Verdun – History and Present
Verdun is one of the oldest cities in France. Founded as a Gallic settlement, after the conquest of free Gaul by Gaius Julius Caesar around 50 BC, the Romans already built a first fort named “Virodunum Castrum” on the small river Mosa, today’s Meuse.
In his campaign report “De Bello Gallico“, Caesar writes in liber IV, cap. X:
Mosa profluit ex monte Vosego, qui est in finibus Lingonum, et parte quadam ex Rheno recepta, quae appellatur Vahalis insulamque efficit Batavorum, in Oceanum influit, neque longius ab Oceano milibus passuum LXXX in Rhenum transit.
The Meuse rises from the Vosges, which lie in the territory of the Lingones, takes in a branch of the Rhine, which is called the Waal, and thus creates the island of the Batavians; it flows into the ocean and enters the Rhine no further than 80 miles from the ocean.
After the christianization of the Roman Empire and the Gallic territories, Verdun has been a bishop’s seat since the 4th century. In the year 843, the treaty of the same name was concluded in Verdun, splitting the then Frankish Empire into three parts. This division was the beginning of a geopolitical development that led to the emergence of Germany and France in the Middle Ages.
Middle Ages
Since the 10th century, Verdun belonged to East Francia, from which the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation later emerged. Through the Treaty of Chambord in 1552, the city, like the other imperial cities belonging to the Duchy of Lorraine, Toul and Metz, came under French control. The three regions were called “Trois-Évêchés” (Three Bishoprics). By relinquishing governmental and clerical power in these territories to the benefit of France, the Protestant imperial princes under the leadership of Maurice of Saxony sought to secure the support of the French King Henry II. in their action against Emperor Charles V., known as the Princes’ Revolt. One consequence of the conflicts was the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which granted Protestantism clerical recognition alongside Catholicism.
The agreements made in the Treaty of Chambord were not accepted by Emperor Charles V. However, neither he nor his successor Ferdinand I. succeeded in reconquering the lost territories. Verdun and the other imperial cities remained under French rule.
Starting in the mid-16th century, the French, by order of François de Scépeaux, Comte de Durtal, began with the fortification of the city. The French King Henry II had entrusted him with the administration of the “Trois-Évêchés”. The Sieur de Saint-Rémy was commissioned with the planning and management of the work. At the suggestion of the first governor of the city of Verdun, Maréchal Gaspard de Saulx de Tavannes, construction of a citadel was begun in 1567, which was further enlarged and significantly altered starting in 1664 according to plans by the fortress builder Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban. In the following decades, the expansion of the city fortifications progressed steadily. Verdun received several bastions and additionally a strong rampart.
Coalition Wars
In the initial phase of the French Revolution, in the so-called First Coalition War, Verdun was besieged from late August 1792 by German and Austrian troops under the command of the Duke of Brunswick. After a heavy bombardment with incendiary bombs, the governor of the fortress, Colonel Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepair, capitulated on September 2, 1792, under pressure from the citizenry. Afterwards, he was found shot. The circumstances of his death remained unexplained.
The fall of Verdun in 1792 accelerated revolutionary aspirations throughout France. It led in Paris to the September Massacres, in which over 2,000 people met their death.
The allied troops remained in the area of the city for several days after the fall of Verdun. Not until September 11, 1792, were the Argonne crossed near Grandpré. Meanwhile, the French had succeeded in forming a strong defense army. On September 20, 1792, the Cannonade of Valmy took place, after whose undecided outcome the allied troops retreated to German imperial territory. Hundreds of wounded German soldiers remained in local military hospitals. The promise of their unharmed return was largely kept by the French army. As early as October 11, 1792, the French recaptured Verdun.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe reports on the advance of the Austro-German troops in his writing “Campaign in France in 1792″. He took part in the campaign accompanying the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. He describes the events in detail starting from the fall of the Longwy fortress on August 23, 1792. Interesting details from Verdun and the surrounding area are reported, which invite further local research beyond the events of the First World War.
Franco-German War
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Verdun defended itself for over a month against the Prussian besieging forces, which ultimately numbered about 15,000 men. Following the capture of Metz by the Germans, the fortress acquired considerable strategic importance as it blocked the supply routes and railway lines intended for the further advance from the territory of the Reich toward Paris. It was ultimately defended by a garrison of 6,000 men, which had continuously received reinforcements from the previously fallen fortresses.
