PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE 206
Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf… and the “hell of Verdun”
PRE-WAR RISE
Born on December 13, 1860 in Frankfurt an der Oder (in Prussian Brandenburg), Konstantin Heinrich Schmidt von Knobelsdorf began his military career with the Cadet Corps. In mid-April 1878, he joined the Fourth Magdeburg Infantry Regiment Number 67 in Metz with the rank of second lieutenant. Then in March 1881, he became part of the 98th Infantry Regiment in Metz.
Knobelsdorf traveled to Berlin where he entered the Prussian War Academy in October 1884. He returned to his old regiment in Metz in the summer of 1887, now holding the rank of first lieutenant. Two years later, Knobelsdorf became a regimental adjutant with the unit.
As the spring of 1890 got underway, Knobelsdorf joined Berlin’s Great General Staff. Two years later, he became a captain. Then in March 1893, Knobelsdorf became company commander with the Fourth Foot Guard Regiment in Berlin.
In May 1897, Knobelsdorf was on on Carl von Stünzer’s general staff with the Second Infantry Division in Königsberg. He attained the rank of major in April 1898. Then in July 1899, Knobelsdorf became part of Robert von Massow’s general staff with IX Corps in Altona near Hamburg.
More opportunities came for Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf at the start of the 20th century. In April 1901, he was a battalion commander with the First Hannover Infantry Regiment Number 74. Just over three years later, Knobelsdorf was named the provisional chief of staff with X Corps in Hannover. Upon his promotion to lieutenant colonel, Knobelsdorf was named Carl von Stünzer’s Chief of Staff with the same unit that November. Then in April 1907, he was made a full colonel.
Knobelsdorf was back with the Fourth Foot Guard Regiment (now based in Koblenz) in August 1908 as its commander. He then became Alfred von Löwenfeld’s Chief of Staff with Berlin’s Guard Corps in January 1911…and was promoted to major general two months later. While in the German capital, Knobelsdorf became Senior Quartermaster of the General Staff in mid-November 1912. He earned yet another promotion to lieutenant general on the 55th birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm II (January 27, 1914).
THE DE FACTO COMMANDER
Imperial Germany went to war on the first of August 1914. The next day, Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf was named Chief of Staff with the German Fifth Army… which was led by the Kaiser’s eldest son, the Crown Prince Wilhelm.
However, the Crown Prince (aged thirty-two) had never commanded a unit larger than a regiment. In truth, Knobelsdorf was the de facto field commander of the German Fifth Army; he had been the Crown Prince’s military instructor during peacetime. As the German Army prepared for the fight, the Kaiser said the following to his son:
“I’ve entrusted to you command of the Fifth Army. Lt. General Schmidt von Knobelsdorf will accompany you as chief of staff… what he tells you, you must do.”
Knobelsdorf would serve with the Crown Prince for two years on the Western Front, including being named chief of staff for the army group named after the Kaiser’s son in August 1915. Two months later, Knobelsdorf was awarded Imperial Germany’s highest military honor (the Pour le Merite, or “Blue Max”) for distinguished service during the fighting at Maison de Champagne.
THE “HELL OF VERDUN”
Chief of the German General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn wrote a letter to the Kaiser on Christmas Day 1915 addressing the problems confronting Imperial Germany. He stated a drawn-out war could not be won because Germany’s manpower reserves were too thin. The British Empire was the “great adversary”, and the B.E.F. in Flanders was too strong to attack.
Falkenhayn concluded that Imperial Germany must knock out Great Britain’s “best sword” from her hand, namely republican France. He felt the French were at the breaking point, and if their armies were bled “white”, the Alliance would collapse. The solution was a limited offensive at a vital point in the French lines that would compel every available French soldier to the battle. That “point” was the fortress of Verdun.
But in reality, the plan (code-named Gericht) ignored every lesson that Falkenhayn had drawn from his own failures at First and Second Ypres: the attacker bleeds more than the defender. In the latter half of 1915, Germany played the more conservative role, as the Allies did their own bloodletting in Artois and the Champagne.
