The Battle of Verdun was the longest battle of the First World War, lasting over 300 days, and yet, the attacking German army was unable to break through that symbol of French national pride, And our song 'Fields of Verdun' from our upcoming album 'The Great War' is about that battle and the French slogan of courage: "they shall not pass!" I'm Indy Neidell, and I'm Joakim from Sabaton, and this is Sabaton History. Now he's gonna tell you a little bit about the song and the album, but I'm gonna give you a little Verdun history lesson. In late 1915, German Army Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, was looking up and down the map of the Western Front. It had been more than a year since the stalemate and trench warfare had begun there, this is during the First World War. The homefront was already suffering under the naval blockade and he feared a war of attrition that the German Empire could only lose. He needed to go on the offensive. To Falkenhayn, the weakest point of the Western Front was the British sector, and attacking at Artois could, he believed, lead to a decisive breakthrough that would collapse the whole Western Front. But he learned the hard way that without eliminating or at least tying down the French beforehand, the defense would be too strong. So, to deliver the blow in the north, he would attack at a place further south that would draw in as many French forces as possible. It must be a place the enemy could not afford to lose, for strategic or propagandistic purposes, and would thus fight until wiped out. Such a place was Verdun. Verdun was not Falkenhayn's first choice, since it was a heavily fortified area, but it was also a commanding location. By capturing the heights east of the river Meuse and loading them with artillery, the Germans could constantly threaten the city and the local defenses, forcing the French to continuously attack the German defenses. The French would be tied down, and if they lost badly, the British would be forced to intervene. In the best case, they would hastily execute an offensive at the Somme, suffer heavy casualties as well, and open themselves up for a decisive German counter-attack. Falkenhayn concluded that if Verdun was successful, there would be peace before the summer of 1916. The key to the attack was heavy artillery. Total destruction, then attack battalions and pioneers storming the hills in a wedge toward the mighty fortress of Douamont, taking the remnants of the other fortresses that were surely destroyed by the heavy bombardment. Preparations were made over the winter. massing artillery pieces of all calibers and millions of shells The attack was planned for February, once the weather cleared. On the 21st of February, the bad weather finally cleared, and German aircraft and observation balloons hit the skies. At 7:12 AM came the order to attack. The largest concentration of guns in history, to this point, opened up in a violent concert described by witnesses as the 'symphony of the devil'. Even in the Vosges near the Swiss border could be heard the thunder of the German guns. In an intensity never seen before, the barrage destroyed whole forests, blowing trees meters high into the air and raining stones and earth on the poor souls on the ground. Some soldiers were simply obliterated, torn apart by the force of the guns. Others were buried alive deep in their trenches or bunkers. Then, the German combat troops emerge from the saps with grenades, wire cutter and flamethrowers. With the advantage of surprise, they stormed the first French lines. Through ice, rain, and snow the soldiers fought, as rifle shots and grenades burst in their midst. Trench after trench the Germans gained a foothold, despite fierce resistance from well-camouflaged French machine guns and block houses. Thing is, for French Army Chief of Staff Josef Joffre, Verdun wasn't that important, at least militarily. If the Germans could not be held on the east bank of the Meuse, the French would retreat and build new positions on the western bank. This was what Falkenhayn feared, but Aristide Briand made it perfectly clear that losing Verdun was not acceptable. Not only would the psychological effect be disastrous for the French public, it would undermine trust in the current government, and if Briand lost his job, so would Joffre, so giving up Verdun was out of the question. This is exactly what Falkenhayn had hoped for. However, though the Germans advanced the first weeks, it was not nearly as far as Falkenhayn had calculated, and the French had brought in reserves, and Philippe Pétain to lead the men. The most important heights were still far away and under French control, and taking the fortress of Douamont was the key to those heights. Unlike the big fortresses in Belgium that had quickly fallen to modern heavy artillery at the beginning of the war, The French have used a stronger special concrete for Douamont that just would not break, and the fortress soon seemed like an island in an ocean of fire and shrapnel. Small platoons of German soldiers that crept towards the fortress in early March found that it was actually mostly empty, and the strongest fortress of Europe was thus taken by a German officer with a pistol and a lot of guts. Fort Douamont is for many the symbol of the Battle of Verdun. The Germans celebrated its fall but Douamont was a trap for the men inside. Every direct artillery hit put out the lights, and the men cowered in darkness for days, living in their own waste, sharing their food with rats and lice while the stench of the dead and the screams of the wounded haunted the long corridors. But you know, this was actually still better than soldiers outside the fortress walls had to endure in the meat grinder that was Verdun. The French just had one supply road out of range of German artillery. Only trucks for military purposes were allowed to use that road, and soon over 3000 trucks a day were bringing men, ammunition, and supplies up the road. If one broke down, it was simply pushed off the road, which became known as the Voie Sacré, the Holy Road. The German offensive began to drastically lose speed, the whole area of Verdun had become a maze of trenches and shell holes where death was always near. I mean that literally: this is only an area of 30 square kilometers, and the death toll grew to the hundreds of thousands. The name Verdun became synonymous with the mechanized death of the First World War. But it really bound the French together. Pétain had ordered a new rotation system where no soldier was supposed to stay longer than 10 days in the frontlines before being rotated out. This