Saxon troops had tried in vain in August 1870 to take the city by surprise. From September 23, 1870, Verdun was then surrounded by Prussian troops. Deployed among others was the 5. Rheinische Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 65 (65th Infantry Regiment) from Cologne, as well as Landwehr battalions from Jülich, Deutz, Aachen, Simmern, and Andernach. Until October 1870, Verdun resisted the siege and even succeeded in keeping the batteries in the west of the city, which were equipped with outdated captured French guns, suppressed by its own artillery fire. The garrison of the city conducted several sorties, such as on October 20, 1870. In the area of the Heyvaux-Höhe southwest of Thierville, 12 Prussian guns were spiked and temporarily rendered unserviceable. The Prussians thereupon expanded their siege park to about 140 guns. The commander of the fortress, General Guerin de Waldersbach, did not wait for the impending bombardment and destruction of the city. On November 3, 1870, he asked for an armistice and capitulated on November 8, 1870, on favorable terms.
After the 1870–71 war and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine as well as the fortresses of Thionville, Metz, and Strasbourg, the French began in 1873 to construct a line of fortifications along the new eastern border. Planning and execution were undertaken by General Séré de Rivières. Verdun became part of the new fortification belt and was gradually surrounded by more than 40 mutually supporting forts and *ouvrages*, as well as additional infantry, machine gun, and ammunition works, artillery positions, and other military installations. The facilities were connected with a dense railway and light railway network. Infantry positions were created between the individual works. Most of the installations and also the city’s citadel were once again comprehensively expanded and modernized starting in 1887.
First World War & Interwar Period
Until the beginning of the German offensive, Verdun remained largely spared from the effects of the war, although German troops had already advanced close to the city in late August 1914. This changed when, on February 21, 1916, more than 1,200 guns and mortars began the preparatory fire for the major German offensive at Verdun, which became known as “Operation Gericht”. From the beginning of the battle alone, the citadel received about 8,000 hits per month. The surrounding urban quarters were also gradually destroyed by the bombardment. By the end of the fighting, Verdun was abandoned by its population and largely devastated.
Immediately after the end of the war, a pronounced battlefield tourism began in and around Verdun. This was intensified by the armistice agreement of Compiègne in 1919, which was perceived by the French as revenge for the lost war of 1870/71 and was used for propaganda purposes. German veterans’ associations also organized regular trips to the former battlefield. As a result, Verdun experienced an economic upswing. Hotels, inns, restaurants, and a large number of retail shops were established. This urban service structure still shapes the cityscape today.
Between the wars, German and French veterans met regularly in Verdun. These meetings gradually became part of a rapprochement and reconciliation between Germans and French. On April 12, 1936, a German delegation of former Verdun combatants attended the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the battle, where they were welcomed at the railway station by their former French comrades with a Hitler salute, and laid wreaths with swastika ribbons at the Memorial to the Dead at the Place de la Nation. Previously, former war participants from Germany, France, and other nations had jointly spoken the peace oath “Pour la paix du monde!” at the Ossuaire de Douaumont, the ossuary built in the 1920s on the Central Battlefield.
World War II
The connecting culture of remembrance between Germans and French did not last long. As early as June 15, 1940, one day after the fall of Paris, Verdun was captured by Wehrmacht units of the 16th Army. The area of the former battlefield was subsequently used as a military training area; parts of the fortifications, such as armored cupolas and artillery pieces, were dismantled and installed in the Atlantic Wall. Until the Wehrmacht’s withdrawal from France in 1944, Verdun remained under German administration.
Following the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944, the military commander in France, Gen.d.Inf. (lieutenant general) Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, was arrested by Gestapo units in a military hospital in Verdun. Von Stülpnagel had been significantly involved in the coup attempt and had had more than 1,200 members of the Nazi regime detained in Paris. In vain, he had tried to persuade the then Commander-in-Chief West, General Hans-Günther von Kluge, to participate in the putsch. After its failure, Von Kluge advised him to go into hiding, which v. Stülpnagel, however, declined.
On July 21, 1944, v. Stülpnagel was summoned to Berlin by Wilhelm Keitel “for immediate reporting”. On the way there, near Bras-sur-Meuse north of Verdun, he attempted suicide by a gunshot to the head. This failed. He was blinded and partially paralyzed. Von Stülpnagel was taken by the Gestapo from the military hospital in Verdun to Berlin, sentenced by the 1st Senate headed by Roland Freisler of the People’s Court and executed on August 30, 1944, in Berlin-Plötzensee.
