The Germans didn’t waste time and quickly advanced into Luxembourg, Belgium and France in August 1914, putting in motion the Schlieffen Plan that sought for the rapid destruction of British and French forces on the West before turning against the Russian juggernaut to the East.
France, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, Belgium, Montenegro and Serbia on the “ Entente”, and the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire on the “ Central Powers” (More countries would join either side in later years).
The complex cobweb of political alliances between nations provoked a huge, fast and unprecedented escalation, with two opposed alliances being formed. 1914: The Schlieffen Plan and the War of Movement.Īfter the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was also the presumptive heir of the Imperial crown, by the hand of a Serbian nationalist, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia. To understand the sheer amount of death and destruction that devastated Verdun an abridged explanation of the evolution of the war from 1914 to February 1916 is in order.
WHERE WAS THE BATTLE OF VERDUN FULL
This town, of only 22.000 inhabitants, was about to witness first hand the full power and devastation of the war in a battle that ended up being one of the deadliest and longest battles of the warįrom bayonet charges to phosgene gas and from artillery barrages to flamethrowers, the Battle of Verdun became a symbol of French resistance against the German war machine and an icon for the unprecedented destruction, implementation of new technologies and battle doctrines and the birth of a new type of warfare. The 21st of February, 1916, marks the date in which one of the greatest battles of World War I commenced in the French city of Verdun.
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