Investigation 2 Wheres The Air Vocabulary: Fill & Download for Free

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” - Ian MaclarenSome are, but for the wrong reasons.Here’s the thing: it’s not the fact that he makes rudimentary grammar and spelling mistakes on a routine basis.It’s the fact that he doubles down on them and insists that everyone else is getting it wrong. In the most hilarious way possible: by making additional, easily, obviously wrong ridiculous claims about provable facts. Like this, from this morning:That’s why people are mocking him so hard right now.For explanation, in case it’s not completely obvious, a) “Liddle” is not a word, b) that’s an apostrophe on the end, not a hyphen, c) the CNN story didn’t make any commentary on the incorrect spelling, merely reported it without the apostrophe on the end (which for some reason really set Trump off,) and d) Trump spells “describing” incorrectly while attacking CNN for not spelling his incorrect spelling of “little” “correctly.”Generally speaking, most people don’t care about Trump’s constant grammar and spelling mistakes. It’s Twitter. That’s just kind of the territory. I don’t think that people are holding that against him that much inherently. It’s just a gaffe.What gets overlooked because of it is that Trump’s grammar and spelling problems are likely part of why his personality is the way it is.We know Trump doesn’t like to read, and apparently struggles with it.[1] He insists that briefings be oral and short, prefers animations, diagrams, and pictures, and doesn’t even read one or two page memoranda given to him.This is probably something most people don’t think about other than to hate on him a bit or make fun of him. But it is actually somewhat important.It’s been pretty obvious by now, especially to veteran reading teachers, that Trump probably doesn’t like to read because he reads at a very low level and probably has some grade of dyslexia.[2] As a former reading and language arts teacher, I concur. Given his speech and writing patterns, I’d have to guess he reads at around a fifth to maybe sixth grade level.It’s why he frequently mixes up words or letters within words when reading off a teleprompter or impromptu speaking, or pauses a lot in odd places and then goes on the weirdest tangents until he seemingly just gets back onto the speech.He’s learned to cope by trying to make it sound like he meant to make that mistake.Three good examples are his U.N. speech just a few days ago, when he mixed up “tire” and “fire,”[3]his “taking over the airports” issue in his Fourth of July speech,[4]and his repeated “oranges” instead of “origins” mistake.[5]When someone with reading disability reads along on something like a written draft or teleprompter, they can’t process the meaning and context like fluent readers do. Their concentration is really on pronunciation of the words. So, if they do something like skip a line or come across an unfamiliar word, they get confused. They understand it doesn’t sound right because they can speak the language, but the ability to self-correct from the written word is hampered because they can’t also hold on to the context of the writing and process the word at the same time. It’s just too much.So, people who have these disabilities often develop mechanisms to try to cope that make it sound like they meant to read it that way.With “tire” and “fire,” those letters are reasonably alike, and because he probably didn’t review the speech beforehand, he just mixed them up. Rather than admit the mistake, like most people (“excuse me, tire,”) he tried to riff on it to make it seem like it was intentional.It’s a similar issue with “oranges” and “origins.” These words sound relatively alike, but he’s clearly not as familiar with the term “origins.” He tries repeating it because he’s heard someone say it recently (probably something on Fox and Friends, which we know that he watches frequently,)[6] but he doesn’t really know the word or what it means, so he falls back on a word he does know: oranges. And he realizes that it’s not the word he’s looking for, but he does actually have the concept: that word he was trying to use must mean “beginnings,” because that’s what he’s talking about - where the investigation got started. You can see he thinks about it for a moment, and then falters around, and looks for another word that he knows. This is a very typical coping strategy for struggling readers.In his 4th of July speech, he probably skipped a line on the teleprompter, which derailed him. The speech tried to re-use a lot of the language of the Star Spangled Banner, which was probably a deliberate choice on the part of the speechwriter to help provide a lot of familiar words and phrases to the audience, and for Trump.So, when he realized he missed a line, he started riffing, looking for familiar words. What came out was this:Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory.