Fort de Douaumont February 1916 a hundred years ago.
The adversity and tension between France and Germany created a line of fortifications along their borders. Fort de Douaumont was the strongest French fort along this line, located to the North East of Verdun.
Designed by the French military architect Séré de Rivières and located on a hill top near the small village of Douaumont ( Gallo Roman for sacred mountain),395 meter above sea level. In 1885 work was started .Original build in a limestone from nearby quarries it has polygonal shape, approximately 400 by 300 meter. Round the fort was a dry ditch with a depth of 6 meter, in the sidewalls small defensive buildings, caponiers, protect the approaches to the actual fort/ caserne with small canons and or Machine Guns. An enemy had to lower himself into this dry ditch and where he could be fired at. Artillery was placed in the open on the parapet.( top of the fort)
Developments in artillery caused a revolution, even before completion the traditional way of building with masonry was made obsolete by the introduction of new explosives.The increased destructive power caused removal of the guns, which were standing in the open on top of the fort, to locations in between de several forts. Steel gun turrents were introduced to provide the forts their guns.
Test conducted revealed that an additional layer of special designed concrete with a sand layer between the concrete and the masonry ( sandwich construction) could give adequate protection. This concept proved to be working very well the fort could withstand heavy shelling with 42cm and 40cm shells.
All this potential was lost. During the opening acts of WW1 the German siege artillery seemed to be able to crack any fort,( this was true for the old types of masonry forts but it proved wrong with a modern fort concrete/ sand / masonry ) Based on this initial experience the French removed most of the mobile artillery from the forts and even placed demolition changes in the fort to blow them up in event of an attack. A fort had became useless even a mousetrap for men and artillery. This was still unknown to the Germans planners they still believed that their heavy siege guns ; 21cm, 30.5 cm and 42 cm the so called Dicke Bertha could deal with the forts as they had done with he other French forts .
Without going into much details the capture of this mighty fort went remarkably easy. The Germans attacked the fort more by coincidence. Originally planned to be taken by the 12th Grenadiere Regiment their neighboring regiment the 24th Neu Ruppiner regiment( Brandenburg) was forced in the direction of the fort, partly by their own artillery which was firing in front and behind the advancing troops but also to take shelter from flanking Machine Gun. ( at gun at the church tower of Douaumont village see map). Following a contour in the ground, which gave them some protection, they came to the northern side of the fort and saw the deep dry ditch beneath them. With no other options, German shells were still bursting around them, they lowered themselves into the ditch and expected to be fired at, nothing happened the French soldiers were not present at their guns. A pioneer Kunze entered Fort de Douaumont ( caserne) as first 5.04 in the afternoon followed by Lieutenant Radtke at 05.14. Others followed later. The strongest fort of Verdun and even from the world was taken by just a few German soldiers. ( Unfortunately the wrong soldiers got most of the credits and causing a lot of consternation. Luitenant Radtke and his men, fought for recognition till the seventies.
Many books were published after the war dealing with the subject who was the first in Fort de Douaumont. Kunze was actually the first soldier but his contribution was always discussed,even after a very detailed study was published by the by the Commander of the Second Battalion IR 24, Major von Klüfer dealing with the subject and ranking who was first . Only most recently actual proof was "re-found" after German war time archives were given back to Germany by Rusland.
The courage and initiative to attack the strongest fort against the orders with a basic knowledge what to expect and the risks involved can not be underestimated and is inspiring. The churchbells rang all over Germany, special newspapers were printed.
I have an in depth interest in this subject and collected a significant amount of information, books maps and photos. It inspired a few models and paintings. Here just a few examples of my work to remember this remarkable feat hundred years ago.
Harry
A few titles from my collection
Extra newspaper; Storming a cornerstone of Verdun. Published the day after.
Fort de Douaumont from the air
Oil painting of Fort de Douaumont
Model of Fort de Douaumont.
Master out of Balsa wood, clay and 2k- epoxy clay. Silicones Mould casted in ceramic( hard) plaster. Cabinet with glass, etched nameplate.
The different routes and times, the Officer who got the Pour le Merite, Von Brandis was in fact 51 minutes later than Kunze who got, initially nothing.
Image from Von Klüfer Seelenkräfte im Kampf um Douaumont.
Fort de Douaumont 05:10 in the afternoon German soldiers slide into the dry ditch ( on found telephone poles).
Image from Von Klüfer Seelenkräfte im Kampf um Douaumont.
The model, improved/ altered Scale Link figures 1/32. It is all little stiff in composition. The material, white metal is not that easy to work with, difficult to change poses. Saw it is pieces and solder it together again, miss an extra pair of hands during soldering......
Oil painting a Soldier from the 24th regiment at Verdun
The 24th regiment have a monument in the so called Herbebois, it is in in bad state but I made a copy of some of the monuments elements and created a new compostion. Made a copy with mould material made for dentists, easy to works with and leaves no residues and it is safe to use on fragile materials.
A limited amount of modelling but I hope you liked it nevertheless. It's no longer a hobby it is a passion
Harry
-- Edited by Haverba on Wednesday 24th of February 2016 12:20:56 PM
That's very interesting. I thought about a similar way to build a small version of the fort as you have in your cabinet. May I ask, which references you used to get the plan and section for it? And do you intend to paint it in the future?
Most details and plans I obtained from Von Klüfer's book. There are even some photographs of a wooden model of the Fort. Attached a scanned image of what I used as basis.
I prefer to keep it as it is, so no painting. Have casted another model with the intention to use an inlay of glass with relevant data painted on that inlay. So a cabinet with model, a glass layer with data and a glass layer to close the cabinet. Use photoimaging technologies to create a paint mask...
The ariel pictures of Douaumont were taken early or before the battle the later ones have this area looking like the surface of the moon there are so many shell craters.
The models give the clearest idea of Douaumont's structure, and the photograph of the Germans entering is interesting - who would have thought someone would carry a camera with him, given the situaion and the technology of the time? I remember a great many debates about "real action" photos of WW1 and usually it is agreed that "no" combat images were taken back then. Would love to see a photo collection of all the images likely to prove the contrary. Regards, Pat
Even here, there are several sources that clearly mention that it snowed that day, and there is now snow to be seen on the photographs. It is well possible that this was staged a day, or a few days later....
-- Edited by Haverba on Saturday 12th of March 2016 08:32:29 PM
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