never penetrate to Verdun, even if they bring up all their 420s.’ By July, obviously uneasy, he was complaining to his Brigade Commander that he would be unable to carry out the works ordered, while at the same time adequately manning the front line. On August 22nd he was writing to his friend Paul Deschanel, President of the Chamber of Deputies, predicting:
The sledge-hammer blow will be delivered on the line Verdun-Nancy. What moral effect would be created by the capture of one of these cities!… we are doing everything, day and night, to make our front inviolable… but there is one thing about which one can do nothing; the shortage of hands . And it is to this that I beg you to call the attention of the Minister (of Defence). If our first line is carried by a massive attack, our second line is inadequate and we are not succeeding in establishing it; lack of workers and I add: lack of barbed wire.
The contents of Driant’s letter reached the Minister of Defence (now Galliéni, the saviour of Paris, who had no high opinion of Joffre), and in December a delegation of the Army Commission wassent to Verdun. On its return it confirmed to Galliéni all Driant had said. Galliéni passed the report to Joffre, asking for his comment. The intervention threw Joffre into one of his rare rages, and his reply, as Liddell Hart acidly remarked, ‘might well be framed and hung up in all the bureaux of officialdom the world over — to serve as the mummy at the feast.’
I cannot be a party [said Joffre] to soldiers under my command bringing before the Government, by channels other than the hierarchic channel, complaints or protests concerning the execution of my orders… It is calculated to disturb profoundly the spirit of discipline in the… To sum up, I consider nothing justifies the fear which, in the name of the Government, you express in your dispatch of December 16….
Probably only Driant’s heroic death saved him from the ignominy of a court martial, securing for him instead immortality among the French martyrs.
If Joffre, right up to the eleventh hour, persisted in his blindness to Verdun’s peril, it was partly because French intelligence was able to offer little help in penetrating Falkenhayn’s web of secrecy. Unfortunately for the Deuxième Bureau , it seems that just before Verdun the Germans had succeeded in breaking up an important spy network, operated behind the lines by a courageous Frenchwoman, Louise de Bettignies. Over sixty agents had vanished overnight, and a complete silence had descended. In despair, and some humiliation, the French had been forced to apply to the British for information, but it was not till late in January mat Royal Navy Intelligence was able to glean some definite information from the indiscreet talk of a high German official at a Berlin cocktail party. At Verdun itself, collation of intelligence was equally ineffective. Few patrols were sent out (the suspense of lying in wait in No-Man’s-Land was in any case about as alien to the French temperament as digging-in); instead, for intelligence at lower levels, the French depended largely on their not very reliable listening posts, that were occasionally able to pick up fragments of conversation from the enemy’s crude trench telephone system.
Until January 17th, bad weather had virtually ruled out any aerial photography of the German lines. There were in fact three reconnaissance escadrilles at Verdun; but, alas, there was not one singleofficer on Herr’s staff who could analyse air photographs. (Nor was any expert provided until four days before the actual attack, when — though perhaps a little late in the day — he was able to predict the exact location of the main thrust.) On January 17th, a French plane that was twice intercepted by Fokkers of the German ‘barrage’ and had its camera smashed, nevertheless brought back some revealing shots of German guns behind the Côte de Romagne. Six days later a full scale
The sledge-hammer blow will be delivered on the line Verdun-Nancy. What moral effect would be created by the capture of one of these cities!… we are doing everything, day and night, to make our front inviolable… but there is one thing about which one can do nothing; the shortage of hands . And it is to this that I beg you to call the attention of the Minister (of Defence). If our first line is carried by a massive attack, our second line is inadequate and we are not succeeding in establishing it; lack of workers and I add: lack of barbed wire.
The contents of Driant’s letter reached the Minister of Defence (now Galliéni, the saviour of Paris, who had no high opinion of Joffre), and in December a delegation of the Army Commission wassent to Verdun. On its return it confirmed to Galliéni all Driant had said. Galliéni passed the report to Joffre, asking for his comment. The intervention threw Joffre into one of his rare rages, and his reply, as Liddell Hart acidly remarked, ‘might well be framed and hung up in all the bureaux of officialdom the world over — to serve as the mummy at the feast.’
I cannot be a party [said Joffre] to soldiers under my command bringing before the Government, by channels other than the hierarchic channel, complaints or protests concerning the execution of my orders… It is calculated to disturb profoundly the spirit of discipline in the… To sum up, I consider nothing justifies the fear which, in the name of the Government, you express in your dispatch of December 16….
Probably only Driant’s heroic death saved him from the ignominy of a court martial, securing for him instead immortality among the French martyrs.
If Joffre, right up to the eleventh hour, persisted in his blindness to Verdun’s peril, it was partly because French intelligence was able to offer little help in penetrating Falkenhayn’s web of secrecy. Unfortunately for the Deuxième Bureau , it seems that just before Verdun the Germans had succeeded in breaking up an important spy network, operated behind the lines by a courageous Frenchwoman, Louise de Bettignies. Over sixty agents had vanished overnight, and a complete silence had descended. In despair, and some humiliation, the French had been forced to apply to the British for information, but it was not till late in January mat Royal Navy Intelligence was able to glean some definite information from the indiscreet talk of a high German official at a Berlin cocktail party. At Verdun itself, collation of intelligence was equally ineffective. Few patrols were sent out (the suspense of lying in wait in No-Man’s-Land was in any case about as alien to the French temperament as digging-in); instead, for intelligence at lower levels, the French depended largely on their not very reliable listening posts, that were occasionally able to pick up fragments of conversation from the enemy’s crude trench telephone system.
Until January 17th, bad weather had virtually ruled out any aerial photography of the German lines. There were in fact three reconnaissance escadrilles at Verdun; but, alas, there was not one singleofficer on Herr’s staff who could analyse air photographs. (Nor was any expert provided until four days before the actual attack, when — though perhaps a little late in the day — he was able to predict the exact location of the main thrust.) On January 17th, a French plane that was twice intercepted by Fokkers of the German ‘barrage’ and had its camera smashed, nevertheless brought back some revealing shots of German guns behind the Côte de Romagne. Six days later a full scale
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