[7]He then probably went back, reread the line more carefully, and got tripped back up on “ramparts.” It’s not a commonly used word. He probably doesn’t know what it means. Because he’s lost now, he can’t just read through it; he’s trying to improvise. So, he falls back on something more familiar: rammed. Rammed he knows. The word air was probably in his head because of “bombs bursting in air.” So, he engaged in a common strategy: go to rhyming or similar sounding words that are familiar. “Ramparts” and “ports” sound familiar, and since he had “air” in his head, airport is what came out. And that sounds more right: airport is a word he knows. He improvises a bit more, “it did everything it had to do…” to buy some time to figure out his place, and then picked it back up at “at Fort McHenry.”Again, these are all really common issues and coping mechanisms in struggling readers.And it’s also really common for struggling readers to compensate by becoming aggressive or bullying others as means to cover up their insecurity. They know that they aren’t as capable as others, but they can at least make it so nobody points it out or makes fun of them for it. My students who struggled with reading would often lash out if they had to read out loud, often by trying to create a disruption that would get them out of doing it.For example, in one of my first years of teaching, I had a student who was about 3–4 grade levels behind. We were starting to read Romeo and Juliet, and for the scene, we did “popcorn reading” where I would toss a large, soft rubber ball to the first student that I wanted to pick up a part, and then that person would choose the next person to pick up a part by tossing the ball to their choice. I had picked a different student to read Benvolio’s part for the day, who then picked his buddy, the student who had the blowup. That kid had been a disciplinary problem for me all year up to that point and I immediately knew I was going to have a problem.He first tried to slap the ball away at another student, who tried to casually toss it back to him. He caught it and chucked it straight at the first kid’s head while clearly turning red. I told his friend to just pass it to someone else nicely, and grabbed the other on his way out of class to talk about it in private. It took a while of him stonewalling me and getting mad, but he finally admitted that he was really hating the whole play because he couldn’t understand it. He had no idea what was going on. He couldn’t figure out the words, couldn’t read along when others were reading, and he was pissed at his friend because he believed that his buddy picked him on purpose to make him look stupid while he had to sound everything out. He would have rather been kicked out of class and dealt with a detention or even possible suspension rather than have to read out loud to the class.I stopped doing popcorn reading in that class and had students volunteer for parts, and referred him to special ed for reading testing and services. We had a great reading specialist, who worked with him all year, and a lot of his disciplinary issues faded quickly, including in other classes.Trump has probably lived for over 60–65 years like this. He’s been able to keep it under wraps until now because of his wealth, privilege, and celebrity status, but you can’t fake it anymore when you’re the President of the United States. Everything is under a very uncomfortable microscope, especially his reading ability.He’s got to feel incredibly out of his depth and unable to keep up with everything around him. And for once, he can’t fake his way out of it. He can’t buy his way out of it (no matter how much he tries.) He can’t even bully and bluster his way out of it, which has worked for him most of his life. He has to give speeches, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it.To some degree, I have empathy for him. That’s got to have been a miserable existence; even with all the money, privilege, fame, a life that anyone could ever want, he’s had to live with a feeling of inferiority for almost all of it.It’s sad that this disability, which could have been treated with a good reading therapist, has turned Trump cruel and petty and made him so easy to manipulate. He could have been better; look at the true story of King George VI of England, who overcame a speech impediment to lead the United Kingdom in the 1930’s and 40’s.But I think this is why he bullshits so much, honestly. Not just lies, bullshits.