Noria (Verdun)
The Noria (also Pater Noster ) was a logistical facility of the French army during the Battle of Verdun (1916) in the First World War . Using this system, the French troops were supplied with trucks during the battle and replaced on a rotation basis . This contributed significantly to the defensive success and was an essential factor in establishing Verdun as a symbolic place of remembrance .
Procedure
The Verdun fortress was only connected to the hinterland by a narrow-gauge railway , which, however, was canceled for replenishment purposes as it was under German artillery fire . General Philippe Pétain therefore organized a supply system based on the constant influx of supplies by means of a column of trucks that worked around the clock. Pétain called this principle "Noria", which was actually a name for a water paddle made of ropes and buckets . Another term for this process was "Paternoster", named after the Paternoster lift or the at Rosary repeated prayer .
Using this system, around 8,000 vehicles drove to the front on the Bar-le-Duc - Verdun road (approx. 60 km) at an average rate of around 14 seconds each, transporting around 90,000 soldiers and 50,000 tons of military equipment per week. At the same time, detached bandages and wounded were transported away. In April 1916, the writer and politician Maurice Barrès called this important connection " Voie Sacrée " (German: "Holy Way") for the first time .
This supply principle quickly affected the fighting. By the end of February 1916, more than 2,000 guns could be pulled together and provided with ammunition. In addition, the system allowed the French divisions to be replaced every 10 to 14 days, which was beneficial to the morale and fighting strength of the units. On the other hand, practically all divisions before Verdun were deployed through the "Noria" procedure. By July 15, 1916, 80 of the 95 divisions of the French army also fought at Verdun. But only 23 of them were used twice, which was mainly due to the fact that the "Noria" system could hardly be maintained with the beginning of the Battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916).
German perspective
There was no comparable system on the German side. Normally, the German troops spent 5 to 7 days in the two front lines and then 4 to 5 days in the rest room. But since a few weeks after the start of the attacks at Verdun there were hardly any fresh troops available, the same regiments remained in the Verdun area for a long time. The Württemberg Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 122 often stayed either in the front line or on standby for 4 to 6 weeks. Many soldiers remained in action for almost three weeks. It was only after several months, when the divisions were completely exhausted, that the units were withdrawn from the Verdun front, but were often deployed there again later.
“With the Germans it was exactly the opposite, the people, the small units, as they said at the time, were burned to cinders and only replaced when a company of a nominal strength of 300 men suddenly had only 60 or 40 men. Burned out to cinder. Then they came back or not at all. The soldiers got the feeling that they had been burned unnecessarily there. And in soldiery literature after the First World War this is a fixed point of bitterness, of soldierly bitterness. "
In addition, the French practice led the German Supreme Army Command (OHL) to a completely wrong assessment of the French losses. Because she assumed that the French army always deployed new divisions because the others had been worn out in the fighting. General von Falkenhayn , the initiator of the German offensive, was therefore of the opinion that his plan to bleed the French army at Verdun actually worked. Even after the war he wrote that over 90 enemy divisions had been crushed near Verdun.
Importance for the culture of remembrance
Since almost two thirds of the French army took part in the fighting at Verdun through the "Noria" system, almost every veteran was a Verdun fighter. This gave the battlefield great significance as a place of national memory during and especially after the war.
“The noria showed tremendous moral consequences. It made the battle of Verdun a matter for the whole army. This immediately changed morale. The soldiers who went into battle were moving on terrain that they did not know but that was by no means unknown to them because they had heard of it […]. In this way Verdun became a sacred place, a place of sacrifice and consecration. "
In contrast, Verdun became a term in German remembrance culture that was associated with the bitter impression that it had been burned.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Gerd Krumeich : The human being as "material" - Verdun, February 21 to September 9, 1916 , in: Stig Förster / Markus Pöhlmann / Dierk Walter (ed.): Battles of world history - From Salamis to Sinai , Munich 2001 , Pp. 295-305, here p. 301
- ^ Ian FW Beckett: The Great War 1914-1918 , Harlow 2001, p. 158
- ↑ Cf. u. a. Max Clauss: Between Paris and Vichy - France since the Armistice , Berlin 1942, p. 67
- ↑ Sandra Petermann: Rituals Make Spaces - For the collective commemoration of the Battle of Verdun and the landing in Normandy , Diss., Mainz 2006, p. 125
- ↑ Antoine Prost: Verdun , in: Pierre Nora (ed.): Places of remembrance of France , Munich 2005, pp. 253–278, here pp. 259f.
- ↑ Details on the German replacement practice at Verdun, cf. Matti Münch: Verdun - Myth and everyday life of a battle , Diss., Munich 2006, pp. 191–199
- ↑ Christina Schaffrath / Juliane Krebs: Horrors of War, Remembrance and Reconciliation, On the way on the battlefield of Verdun (Deutschlandradio Kultur on December 20, 2006)
- ↑ Holger Afflerbach : Falkenhayn - Political Thinking and Action in the Kaiserreich , Munich 1994, p. 371
- ↑ Björn Schröder (Ed.): Idea and Theory of Places of Memory , Norderstedt 2003, p. 13
- ↑ Quotation from: Gerd Krumeich: The human being as "material" - Verdun, February 21 to September 9, 1916 , in: Stig Förster / Markus Pöhlmann / Dierk Walter (ed.): Battles of World History - From Salamis to Sinai , Munich 2001, pp. 295–305, here p. 302