Starting from the north of Varennes the German order of battle on the day of attack was as follows: On the extreme right were the Seventh Reserve Corps, comprising the Second Landwehr Division, the Eleventh Reserve Division (later relieved by the Twenty-second Reserve Division), and the Twelfth Reserve Division in the order given. Northeast of Verdun, and facing the French lines, were the Fourteenth Division and the Seventh Reserve Corps, with the Eleventh Bavarian Reserve Division in support. To the left of these armies was a central force, comprising the Eighteenth Corps, the Third Corps, the Fifteenth Corps, and the Bavarian Ersatz Division in the order named.
It was estimated by a competent French military authority that the Germans had under arms in this sector up to the 16th of March a grand total of 440,000 men, of which 320,000 were infantry. When the battle opened, the Germans were at least three times as strong in numbers as their opponent.
Before the date fixed for the great offensive the Germans undertook many local attacks on the French front with a view to deceiving their antagonists as to their real objective. In Artois, Champagne, and the Argonne Forest there was some strenuous mine fighting, and at Frise in Santerre the Germans gained some ground only to lose it a little later.
A bombarding squadron of Zeppelins which the Germans sent out along the Verdun front to cut railway communications fared badly. The French antiaircraft guns brought down a number of Fokkers and a Zeppelin in flames at Revigny, but the raiders succeeded in cutting the Ste. Ménéhould line, leaving only a narrow-gauge road to supply Verdun.
At 4.15 in the morning of February 21, 1916, the great battle began, the German guns deluging the sector with shells of every caliber that smashed and tore the French positions and surroundings until the very face of nature was distorted. French trench shelters vanished and in Caures Wood and La Ville Wood men were buried in the dugouts or blown to fragments. Telephone lines having been cut, communication could only be maintained by runners. News of the great destruction wrought by the German guns, far from depressing the French fighting units, had a stimulating effect. The French front lines crumbled away under the deluge of fire, but their occupants still clung tenaciously to the débris that remained. The German guns were everywhere, and it was useless for French aerial observers to indicate any special batteries for bombardment. The Germans had the greater number of guns and the heavier, but the French artillery was better served on the whole, and there was less reckless expenditure of ammunition. As an illustration of the brilliant work of the French artillery, an eyewitness has described the defense of a position southeast of Haumont Wood. Here one battery was divided into flanking guns in three positions--one to the southeast of Haumont Wood, a second to the south, and a third to the north of Samogneux. The two other batteries were to the south of Hill 312; there was also a supporting battery of six 90-mm. guns. In response to the German attack the French replied with a curtain of fire, but, unchecked by the fearful loss of life, they began to swarm in from all sides.