[8] He doesn’t really think or care about whether what he’s saying is true most of the time; the falsehoods he utters often aren’t deliberately intended to deceive. Some are, but most aren’t. Most of the falsehoods he throws out are intended to try to make himself look good, or smart, or right.[9] When they’re called out, it confirms that lifelong sense of inferiority for him and he lashes out to try and prove that he was right all along.[10]And when he fights back, because he lacks the vocabulary, the metacognition to review what he’s writing, and concepts to intelligibly fight back, he ends up making it worse like he did with the “Liddle’ Adam” debacle this morning. It gave everyone a reason to point and roar with laughter at him as he struggles his way through this, in such a way that made him look even dumber than if he’d have just left it alone.Even though Trump brought it on himself, and he absolutely did, I honestly can’t help but remember that kid in my classroom who was afraid that everyone was going to point and laugh at him and lashed out because of it.I also have to wonder if it has at least a little to do with why others who tend to struggle with the same issues might find him something of a folk hero. We keep hearing about how Trump supporters are fed up with the “elites.”[11] They feel looked down upon, and they resent it.[12] We also know that a not insignificant fraction of them tend to be cognitively challenged.[13][14] Not necessarily uneducated, but like Trump, semi-literate or with other educational disabilities. Here’s a guy who sounds like they think, or sounds like they read when he reads something out loud, and the very people who they think look down on them, look down on him for it as well.So, in some respects, I think people are probably having a laugh at Trump’s expense, and in that sense, they probably are making a bigger deal out of Trump’s mistakes than is truly warranted, even if it’s not totally unjustified.But I also think that it neglects the larger problem: we have a semi-literate President who is a petty, self-centered tyrant in part because of his insecurities around his inability to read.I’ll admit, I’m no Trump apologist, and I’ve sharply criticized his actions and the actions of his followers as they damage the institutions and fabric of the nation. He should be removed from office as soon as possible, both for his clearly deteriorating mental health and for the sake of the country.But it is important sometimes to take a step back and realize that in general, people are rarely inherently evil. Something happened, usually traumatic, that make people into bullies, cruel and petty and vengeful.Our culture has a massive deficit of empathy right now, and we should probably all consider how we contribute to that.[15] It doesn’t mean we accept the bullying or take it lying down. It means seeing through the monster on the outside to the human on the inside.Because the ones that are the hardest to love probably need it the most.Footnotes[1] The President Who Doesn't Read[2] Why Trump Can’t Learn: An Educated Guess by a Veteran Teacher[3] Decoding Trump's speech before the United Nations[4] Trump blames teleprompter for Revolutionary War 'airports' flub[5] White House bafflingly claims Trump actually said 'oringes,' not 'oranges'[6] I’ve Studied the Trump-Fox Feedback Loop for Months. It’s Crazier Than You Think.[7] George Washington’s forces seized the airports? Trump blames July 4 speech history flub on busted teleprompter.[8] http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf[9] Trump goes on tweet offensive about whistleblower, his 'perfect call' and 'Liddle' Adam Schiff[10] Opinion: ‘Sharpiegate’ is nothing to laugh at. It’s one more example of Trump’s unchecked presidential powers[11] It’s Time to Hold American Elites Accountable for Their Abuses[12] In rural Wisconsin, researcher found roots of Trump's revolution[13] Trump's Appeal to the Cognitively Challenged[14] White Voters Without A Degree Remained Staunchly Republican In 2018[15] Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from Our Culture of Contempt: Arthur C. Brooks: 9781982608804: Amazon.com: Books

