During February of the second year of WWI, the French fort of Verdun protruded into the German front and presented them with an excellent opportunity to attack it from three sides. The German commander Erich Falkenhayen, also new of the symbolic value of the fort to the French people and hoped that’s the attack would draw in major portions of the French army from throughout the entire front. Falkenhayen appointed the commander of the German 5th Army, Crown Prince Wilhelm, to take the French salient. Wilhelm proposed to attack from two sides along the river Me