Erich von Falkenhayn
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Chief of the General Staff
Erich von Falkenhayn (11 November 1861 - 8 April 1922) was a German soldier and Chief of the General Staff during World War I.
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[edit] Early life
Falkenhayn was a career soldier. Between 1896 and 1903, he served in China, and saw action during the Boxer Rebellion. Afterwards, he was stationed in Braunschweig, Metz, and Magdeburg, with ever-increasing rank. In 1913, he became Prussian Minister of War, in which capacity he was one of the key players in the genesis of World War I when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo took place. Like most German military, he did not then count on an overall war, but he very soon embraced it and belonged to those pushing Kaiser Wilhelm II to declare war.
[edit] Chief of Staff
Falkenhayn succeeded Moltke as Chief of Staff after the Battle of the Marne on 14 September 1914. Confronted with the failure of the Schlieffen Plan, Falkenhayn attempted to outflank the British and French in what has been called the "Race to the Sea", a series of engagements throughout northern France and Belgium with the aim to reach the North Sea coast. The Germans were eventually stopped by the British at the First Battle of Ypres.
Falkenhayn preferred an offensive strategy on the Western Front while conducting a limited campaign in the east in the hope that Russia would accept a separate armistice much easily if it had not been humiliated too much. This brought him into conflict with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who favored massive offensives in the east. Eventually, either in the hope that a massive slaughter would lead Europe's political leaders to consider ending the war, or that losses would in the end be less harmful for Germany than for France, Falkenhayn staged a massive battle of attrition at Verdun in early 1916. Although more than a quarter of a million soldiers eventually died — for which Falkenhayn was sometimes called "the Blood-Miller of Verdun" — neither side's resolve was lessened, because, contrary to Falkenhayn's assumptions, the Entente was able to replace their dead with fresh "human material" (the term comes from that time). After the failure at Verdun, coupled with several reverses in the east and incessant lobbying by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Falkenhayn was replaced as Chief of Staff by Hindenburg.
[edit] Later career
Falkenhayn then assumed command of the Ninth Army in Transylvania, and in August launched a joint offensive with Mackensen against Romania.
Falkenhayn's forces captured the Romanian capital of Bucharest in less than four months. Following this success, Falkenhayn went to take military command in then-Turkish Palestine, where he eventually failed to prevent the British under General Edmund Allenby from conquering Jerusalem in December of 1917.
While he was in command in Palestine, he was able to prevent Turkish plans to evict all Jews from Palestine, especially Jerusalem. As this was meant to occur along the lines of the genocide of the Armenians, it is fair to say that Falkenhayn prevented the eradication of Jewish settlements in Palestine.
In February 1918, Falkenhayn became commander of the Tenth Army in Belarus, in which capacity he witnessed the end of the war. In 1919, he retired from the Army and withdrew to his estate, from where he wrote several books on war, strategy, and autobiography.
[edit] Assessment
Falkenhayn was in many ways a representative of the Prussian generals; he was a militarist in the literal sense, he had undeniable political and military competence but he was contemptous toward democracy and parliament. The most recent book on his strategy (Foley 2005) argues that his blood-mill approach was copied and successfully used by the Allies, who had larger resources; in that sense, Falkenhayn's method would, indirectly, have led to Germany losing the war.
Militarily, Falkenhayn had a mixed record. His offensive at Verdun was a strategic failure. His defence of Palestine in 1917 was also a failure - though it must be admitted that his forces were both outnumbered and out-classed. On the other hand, his planning and subsequent conquest of Romania was a near perfect example of how to conduct an offensive against superior forces. Winston Churchill considered him to be the ablest by far of the German generals in World War I. Dupuy also ranks him near the top of the German commanders, just below Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff (The Encyclopedia of Military History, p.915).
All sources indicate that Falkenhayn was a loyal, honest, and punctilious friend and superior. His positive legacy is his conduct during the war in Palestine in 1917. As his biographer Afflerbach claims, "An inhuman excess against the Jews in Palestine was only prevented by Falkenhayn's conduct, which against the background of the German history of the 20th century has a special meaning, and one that distinguishes Falkenhayn." (1994, 485)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Holger Afflerbach: Falkenhayn. Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (München: Oldenbourg, 1994) is the modern standard biography.
- Robert Foley: German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) explores Falkenhayn's strategy in the First World War.
| Preceded by Josias von Heeringen |
Prussian Minister of War 1913–1915 |
Succeeded by Adolf Wild von Hohenborn |
| Preceded by Helmuth von Moltke |
Chief of the General Staff 1914–1916 |
Succeeded by Paul von Hindenburg |
| Chiefs of the German General Staff (1871–1919) |
|---|
| Helmuth von Moltke the Elder | Alfred Graf von Waldersee | Alfred Graf von Schlieffen | Helmuth von Moltke the Younger | Erich von Falkenhayn | Paul von Hindenburg | Wilhelm Groener | Hans von Seeckt |