Modern Era
With the end of the Second World War, tentative rapprochement efforts began anew through German and French veterans’ associations. These were promoted by Konrad Adenauer with his unconditional commitment to Germany’s integration into the West, which culminated in the Elysée Treaty in 1963. Politically and socially, however, distrust in France in the first years after the war ran deeper due to the massive German crimes during the occupation period than had been the case after the end of the First World War.
On July 8, 1962, a striking sign of reconciliation desired by both sides occurred. Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle jointly attended a pontifical mass in the Cathedral of Reims, which was still scarred by the events of the First World War. Previously, both had driven across the former Champagne battlefields. On September 5, 1962, during his return visit to Bonn, Charles de Gaulle called out to the cheering crowd: “Long live Bonn! Long live Germany! Long live Franco-German friendship!”
After the relations between both countries cooled down somewhat over the following 20 years, primarily in the course of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik, the 1980s brought a renewed rapprochement. On September 22, 1984, the well-known handshake between Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand took place at a commemorative ceremony on the central battlefield of Verdun. The circumstances of the meeting are controversially discussed to this day. It is said that Kohl had originally requested an invitation to the Allied celebrations in Normandy on June 6, 1984, which was, however, rejected by Mitterrand. Subsequently, the meeting in Verdun took place as a substitute, during which they first visited the Consenvoye German war cemetery, then stayed at Hill 304, where Mitterrand’s father fought in 1916 and Mitterrand himself was wounded in 1940, in order to finally shake hands ceremoniously at the Douaumont Ossuary. Whether this symbolic gesture was discussed in advance or occurred spontaneously has not been clearly clarified to this day.
The good relations between both countries continued across subsequent changes of government. Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder maintained a very trusting relationship, which was fueled in particular by their joint rejection of the American intervention in Iraq. Schröder was the first German head of government who was allowed to speak before the French National Assembly on November 30, 1999. For Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, in view of their close and friendly relationship, the term “Merkozy” was coined. Also towards François Hollande, Merkel maintained close relations, though never as close as with his predecessor. Both met again in Reims on July 8, 2012, exactly 50 years after Adenauer and de Gaulle, to commemorate Franco-German reconciliation. On May 29, 2016, both commemorated the fallen of all nations as part of an international commemorative ceremony for the 100-year end of the Battle of Verdun. It is to be hoped that the mutual efforts to maintain and intensify the trusting relationship between both countries will be continued in the relationship between Merkel and Macron as well as across subsequent changes of government.
For the city of Verdun, the initially positive economic situation after the Second World War changed from the 1960s onwards, as the former veterans of the First World War gradually passed away and international meetings on the territory of the former battlefield became only sporadic. In the following decades, the audience changed, causing the city to lose much of its once serious interest. Other front sectors in France and Belgium moved to the forefront of military history, above all the battlefields of the Somme and Ypres. British, Australian, and Canadian troops were deployed there above all, and they were commemorated more intensively as part of a more pronounced culture of remembrance of the nations concerned. From the 1990s onwards, a modernization of the administration and thus also a revitalization of the historical heritage took place in Verdun. Since 1994, the former bishop’s palace has housed Centre Mondial de la Paix. This is a global peace center that, building on the experiences of the First World War, commemorates human freedom and dignity in particular, as well as the enforcement of human rights. This is done continuously through international encounters, workshops, and exhibitions.
Today’s Verdun, with a population of about 20,000, presents itself as an inviting, well-maintained small French town that, with its historic buildings, narrow streets, and location on the Meuse, takes on an almost Mediterranean flair in the summer. The banks of the Meuse as well as the old town and city center have been extensively renovated, and cafés and restaurants invite visitors to linger. Many new shops have opened in the city center, and logistics and industrial businesses have settled on the outskirts. The Bishop’s Palace, the cathedral, the citadel, and many other interesting places make exploring the city an experience alongside its military-historical theme and surroundings.
Verdun has since returned to being an accepted regional and tourist center in eastern France, as well as a starting point for tours into the beautiful countryside of Lorraine. The city, with its eventful history, is a link between Germans and the French. It reminds visitors to the battlefields of the value that the democratization and unification of Europe has had since the mid-20th century, whose survival is unthinkable without Franco-German friendship.
were AI-edited (notice pursuant to Art. 50 Regulation (EU) 2024/1689).