Below is a list of words I consider to be great yet obscure (after each word I stated the amount of Google search results as an indication of prevalence of use), and should probably be brought into common—or at least more prevalent—use:Absquatulate — 202k — To leave somewhere abruptly.Aeolist — 59.3k — A pompous person, pretending to have inspiration or spiritual insight.Airgonaut — 4.32k — Archaic. One who journeys through the air.Alabandical — 4.27k — Archaic. Barbarous; stupefied from drink.Argle-bargle — 94.4k — Copious but meaningless talk or writing; waffle.Argute — 338k — Characterized by shrewdness, acuteness, or sagacity.Aught — 3.97m — Anything at all (antonym of ‘naught’).Bardolatry — 51.5k — Excessive admiration of Shakespeare.Barmecide — 54.8k — Illusory or imaginary and therefore disappointing.Bibliopole — 87.6k — A person who buys and sells books, especially rare ones.Blatherskite — 161k — A person who talks at great length without making much sense.Breatharian — 576k — A person who believes that it is possible—through meditation—to reach a level of consciousness where one can exist on air alone.Brobdingnagian — 386k — Huge; gigantic.Cacoethes — 124k — An urge to do something inadvisable.Callipygous — 44.3k — Of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks.Canorous — 120k — (Of song or speech) melodious or resonant.Cantillate — 55.7k — To chant or intone (a passage of religious text).Cavil — 1.68m — Make petty or unnecessary objections.Chiliad — 1.13m — A thousand things or a thousand years.Chthonic — 1.09m — Relating to or inhabiting the underworld.Comminatory — 42.4k — Threatening, punitive, or vengeful.Concinnity — 147k — The skillful and harmonious arrangement or fitting together of the different parts of something. Elegance of literary or artistic style.Constellate — 152k — To gather together in a cluster or group.Crepuscular — 2.69m — Resembling or relating to twilight.Deasil — 109k — In the direction of the Sun’s apparent course; clockwise.Discombobulate — 661k — Disconcert or confuse (someone).Divagate — 80.2k — To stray or digress.Doryphore — 131k — A pedantic and annoyingly persistent critic.Effable — 76.5k — Able to be described in words.Effulgent — 534k — Shining forth brilliantly; radiant.Ensorcell — 43.8k — To enchant or fascinate someone.Eurhythmic — 47.3k — In harmonious proportion.Erubescent — 35.1k — Reddening or blushing.Extramundane — 90.2k — Outside or beyond the physical world.Farctate — 7.63k — Having the center solid but softer in consistency than the peripheral layers.Fugacious — 125k — Transient or fleeting; tending to disappear.Fuscous — 213k — Dark and sombre in color.Gasconade — 862k — Extravagant boasting.Lucubration — 120k — Laborious work, study, thought, etc.—especially at night.Oenophile — 439k — A wine connoisseur.Obnubilate — 51.6k — To darken, dim, or obscure something.Opsimath — 36.5k — A person who begins to learn or study late in life.Minacious — 53k — Menacing or threatening.Mollitious — 4.16k — Luxurious, sensuous, or self-indulgent.Operose — 243k — Involving or displaying a lot of industry or effort.Orectic — 29.8k — Of or concerning desire or appetite.Pantagruelian — 16.1k — Enormous.Panurgic — 9.9k — Able or ready to do anything.Paracosm — 492k — A highly detailed, imaginary world—created inside someone’s mind.Peccable — 103k — Liable or prone to sin; susceptible to temptation (antonym of impeccable).Persiflage — 707k — Light and slightly contemptuous mockery or banter.Petrichor — 2.4m — A pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.Philodox — 36.8k — A person who loves or vehemently propounds his or her own opinions; a dogmatic or argumentative person.Piacular — 34.1k — Making or requiring atonement.Pilgarlic — 25.9k — A person regarded with mild or pretended contempt or pity. A bald-headed man.Pinguid — 59.8k — Of the nature of or resembling fat; oily or grease.Prolix — 925k — (Of speech or writing) using or containing too many words; tediously lengthy.Psychopomp — 406k — A guide of souls to the place of the dead.Pulchritude — 2.83m — Physical beauty; comeliness.Sagacious — 2.3m — Having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgement; wise or shrewd.Skeuomorph — 62.2k — An object or feature which imitates the design of a similar artefact made from another material.Snollygoster — 39.5k — A shrewd or unprincipled person, especially a politician.Superbious — 3.65k — Proud and overbearing.Susurrus — 603k — Whispering or rustling.Syzygy — 1.34m — A conjunction or opposition, especially of the Moon with the Sun. A pair of connected or corresponding things.Tmesis — 144k — The separation of parts of a compound word by an intervening word or