![]() “Our enemies, even if they hung in the clouds, we shall get them! And we will drive them out of France!” Petains Catch phrase “Courage, on les auras” was a reference to Joan of Arcs words at Orleans. He organised administration and logistics and arranged for a systematic and early replacement of formations committed to Verdun, known as the “ Noria” (bucket chain) or “ tourniquet” (turnstile). He centralised control of the artillery and massed defensive fires where it could be most effective. The measures Petain took to defend Verdun were based on firepower and belief that there were no short cuts to victory. Petain’s “On Les Aura” as a propaganda poster There will be a sufficient number of guns to ensure your attack’s success. But next time you will not need to sing the Marseillaise. You went into the assault singing the Marseillaise It was magnificent. ![]() His rise to army command in the first eighteen months of the war had confirmed the need to “separate the real from the imaginary and the possible from impossible.”i An address to a decimated regiment illustrates this. As an instructor at the Ecole de Guerre he preached the heresy that “firepower kills,” with the logical implication that a well organised defence would stop the Attaque à outrance (attack to excess). Petain was an infantryman with an undistinguished pre war career only enlivened by his rejection of the pre war orthodoxy that willpower and aggression could overcome modern weapons. He was chosen purely because his army was in reserve and available. The same day, General Petain, commander of the Second Army, was ordered to take charge of the Verdun sector. Catching the French ill prepared, the offensive was initially successful, inflicting heavy casualties on the French and their forces in disarray, crowned by the capture of Fort Douamont on the 25th February. The battle was launched with heavy artillery support on 22nd February 1916. The Germans intended to break the French Army by forcing it to fight a battle of attrition under unfavourable circumstances. The battles of Verdun and the Somme, linked inextricably, dominated the Western Front in 1916. Verdun was one of the major battles of the First World War, costing the French and the Germans about a quarter of a million casualties each. ![]() But the story behind the myth does reveal something about the battle of Verdun and the men who coined the catch phrase. But like many national symbols and iconic events, much of the story is myth, factoid rather than fact. This phrase, widely attributed to General Phillip Petain has been used as a rallying cry for France since then, and an inspiration for subsequent defiance by, among others, Spanish Republicans, south American revolutionaries and the Russian Feminist group Pussy Riot. “On ne passe pas’” (They shall not pass!) emerged from the battle of Verdun as watchwords of French.
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