Despite the wisdom, Falkenhayn gambled that the French will to fight would be broken in one great battle of attrition. He even assured the Kaiser that Germany would lose only one third as many soldiers as the enemy! To Falkenhayn, the deadlock on the Western Front was an absurdity, but the truth remained that victory could not be achieved!
The point of Verdun was a battle so shattering and terrible on both sides that governments and world opinion would be shocked into making peace on terms short of ruin for Imperial Germany. Operation Gericht was scheduled to begin in the dead of winter on February 10, 1916.
Verdun was rich in history. It was a Roman fortress with its defenses renewed many times over the years. Attila the Hun had once burned the city. The heirs of Charlemagne had signed an agreement in 843, partitioning the Carolingian Empire among the three surviving sons of Emperor Louis the Pious. The Treaty of Verdun foreshadowed the formation of the modern countries of Western Europe: France, western Germany, and northern Italy.
But by February 1916, Verdun was no longer an indispensable anchor of the Allied front. The French had let it decay in light of the sieges at Liege and Antwerp. Ring forts had become death traps for their inmates. Twenty forts and forty redoubts guarded Verdun along with the minor works spread along four natural lines of defense. However, the cannons had been trucked off to be used in other parts of the front.
The attack would be directed on a front less than seven miles wide… on French positions on the east bank of the Meuse River. The German Fifth Army of the Crown Prince Wilhelm and Schmidt von Knobelsdorf would deal the blow… even though neither man saw Falkenhayn’s Christmas memorandum to the Kaiser. They felt that the objective of Operation Gericht was the capture of Verdun, not the battle of attrition envisioned by Falkenhayn. The front was kept limited so that a breakthrough was impossible. In other words, Falkenhayn wanted just enough men in reserve to keep the battle going, but never enough to end it! In effect, the Crown Prince would be fighting with one hand tied behind his back, thanks to Falkenhayn.
The movement of men and matériels to a limited sector was done undetected with great speed. Everything was in place by the end of January 1916.
Opposite the Germans was the French Second Army. General Joseph Joffre and the French High Council for National Defense met in Paris on February 8, 1916. All of the attendees agreed that a German offensive in the near future was unlikely. But if it did indeed come, Flanders would be the stage.
However, there were a couple French artillery men and reservists at Verdun who noticed increased activity in the German lines and on the Meuse railroads. They tried to arouse higher authority, which fell on deaf ear. Instead of reinforcements, they got driblets of men.
Unfortunately for the Germans, a thick fog along the Meuse delayed the start of the attack. During the respite, Grand Quartier Général sent a couple more French divisions to Verdun…
Then early in the morning of February 21, 1916, the Germans unleashed a full-scale bombardment using 1,200 guns, which lasted twenty-one hours over a six-mile front. Two million shells were thrown at the Brabant-Ornes-Verdun triangle at a rate of 100,000 shells per hour! The French forward trenches fell to the Teutons by the end of the day. By the third day of battle… 10,000 Frenchmen, sixty-five cannons, seventy-five machine guns, and a nearly four-mile-deep pocket passed into German hands. The secondary system of French trenches fell on February 24th.
The next day, the 24th Brandenburg Regiment of General Ewald von Lochow’s III Corps attacked and won Fort Douaumont, the keystone of the whole massive ferroconcrete arch supporting Verdun. Only fifty-six territorial gunners were in the enclave… and bluffed into surrender.
Before the war, five hundred infantrymen and two score of artillery men manned Douaumont. But General Joffre felt forts were useless and cut the quota.
Now, the capture of Douaumont alarmed Joffre, and he ordered General Philippe Petain to HQ at Chantilly. The latter’s claim to fame was the rebuilding of La Voie Sacree (The Sacred Way), the lone road that ran from Bar-le-Duc to Verdun. The around-the-clock maintenance of The Sacred Way assured the Verdun garrisons their daily supplies, communications, and reinforcements.
Falkenhayn felt that Verdun would fall by the fourth day. In fact, the Germans were still more than three miles from the fortress by the sixth sun! By the end of February 1916, the high tide of the German offensive had passed; the element of surprise was gone. Ammo dumps were spent, giving the French time to reinforce and replenish badly-needed supplies.
