortifications in and around Verdun and were determined that no one would ever break through there again. The French were willing to throw in many of their reserve divisions in order to keep Verdun. They also took some lessons from the Germans and became much more proficient at defense in depth.
Verdun was in many ways a battle of artillery. Both sides used large numbers of artillery from small 75mm field guns up to 440mm siege weapons. During many assaults, both sides would regularly throw more than 1 million shells against their enemy in just a few days. Most of the casualties during the 10-month battle were the result of artillery.
For the first few months of the battle, from February through June 1916, the French were just hanging on. If the Germans had had more infantry and artillery their plan may have worked. But on 1 July 1916, the British and French attacked further north and west on the Somme River - a battle that would last 5 months and cause another 1 million casualties - and this caused the Germans to draw off both guns and troops from Verdun to bolster their defenses along the Somme. At this point the French began a series of offensives that gradually pushed the Germans back until the last offensive from 15 - 18 December settled the front roughly back where it was in February.
While Verdun was largely a stalemate in the end, it marked a turning point in strategies on both sides. For the first time the Germans used their newly trained stormtroopers to break through trenches and open holes in the French lines. The French, for their part, began perfecting the use of the creeping artillery barrage that would eventually be one of the ways to open up the Western Front and turn it from a static affair and back into a war of movement.