words (e.g. every-fucking-thing).Transpicuous — 228k — Transparent. Easily understood, lucid.Ultracrepidarian — 35.1k — (Pertaining to) a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside the area of his or her expertise.Umbriferous — 25.8k — Shady; providing shade.Vagarious — 159k — Erratic and unpredictable in behavior or direction.Velleity — 69.3k — A wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.Vulpine — 767k — Crafty; cunning.Yonic — 445k — In the shape of a vulva (female version of ‘phallic’).Ylem — 428k — The primordial matter of the universe, originally conceived as composed of neutrons at high temperature and density.Zetetic — 239k — Proceeding by inquiry or investigation.And here is the same list ordered by Google search results, giving an indication of the extent of obscurity and prevalence of (modern) use:Superbious — 3.65k — Proud and overbearing.Mollitious — 4.16k — Luxurious, sensuous, or self-indulgent.Alabandical — 4.27k — Archaic. Barbarous; stupefied from drink.Airgonaut — 4.32k — Archaic. One who journeys through the air.Farctate — 7.63k — Having the center solid but softer in consistency than the peripheral layers.Panurgic — 9.9k — Able or ready to do anything.Pantagruelian — 16.1k — Enormous.Umbriferous — 25.8k — Shady; providing shade.Pilgarlic — 25.9k — A person regarded with mild or pretended contempt or pity. A bald-headed man.Orectic — 29.8k — Of or concerning desire or appetite.Piacular — 34.1k — Making or requiring atonement.Erubescent — 35.1k — Reddening or blushing.Ultracrepidarian — 35.1k — (Pertaining to) a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside the area of his or her expertise.Opsimath — 36.5k — A person who begins to learn or study late in life.Philodox — 36.8k — A person who loves or vehemently propounds his or her own opinions; a dogmatic or argumentative person.Snollygoster — 39.5k — A shrewd or unprincipled person, especially a politician.Comminatory — 42.4k — Threatening, punitive, or vengeful.Ensorcell — 43.8k — To enchant or fascinate someone.Callipygous — 44.3k — Of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks.Eurhythmic — 47.3k — In harmonious proportion.Obnubilate — 51.6k — To darken, dim, or obscure something.Minacious — 53k — Menacing or threatening.Cantillate — 55.7k — To chant or intone (a passage of religious text).Barmecide — 54.8k — Illusory or imaginary and therefore disappointing.Bardolatry — 51.5k — Excessive admiration of Shakespeare.Aeolist — 59.3k — A pompous person, pretending to have inspiration or spiritual insight.Pinguid — 59.8k — Of the nature of or resembling fat; oily or grease.Skeuomorph — 62.2k — An object or feature which imitates the design of a similar artefact made from another material.Velleity — 69.3k — A wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.Effable — 76.5k — Able to be described in words.Divagate — 80.2k — To stray or digress.Bibliopole — 87.6k — A person who buys and sells books, especially rare ones.Extramundane — 90.2k — Outside or beyond the physical world.Argle-bargle — 94.4k — Copious but meaningless talk or writing; waffle.Peccable — 103k — Liable or prone to sin; susceptible to temptation (antonym of impeccable).Deasil — 109k — In the direction of the Sun’s apparent course; clockwise.Canorous — 120k — (Of song or speech) melodious or resonant.Lucubration — 120k — Laborious work, study, thought, etc.—especially at night.Cacoethes — 124k — An urge to do something inadvisable.Fugacious — 125k — Transient or fleeting; tending to disappear.Doryphore — 131k — A pedantic and annoyingly persistent critic.Tmesis — 144k — The separation of parts of a compound word by an intervening word or words (e.g. every-fucking-thing).Concinnity — 147k — The skillful and harmonious arrangement or fitting together of the different parts of something. Elegance of literary or artistic style.Constellate — 152k — To gather together in a cluster or group.Vagarious — 159k — Erratic and unpredictable in behavior or direction.Blatherskite — 161k — A person who talks at great length without making much sense.Absquatulate — 202k — To leave somewhere abruptly.Fuscous — 213k — Dark and sombre in color.Transpicuous — 228k — Transparent. Easily understood, lucid.Zetetic — 239k — Proceeding by inquiry or investigation.Operose — 243k — Involving or displaying a lot of industry or effort.Argute — 338k — Characterized by shrewdness, acuteness, or sagacity.Brobdingnagian — 386k — Huge; gigantic.Psychopomp — 406k — A guide of souls to the place of the dead.Ylem — 428k — The primordial matter of the