Re:The Legend of Verdun
by danso on Sunday February 21, 2016 @07:02PM
(#11147370)
I finished the article but went immediately to Google for "Fort Douaumont", to learn more details of "the world’s most impregnable fort, [which] was, by a series of almost incredible errors in February 1916, virtually undefended" and the recapture of which "is estimated to have cost the French as many as 100,000 men".
> Kunze and his men reached the fort's moat and found that the wall casemates ("coffres") defending the moat were unoccupied. Kunze managed to climb inside one of them to open an access door. But his men refused to go inside the fortifications as they feared an ambush. Armed only with a bolt-action rifle, the Pioneer-Sergeant entered alone. He wandered around the empty tunnels until he found the artillery team, captured them and locked them up.
> By now, another group from the Brandenburg regiment, led by reserve-officer Lieutenant Radtke, was also entering the fort through its unoccupied defences. Radtke then made contact with Kunze's troops and organised them before they spread out, capturing a few more French defenders and securing the fort. Later, more columns of German troops under Hauptman Haupt and Oberleutnant von Brandis arrived. No shots were ever fired in the capture of Fort Douaumont. The only casualty was one of Kunze's men who scraped one of his knees.
Wikipedia has a pretty good writeup:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont
> Kunze and his men reached the fort's moat and found that the wall casemates ("coffres") defending the moat were unoccupied. Kunze managed to climb inside one of them to open an access door. But his men refused to go inside the fortifications as they feared an ambush. Armed only with a bolt-action rifle, the Pioneer-Sergeant entered alone. He wandered around the empty tunnels until he found the artillery team, captured them and locked them up.
> By now, another group from the Brandenburg regiment, led by reserve-officer Lieutenant Radtke, was also entering the fort through its unoccupied defences. Radtke then made contact with Kunze's troops and organised them before they spread out, capturing a few more French defenders and securing the fort. Later, more columns of German troops under Hauptman Haupt and Oberleutnant von Brandis arrived. No shots were ever fired in the capture of Fort Douaumont. The only casualty was one of Kunze's men who scraped one of his knees.