Book Review: The Fortifications of Verdun 1874 to 1917 by Clayton Donnell

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Verdun is a name that looms as large in French understanding of the First World War as the Somme and Ypres / Passchendaele do for the British. But unlike those, the fighting around Verdun was across a landscape of steep hills and ravines, dominated by dozens of modern forts and many more smaller concrete bunkers, shelters and artillery batteries. One cannot understand the Verdun fighting without understanding the forts, and it is this that O’Donnell’s book, the 103rd in the Fortifications series published by Osprey, seeks to do.

It achieves its aim very well. The history of the forts, begun between 1874 and 1887, is covered in detail, as are the improvements such as the later replacement of open gun batteries with steel turrets and the concrete cladding added over the original masonry. The reasoning for the forts’ location and design is explained admirably. By showing the development of the forts, one comes to understand why they were as they were at the outbreak of the First World War.

With a subject such as forts, showing is better than describing, and the book has a good mix of plans, contemporary and modern photographs and artist’s drawings. I was particularly impressed with plate D, an oblique artist’s impression of Fort Dugny, since in one single drawing it makes clear the look, layout, strengths and weaknesses of a medium-sized Verdun fort. It helps one to understand the photographs, which are inevitably less clear, being of much-battered concrete positions, and earthworks almost pounded flat by shellfire. Plate F also stands out for showing much better than text could how the assaulting German engineers managed to attack the casemates that protect the formidable ditch of Fort Vaux. If I have any criticism of the illustrations, it would be that plate G, although atmospheric, is a waste of the limited colour plate pages that the Osprey Fortification series format allows. I would have preferred either a diagram of one of the interval works that existed between the main forts or one of the layout of Fort Douaumont (the largest of the Verdun forts and one of the two that most visitors to the battlefield will go to, but which is given surprising little coverage in this book, at least of its design and layout).

The best section, to my mind, is The Site in War. This manages to describe the actions involving the key forts in enough detail to stir the imagination whilst at the same time managing to weave a narrative of the fighting as a whole. Indeed, I came away with a better understanding of the nine and a half months of muddled fighting than I did from the Osprey Campaign Series book on the battle as a whole (“Verdun 1916” by William Martin).

Although limited by the format of the Osprey Fortress Series, I do wish it had been possible to include a few more pages. Tighter editing could have made room for more material in some places; for example the start of the section Tour of the Site where the first two paragraphs largely repeat information stated earlier. However this is, for its size, a superb little volume, just right for those wanting something they can read and digest in a day to prepare them for a visit to the forts and then light enough to carry with them.

Highly recommended.

Reviews by the same author of other First World War books:

Walking Verdun

Pill Boxes of the Western Front

The British Expeditionary Force 1914 – 15

Scottish Divisions in the World Wars