universe, originally conceived as composed of neutrons at high temperature and density.Oenophile — 439k — A wine connoisseur.Yonic — 445k — In the shape of a vulva (female version of ‘phallic’).Paracosm — 492k — A highly detailed, imaginary world—created inside someone’s mind.Effulgent — 534k — Shining forth brilliantly; radiant.Breatharian — 576k — A person who believes that it is possible—through meditation—to reach a level of consciousness where one can exist on air alone.Susurrus — 603k — Whispering or rustling.Discombobulate — 661k — Disconcert or confuse (someone).Persiflage — 707k — Light and slightly contemptuous mockery or banter.Vulpine — 767k — Crafty; cunning.Gasconade — 862k — Extravagant boasting.Prolix — 925k — (Of speech or writing) using or containing too many words; tediously lengthy.Chthonic — 1.09m — Relating to or inhabiting the underworld.Chiliad — 1.13m — A thousand things or a thousand years.Syzygy — 1.34m — A conjunction or opposition, especially of the Moon with the Sun. A pair of connected or corresponding things.Cavil — 1.68m — Make petty or unnecessary objections.Sagacious — 2.3m — Having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgement; wise or shrewd.Petrichor — 2.4m — A pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.Crepuscular — 2.69m — Resembling or relating to twilight.Pulchritude — 2.83m — Physical beauty; comeliness.Aught — 3.97m — Anything at all (antonym of ‘naught’).A vast amount of archaic words—many of which should be brought back, if only we had the vocabulary capacity—can be found here:The Phrontistery — Compendium of Lost Words

The Battle of Verdun from 21 February - 18 December 1916 (Germany wants to weaken the French Army to the point of exhaustion) was the largest battle of the Western Front of World War I fought between the French and German armies. The fighting lasted for 303 days, and it remains one of the bloodiest battles in human history. The German Army launched a series of attacks designed to weaken the French Army to the point of exhaustion. While the Germans initially had success, capturing important ground from the hands of the French, the Somme offensive forced them to direct reinforcements to that sector. During the final phase of the battle of Verdun the French soldiers managed to recapture a lot of the lost ground. In the end the Germans suffered almost as many casualties as the French.Even during the summer, while the original aim of the Verdun offensive had long since been obscured, the cost in blood had been too high for either side to risk national dishonor by becoming the first to terminate the battle. It had been a long year: the Germans had lost some 330,000 casualties at Verdun, the French around 377,000. For both sides Verdun had proved an almost unbearable trial.In December 1915 it had been decided that there would be a huge Anglo-French offensive on the Western Front to coincide with simultaneous offensives by the Russians and the Italians. Joffre had selected the Somme area where the British and French would fight side by side. This was alliance warfare and Douglas Haig, the British Expeditionary Force commander, was left with no option but to comply if the union was to survive and prosper. Yet neither Joffre nor Haig would have the chance to dictate what was about to happen on the Western Front. At the start of 1916 the French position at Verdun was not healthy. For the first half of 1916, it was another general, the German Chief of General Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, who would control the agenda of the war. With Russia apparently tamed, Falkenhayn was intent on seeking a decision in the west. Falkenhayn still considered Britain the main enemy, but seriously harming the British war effort remained problematical. Eventually, he resolved to attack the French, reasoning that he would knock ‘England’s best sword out of its hand – France!’Throughout 1915, Falkenhayn had seen the western front as the decisive theatre of the war. He now assumed that the Austrians would guard his back against a severely weakened Russia, while he concentrated Germany’s efforts against France. The fact that he did so in the very month when his relationship with Conrad von Hötzendorff, the Austrian Chief of the General Staff, reached its nadir meant that his decision was not coordinated with his principal ally. Conrad overran Montenegro and then readied his army for an operation much more to Austrian liking, an attack on Italy in the Trentino. The pressure on Russia eased. During the planning process for what would be the