![]() ![]() The French army attempted to medically discharge him due to his repeated injuries, but when the army was forced to allow disabled officers to volunteer for fort defense (so that able-bodied officers would be freed up for field service), Raynal immediately volunteered and was assigned to the defense of Fort Vaux. Upon his release from the hospital, he immediately returned to the front in October 2015, where he was again almost immediately gravely wounded by shrapnel, which nearly crippled him and would require him to walk with a cane for the rest of his life. He was gravely wounded three months later when a shell detonated near his command post, nearly killing him and hospitalizing him for more than 10 months. Raynal took a bullet in the shoulder at the onset of hostilities in September 1914, but returned to action shortly thereafter. However, if not for a series of blunders by French commanders, it might well have stood forever - or not been assaulted at all.ĭuring the fateful June battle, Vaux was under the command of one of the most remarkable French soldiers in history, Maj. Due to the bravery of the soldiers garrisoned there, the fort stood far longer than it should have. (Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP/Getty Images)Īnd at Fort Vaux, both that bravery and command incompetence were on full display. The defense of Fort Vaux was marked by the heroism and endurance of the garrison in 1916. ![]() But the battle at Fort Vaux, fought from June 1-8, 1916, was emblematic of the bravery and outright heroism (even in the face of command incompetence) displayed by French troops throughout the course of World War I.įort Vaux, built from 1881 to 1884, is pictured on Sept. 3, 2013, in Vaux-devant-Damloup, eastern France. The performance of the French military has been oft-maligned of late, and after consecutive debacles in World War II, Algeria, and Vietnam, that reputation might be deserved. Within the abattoir of Verdun, one battle symbolized the full horror of the Western front: the German assault on the poorly garrisoned and equipped Fort Vaux, which was supposed to at long last break the French line and pave the Germans' route to Paris. Modern warfare is positively sanitized by comparison: In over 15 years of combat in Afghanistan, fewer than 3,000 American soldiers have been killed in action. ![]() In a single battle lasting about 10 months, more than 700,000 combined soldiers died along a few short miles of a front in which almost no actual movement occurred.īy way of reference, the best estimates for the Battle of the Bulge show fewer than 100,000 killed in about a month and a half. Modern man can scarcely imagine, let alone believe, the carnage that befell the French fortress at Verdun just a short century ago during World War I. Today: the battle of Fort Vaux during the Battle of Verdun in 1916.īeginning on June 1, 1916, a garrison of fewer than 200 French soldiers, cut off from their own line, without a single large gun, and dying of thirst, withstood an incredible artillery barrage from superior German forces and a frontal assault of tens of thousands of German troops for over a week until they found themselves literally dying of thirst and were forced to surrender. Editor's note: TheBlaze occasionally runs stories on significant historical events.
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