Verdun is not an Australian story. No Australian units fought there. It doesn’t appear in our national mythology the way Gallipoli, Fromelles, or Pozières do.
But you cannot understand the Western Front without understanding Verdun.
The Battle of Verdun lasted from February to December 1916 — ten months of continuous fighting between French and German forces. The German strategy, conceived by Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, was to “bleed France white” by attacking a position the French could not afford to abandon. Verdun, a heavily fortified city on the Meuse River, was that position.
The cost was staggering. Combined French and German casualties exceeded 700,000. The landscape was obliterated. Villages were erased entirely — nine of them were officially “dead” after the war, never to be rebuilt. The ground around Fort Douaumont still bears the scars of shellfire more than a century later.
For our tour, Verdun provides essential context. The British launched the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 in part to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun. Australian troops entered the Somme fighting at Pozières and Mouquet Farm, suffering 23,000 casualties in six weeks. Without Verdun, there is no Somme. Without the Somme, there is no Australian Western Front story.
We spend two nights in Verdun, staying at Les Jardins du Mess — a converted 19th-century officers’ mess in the centre of town. On the afternoon of arrival, we visit the Verdun Memorial Museum, Fort Douaumont (the largest fort in the Verdun system), and the Douaumont Ossuary, where the remains of approximately 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers rest.
The following day, the tone shifts entirely. We drive to Golf de Preisch, a championship course at the tri-border of France, Luxembourg, and Germany — one of the best courses in the region. It’s a deliberate contrast, and one that defines the Fairways & Frontlines approach: heritage and golf, side by side, each enriching the other.