Battle of Verdun, Falkenhayn developed a new concept of warfare. He would launch an assault on the salient that protruded around the fortress town of Verdun on both banks of the River Meuse. There a potent mixture of tactical necessity and national pride would force the French to launch counterattacks that would in effect bleed their army to death. Whether the French counterattacked at Verdun or attempted to relieve the pressure with a major attack elsewhere, the Germans believed that the effect would be the same – huge losses, unsustainable for the French nation.When the German bombardment began, it was far more concentrated than that which the French had employed in their wide-front autumn offensives the year before. Gradually, the shelling built up to a crescendo. What followed was to some extent an anti-climax as the German patrols felt their way forward, investigating the situation, not committing masses of troops that first night. The Germans overran the Bois d’Haumont, but stalled in the neighbouring Bois des Caures, where the defence was led by Colonel Émile Driant. A second terrible bombardment lashed Driant’s positions in the morning. This time the German assault was pressed home in earnest. For the first time, a major offensive was coordinated with airpower, used in three ways that would subsequently become more or less standard in warfare: air superiority over the theater through overwhelming numbers, which in turn enabled bombing and artillery spotting. This last was done in two different ways. Six artillery observation units of airplanes were employed, in addition to seven balloon units deploying fourteen observation balloons. All of this had been done before. What was completely new was the fact that the Germans used planes to bomb enemy positions.The German advance was very gradual – just 1-2 miles in the first three days. Then there was a terrible shock for the French, born of the sheer confusion of battle. Fort Douaumont was tactically the most significant of the forts, its glowering presence dominating the northern approaches to Verdun. The company of infantry attached to the fort had been despatched to help stiffen their front line and by some mischance had not been replaced, leaving the fort empty but for a few gunners. German patrols penetrated the outer defences of the fort and broke in to discover the building all but deserted. The great imagined bastion of Douaumont had fallen without a shot being fired. At this point it seemed that the French were going to abandon the east bank of the Meuse to the Germans. However, Joffre’s Chief of Staff, General Édouard de Castelnau, was aware of what did, and did not, make military sense. Taking into consideration the likely impact of the loss of Verdun on French national morale, he persuaded Joffre that it must be held. This meant not only holding the last positions on the east bank but also ordering a policy of no retreat on the west bank, should the Germans attack there. It was resolved to place General Phillipe Pétain, in command of the Second Army, in charge of holding Verdun. Falkenhayn had wanted France to fight. He had not counted upon the French army’s fervor. Already on the 27th of February, the Germans recorded ‘no success anywhere’. The Germans sought to overcome the resistance of the French infantry by pushing their artillery ever closer to the front, through saturated ground that demanded ever larger teams of horses to move a single gun. An immediate result was appalling casualties among the gun-teams. Despite the growing weight of bombardment, the French line would not shift.After a lull the Germans attacked again, this time including the west bank of the Meuse, reaching for the French artillery in the hills. Here the focus of the assault would be the ridge of Le Mort Homme (The Dead Man) and the rather more prosaically named Côte 304. The soon-to-be-denuded woods and hills would become another slaughterhouse. Sometimes the French would fall back, deterred by a particularly vicious bombardment that tore at their spirits. But they always seemed to have another battalion to launch a desperate counterattack, catching the Germans before they could consolidate. All German attempts to seize Le Mort Homme failed. Pétain did not last long, for all his virtues. He demanded more, ever more, reinforcements from Joffre, who was desperate to conserve his reserves. Joffre was a man who did not brook continual demands, no matter how they were phrased. At the end of April he had had enough, but as Pétain was by then a national hero, he promoted him to