Bois des Caures

Due to ash chalarosis (a disease caused by a microscopic parasitic fungus), certain trees and branches in the Forêt d?Exception® de Verdun are weakened and present a risk of falling. To be on the safe side, stay on the marked trails. For further information, visit www.tourisme-verdun.com

It's clear that the Bois des Caures and the name Driant will forever be linked. Located between the villages of Flabas and Ville-devant-Chaumont, the Bois des Caures is considered to be the site of the very first confrontation of the Battle of Verdun, and should therefore be the first stop on any tourist itinerary.

Under the avalanche of fire on February 21, 1916, the 1,300 chasseurs commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Driant would defend the woods to the last man. Considered elite troops, these intrepid fighters proudly wore the hunting horn, which they had carried since the battle of Sidi-Brahm in 1845. In the front-line trenches of the Bois des Caures walked a sixty-year-old officer, a fatherly figure serenely passing among the men who almost worshipped him. It has to be said that a career like Émile Driant's earned him a great deal of respect. Ranked fourth in his class at Saint-Cyr in 1877, he had served in the infantry, then in fortifications, before heading to North Africa, where he won the hand of the daughter of a certain General Boulanger, then Governor of Tunisia.

A man of letters in his spare time, he wrote under the pseudonym "Danrit". Despite his literary successes, his strong right-wing Catholic views earned him attacks from the anticlerical movement in the turbulent years leading up to the law separating Church and State. Having fallen into official disfavor, Driant returned to the colors with the outbreak of war, to defend his country against the invaders. Constantly complaining about the state of preparations at Verdun, he voiced his concerns as a deputy in the French Chamber of Deputies, but to no avail. He died, surrounded by his Diables Bleus, on February 22, 1916, ironically one of the very few French officers to have anticipated that the enemy was preparing to strike a major blow at Verdun.

DATAtourisme France