Verdun by numbers
10 months. Duration of the battle: lasting from 21st February until 18 December 1916. Verdun was the longest conflict of the First World War.
Grand Est
Verdun: the longest battle
In our special feature for this issue, Graham Goodlad traces first the military career of Philippe Pétain, the French marshal later disgraced for his collaboration with Nazi Germany, and then looks at the battle of Verdun to understand how France’s eventual victory was achieved at such terrible human cost.
The Mill on the Meuse
In the second part of our special feature, Graham Goodlad examines the epic French defence of the fortress of Verdun in the longest battle of World War I.
World news
Mass graves and migration in Neolithic France Recent isotopic analysis of human remains from Neolithic mass graves found at Bergheim and Achenheim in Alsace, France, have shed new light on the life histories of these individuals. Each pit was found…
Violent victory celebrations
Recent analysis has shed new light on the circumstances surrounding a pair of unusual Neolithic mass graves in north-east France. Around a decade ago, two late Middle Neolithic burial pits were discovered at the sites of Bergheim and Achenheim in…
The shock of the new
Marshal Turenne’s bold Winter Campaign of 1674-1675 defied the norms of 17th-century warfare, says William E Welsh. It also sealed his reputation as one of France’s greatest commanders.
Tracing the origins of early medieval silver coinage
During the mid-7th century AD there was an abrupt economic shift in north-west Europe, particularly around the North Sea, with silver coinage largely replacing the use of gold. Recent research has suggested that at least some of this coinage was…
The last charge: The Battle of Mars-la-Tour and Von Bredow’s ‘Death Ride’, 16 August 1870
One of the crucial battles of the Franco-Prussian War was also the scene of perhaps the last successful cavalry charge in Western European warfare, as William E Welsh explains.
At First Light: a true World War II story of a hero, his bravery, and an amazing horse
REVIEW by MARC DeSANTIS Popular memory of the Second World War is inconsistent. Certain events, such as the Battle of Britain, El Alamein, the Atlantic Campaign, D-Day, and Operation Market Garden, loom large in modern consciousness. Other events and fronts,…
The Western Front: a history of the First World War
This is the first of a planned three-part history of the First World War organised by theatre. The second volume will deal with the Eastern Front (including Italy and the Balkans), the third with the wider war (mainly the Middle…
Reopening graves a widespread practice in early medieval Europe, research reveals
The practice appears to have begun in central Europe sometime before the 6th-century AD, and then spread across the continent before reaching its peak around two-hundred-years later.
Military History Matters 119
• The Franco-Prussian War
• Prokhorovka, 1943: the greatest tank battle in history?
• Medieval Irish warfare: Dark Ages to the Tudors
• The genesis of airpower
• Ian Fleming: the wartime exploits of Bond’s creator