command the Central Group of Armies. General Robert Nivelle took over the Second Army at Verdun. Nothing much changed. Pétain had set in train the necessary reorganization to secure the defence of Verdun as far as possible.After a heavier bombardment than that of the initial attack, the Germans took Cote 304 early in May and had seized the whole of Le Mort Homme by the end of the month, albeit at frightful cost. Finally, the Germans managed to encircle Fort Vaux, holding the ring of the Meuse Heights. The fort fell after a week of fighting. As was so often the case, the capture of one vital feature merely brought to prominence the next string of objectives, one more last line of defence stretching from the Ouvrage de Thiaumont strongpoint, through the dessicated remnants of Fleury village to Fort Souville. The Germans captured Fleury but could not take the fort. The British and French bombardment had opened on the Somme. Slowly, the German reserves that remained were deployed to counter the new Entente thrust. The Germans were held back and Fort Souville remained in French hands. Yet the Battle of Verdun was by no means over. Now it was the turn of the French to hit back. Time and time again the French attacked the Germans, who responded with characteristic aggression: the village of Fleury would change hands fifteen times in some of the worst fighting of the whole war before the French finally took it for good.In August, Romania's entry into the war on the Entente side precipitated the downfall of Falkenhayn, who had insisted this would not occur. He was succeeded as Chief of the General Staff by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. General Erich Ludendorff, who had helped mastermind most of the German victories in the east, knew how important he was to Hindenburg and demanded the title 'First Quartermaster General' rather than 'Second Chief of the General Staff’. He was also given joint responsibility for all decisions. From then on, Hindenburg's leadership became largely symbolic. By now the French artillery was dominant, since much of the German artillery had departed for the Somme. The next major thrust was the scheme of General Charles Mangin. His plan was cunning. A dummy attack, preceded by a major bombardment, would cause the hidden German batteries to open fire and thereby reveal their positions to the watching French reconnaissance aircraft. By the time the real attack was launched, most of those German guns had been silenced. When the survivors of the gas attack scrambled out they found themselves trapped behind the attacking French infantry who had already swept on. Thiaumont stronghold fell without a fight. Fort Douaumont was blasted by huge French railway guns, their gigantic shells smashing home with a terrible devastating impact. In the end, the shell-shocked garrison evacuated the fort, which thus fell to the French. Even then it was still not all over. The French nibbled away at the German lines step by step. Fort Vaux was recaptured and, in a final flourish, the French charged forward nearly two miles.In conclusion, using the vocabulary of attrition was a way for Falkenhayn to rationalise the failure to achieve a breakthrough. France had allies in the west, Germany did not; and Germany, unlike France, was heavily committed elsewhere. The absolute numbers may have been in Germany’s favor, but the relative loss was not. Moreover, the battle of Verdun redefined both France’s commitment to the war, and the symbiosis between France and the Third Republic. ‘They know that they are saving France,’ a censor reported of the soldiers in July, ‘but also that they are going to die on the spot.’ The Anglo-French plan for the western front was to take out the salient bounded by the River Aisne to the south and the Somme battlefield to the north. In the end, the French managed to capture some of the lost ground because the Germans were forced to switch their resources on the Somme to counter the most serious threats they had faced in two years of warfare, not because they had been stopped by French arms at the gates to the city.Sources used:Peter Hart, The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013John Mosier, The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I, Harper Collins Publishers, Sydney, 2001Peter Simkins, Geoffrey Jukes, Michael Hickey, Hew Strachan, The First World War: The War to End All Wars, Osprey Publishing. Oxford, 2003John Keegan, The First World War, Random House UK Limited, London, 1998Hew Strachan, The First World War, Penguin Books, London, 2003