In light of the situation, Falkenhayn, the Crown Prince, and Knobelsdorf discussed a new strategy on February 29th. The offensive was to be broadened to the west bank of the Meuse near the heights of Hill 304 and Hill 295 (ghoulishly known as Le Mort Homme, or The Dead Man) where General Petain’s forces were fresh and well-provisioned. Crown Prince Wilhelm argued that the deployment to the west bank should have taken place well before the start of battle, which was further proof that he was not aware of Falkenhayn’s original intentions.
The assault on Petain’s French Second Army began on March 6, 1916. The French 67th Division soon collapsed… and the German Fifth Army advanced three miles. But a counterattack pushed the Germans back to the starting line!
By April, Falkenhayn’s belief of “victory by attrition” without exposing his own army to such loss was faltering. The idea of a limited offensive was abandoned in favor of a twenty-mile full frontal assault which began on April 9th. But after four days, drenching rains stalled operations for the remainder of the month.
So the Germans relapsed to nibbling tactics. Hill 304 was taken on May 8th, Le Mort Homme three weeks later, and Fort Vaux (located on the east bank of the Meuse near the scrap-piled village of the same name) fell on June 2nd. A final German bombardment took place on June 21, 1916 with the intention to capture Forts Souville and Tavannes. Phosgene gas (“Green Cross”) was used for the first time. There were massive French casualties, but the lines did not break.
On July 11th, the Germans unleashed their final assault on Fort Souville. After three days, the strike was checked by Petain’s Central Army Group. By this time, the British had engaged the Germans in a big push on the Somme River (125 miles to the northwest), which took pressure off the French at Verdun. The west bank of the Meuse AND the fortress itself were secured.
Since the opening salvo on February 21st, twenty million shells had been fired into the battle zone at Verdun. Forests and villages literally disappeared. In five months of fighting, France lost 315,000 men; the German losses numbered 280,000. Such cold figures (along with the Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front and Rumania’s entry into the war) cost Erich von Falkenhayn his job as Chief of the German General Staff.
But another casualty was Schmidt von Knobelsdorf. He was another one of the main architects of the plan to launch a major attack against the French at Verdun. As de facto leader of the German Fifth Army, it was Knobelsdorf who directed the attack and pushed for victory at all costs. This led to several conflicts with Crown Prince Wilhelm… and Knobelsdorf was replaced as Chief of Staff of the German Fifth Army by Walther von Lüttwitz on August 21, 1916. That same day, Lüttwitz was awarded the Pour le Merite by the Kaiser… and Knobelsdorf received the oak leaves for his “Blue Max”.
Verdun raged for another five months. The artillery tactics of the “creeping barrage” developed by General Robert Nivelle were put into action by French forces on October 24, 1916. Forts Vaux and Douaumont were recaptured on the first day with heavy German losses. A final push by General Charles Msngin’s French Second Army on a much wider front in mid-December netted even greater success… advancing three miles and taking 11,000 prisoners.
The “hell of Verdun” was costly to both sides. Three-quarters of the French Army was sent into the furnace. The result was a loss of over half a million soldiers (dead, wounded, missing, prisoners). Germany lost 434,000 men.
Nearly forty million artillery shells were spent by both sides in the ten-month battle. Two hundred artillery rounds had to be fired to take out a single soldier! The survivors were crushed by horrifying memories of the dead, maimed, and disfigured troops littering the battlefield.
At best… it was a Pyrrhic victory for France.
DEFEAT AND DEATH
Late in August 1916, Knobelsdorf was sent to the Eastern Front where he took command of X Corps. Based at Stochod, the corps fought the Russians at Kowel in the latter stages of the Brusilov Offensive. When the front finally stabilized by year’s end, X Corps was transferred to Alsace on the Western Front.
Knobelsdorf’s men fought in the trenches as part of General Erich von Gündell’s Armee-Abteilung B. Knobelsdorf was promoted to General der Infanterie in mid-October 1918 when the war had clearly turned against the German Army… and the future of Imperial Germany was in question. After the armistice of November 11, 1918 went into effect, Knobelsdorf lead his corps back to HQ in Hannover. He retired from active duty on the last day of September 1919.
Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf died in Glücksburg on the first of September 1936 at the age of seventy-five.
