Military History | Fort de Vaux — Surrendered on 7 June 1916 When the Water Ran Out

Fort de Vaux is a small work in the Séré de Rivières ring around Verdun, built between 1881 and 1884. Its value was what could be seen from it: the Woëvre plain below, and the ravine that carries its name.

The interpretation panel at the entrance states the paradox without softening it. The fort had excellent observation and fired no shell during the battle of Verdun. Its guns had gone forward in 1915 with the rest of the ring's armament.

German infantry reached the superstructure on 2 June 1916 and the fighting moved down into the corridors, behind barricades, under chef de bataillon Sylvain-Eugène Raynal. The Mémorial de Verdun records two French attempts to relieve the fort, on the nights of 4–5 and 5–6 June; both failed. Messages went out by homing pigeon, the last of them carried by the bird remembered as Vaillant.

The cistern decided it. The garrison surrendered on 7 June 1916, having run out of water.

The figures do not agree. The tablet on the outer wall lists the units of a garrison of about 250; French accounts put more than 500 men inside once the fort was encircled. That tablet counts seven days of resistance, 1 to 7 June, where the museum's account runs from 2 June.

The German garrison left in the autumn. French troops walked back in without a fight, on 2 November by one account and on the night of 2–3 November by others.

The fort is open now, and the route runs past the command post, the infirmary, the telephone exchange and the pigeon loft to a Bourges casemate. Set into the outer wall is a white tablet carrying a pigeon in relief above a helmet and a palm, inscribed AVX COLOMBOPHILES MORTS POVR LA FRANCE and AV PIGEON DE VERDVN.

📸 Cover: Fort Vaux, the shell-torn superstructure and the site panel — Adam Jones, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Second image: the pigeon-fanciers' tablet on the fortress wall — Adam Jones, CC BY 2.0.