meant most soldiers in the French army had gone through Verdun. By April, the lack of progress was turning the whole idea of the Battle of Verdun into a farce. The more reserves Falkenhayn committed to the operation, the fewer he had ready for the 'real attack' against the British. So Falkenhayn had to choose: stop the offensive and defend the gains that were made, or keep going with the offensive, but with all available forces. Half measures were now unacceptable. He would keep up the offensive. As June arrives, Falkenhayn officially declares 'bleeding dry' as the main aim of the offensive. But bad news now also arrives: Russian General Aleksei Brusilov launches his offensive on the Eastern Front. It is a spectacular success, and Germany's ally Austria-Hungary might be knocked out of the war. German reinforcements bound for Verdun must instead head east immediately. And more bad news: the French now have air superiority in the west, Thanks to the new Nieuport 11 planes and air-to-air Lancier rockets. Time seems to be running out for a German victory at Verdun. Falkenhayn launches what he hopes is the final attack, towards Fort Vaux and the heights around the village of Fleury. On the 7th of June, Fort Vaux falls. A victory for the Germans, for sure. But is this the turning point at Verdun? Not quite, for Fort Souville still stands in the way of victory and this, the Germans cannot take. June marks the limit of their advance at Verdun. On June 23rd, French General Robert Nivelle gives his famous order: "Vous ne les laisserez pas passer, mes camarades," which was later shortened to "Ils ne passaront pas"-- they will not pass. And indeed they do not. The French hold out in June, and on July the 1st, the British relief attack begins at the Somme. The pressure there forces German reserves away from Verdun to the north. With the Russians still advancing in the east, there are no options for Falkenhayn available. He must dig in at Verdun as the three largest battles in history, to this point, all rage simultaneously. But by August, Pétain has a 7 to 1 advantage in artillery, and the German positions are pounded day and night. And as if things aren't bad enough, Romania joins the Allies. A new front and hundreds of thousands of new enemies emerge overnight for the Germans. Falkenhayn has lost the confidence of his Kaiser and then loses his job. Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff take over running the German army. That, of course, does not mean that the battle is simply over, but it is France's turn to attack. Pétain brings in two 40 centimeter caliber railway guns to fire 900 kilo shells -- that's around a ton each -- on Fort Douaumont, which finally cracks. Eight months after its fall, the French retake the fort in early November and their counter-attack is relentless. What the Germans captured over months of fighting the French now retake in mere hours. By the end of 1916, the front lines are nearly back where they were in February. For a few kilometers of land, hundreds of thousands of men have died. The Battle of Verdun lasted 303 days and nights. Estimates of the total casualties run as high as 1 million men -- that was likely closer to 700,000 -- but still, it was the longest battle of the First World War, and for many of the war's soldiers, it was the epitome of brutal, mechanized modern war. Many veterans would later remember Verdun by its smell: the mixture of gas, bodies that lay for months unburied, and the mass graves that were churned up by artillery fire, corpses that laid for months in the dead zones of no-man's land were mummified, the faces frozen in their final expression before death. The soldiers advancing into the forward trenches often had to stomp over the corpses and body parts of their dead comrades. Only the flies and rats thrived at Verdun in 1916. Before Joakim talks about the song, I would like to spoil the moment with a side note. It has been accepted history for a century that Falkenhayn's intention was to bleed France dry at Verdun, but this may not be the case. Falkenhayn claimed that this was his plan from the get-go, and he wrote about it in his 1915 Christmas memorandum to the Kaiser. However, the Kaiser never mentioned such a memorandum, and there's no actual evidence that it ever existed Falkenhayn may well have made all of this up as an excuse after the fact to explain away his failure. I did a whole episode about the Falkenhayn controversy on the Great War Channel, the link is in the description. And now back to Sabaton. Okay, so new album, bunch of new songs. Now, how was it writing 'Fields of Verdun' specifically? Oh, to be honest, that was one of the harder ones. Yeah? We didn't know where to start, from which angle to cover it. I mean we were stuck in a mountain of information, but then we just thought, "well let's just -- let's just start and see where all this info that we have now read takes us," and that actually started to work out, you know. Now, this album, 'The Great War', all of the songs have to do with the First World War. Yes, yes. But is it a concept album like -- like Tommy, where you have to follow a story, or...? Oh, yes and no. Let's say we've got a red thread you gotta follow or something. All events covered on the album, Yeah. have been during the Great War, Yeah. but they're not in chronological order. Okay, so it's a Great War theme without being the Great War concept. Yeah. Like -- like if Julio Iglesias, and he does an album, and you know all the songs are about love, so that's a -- he's got a theme. He's got a theme on his album. Well that's a good name for it, a themed album, because it's not the true concept where we follow it from the beginning to the end. Because of this particular part of that theme now, you're gonna be doing a few things in Verdun this spring and summer, yeah? Yes, but you weren't supposed to say that because that's a secret. You never heard that shit. You never heard that... we could cut it out if you really want. No, never. Never, okay? This is live! Yes, this is as live -- Wow. We're going live. Yeah. Hi mom! For now, here is a few seconds of some of this unreleased music from the song 'Fields of Verdun' from the album 'The Great War'. And that's it for today, but we'll see you next time and every time on Sabaton History! Alright everyone, that's it for today. Remember to subscribe to Sabaton History, but also the regular Sabaton channel. Also check out World War II and Time Ghost. If you want to see more videos like this, there's a playlist. Cool stuff. You'll want to see it! 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FIELDS OF EXECUTION