![]() ![]() Verdun was at this juncture not the subject of any specific German myth. However, this was an ex post facto reconstruction intended to mask the failure of an offensive that was actually intended to accelerate events along the Western Front. On the German side, Verdun was a battle of attrition which Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922) claimed to have conceived from the start as a deliberate bleeding dry of the French army. This discourse was accompanied by a glorification of the fighters at Verdun, as both martyrs and heroes. This choice, in turn, fuelled the existential myth of a German invasion and of a French resistance, encapsulated by Robert Nivelle’s (1856-1924) June 1916 phrase “they shall not pass.” The rotating door relief system implemented by Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) also made Verdun a national battle par excellence, one in which most French soldiers fought. On the French side, defending Verdun at all costs stemmed from a logic that was more political than military. Thus, a battle of attrition morphed into an epic struggle or into a fight for the very survival of the nation. But its memory, which was already taking shape in the heat of battle, and the tragic or triumphant narratives that emerged, provided the basis for subsequent reinterpretation. At first, it was simply conceived on the German side as the suppression of a bothersome protrusion in the front, while on the French side it was intended to remain a secondary battle. ![]() Combat conditions were terrible, but no worse than at Ypres or in the Aisne. It was a battle of materiel, yet it proved less murderous than the first months of the conflict. Verdun may have been a long battle, but it was not a decisive one. ![]()
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