Concrete and Earth, Cold and Damp: A Visit to The Ww1 Fortifications of Verdun (Part 2: Artillery Battery Mf3)

Note: as with all my other First World War articles on Triond, the author’s share of the per-view revenue this page generates is being donated to St Dunstan’s – a UK charity which assists blind and partly-sighted ex-Services men and women. So just by reading this far you have helped ensure a better life for these veterans. See my article here  for details and for links to the other articles donating in this way.

This is part two of a multi-part article. To begin at the first part, click here.

In the first part I explained how the hills to the north of Verdun are full of First World War defences, from the large forts to smaller fortlets, bunkers and shelters. It was those smaller fortifications my companion and I encountered first as we cycled up the road along the Thiaumont Ridge.

Slogging up the incline we spotted some earth banks and glimpses of concrete through the trees. A hundred yards or so later there was a sign pointing up a path that gave away what it was we had seen, “Batteries et Magasins MF 3” – an outlying artillery battery position and ammunition magazine number 3 for the Froideterre fortlet.

The map below shows the layout of the major defences in the hills above Verdun, with the route we cycled in red and battery MF3 highlighted in red.

Map 1: fortifications in the hills above Verdun, with first part of cycle route in red (map by Bruce Officer)

At first glance it appeared a confusion of concrete blocks partly covered by earth.

Photo 2: interval artillery battery position (photograph by Bruce Officer)

Getting closer, we saw it was a series of four bays, separated by earth banks with concrete structures under them. If this was an artillery battery position as the sign said, then it seemed clear that the bays were where guns sat and the concrete bunkers between them were either crew shelters or ammunition stores. A bit of research on returning home showed that to be the case, as the plan below for a typical 4-gun battery position shows.

Diagram 1: concrete and earth 4-gun battery position of type built at Verdun before the war (diagram by Bruce Officer)

These batteries had no overhead cover. Their main protection was afforded by being sited behind a ridge, out of direct sight of the enemy. The earth banks would offer some protection against near misses or limit the damage from a direct hit to one single gun and its crew. The concrete shelters provided somewhere for the crews to sit out bombardments, men being much more vulnerable to shrapnel and fragments than the guns themselves were.

The majority of the artillery in the defences around Verdun would have been assigned to one of these open battery sites, the cost of steel gun turrets being so high that the forts themselves only had one or two gun turrets apiece.

Between the battery position itself and the road was a very flat path, running along the contour of the hill. This turned out to be the line of an old narrow-gauge railway. These light railways, carrying small engines and wagons, linked the main defensive sites to feed the voracious appetite for shells of the artillery.

These pre-war concrete and earth batteries weren’t the only artillery positions, however, as artillery units would dig gun pits wherever they had to deploy, and improvise whatever cover and protection they could.

Continued in part three.