Erich von Falkenhayn
Erich von Falkenhayn | |
---|---|
Prussian Minister of War | |
In office 7 June 1913 – 21 January 1915 | |
Monarch | Wilhelm II |
Prime Minister | Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg |
Preceded by | Josias von Heeringen |
Succeeded by | Adolf Wild von Hohenborn |
Chief of the German Great General Staff | |
In office 14 September 1914 – 29 August 1916 | |
Monarch | Wilhelm II |
Chancellor | Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg |
Preceded by | Helmuth von Moltke the Younger |
Succeeded by | Paul von Hindenburg |
Personal details | |
Born | 11 September 1861 First World War |
Falkenhayn was given important field commands in Romania and Syria. His reputation as a war leader was attacked in Germany during and after the war, especially by the faction supporting Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. Falkenhayn held that Germany could not win the war by a decisive battle but would have to reach a compromise peace; his enemies said he lacked the resolve necessary to win a decisive victory. Falkenhayn's relations with the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg were troubled and undercut Falkenhayn's plans.
Early life
Falkenhayn was born in
Military career
Becoming a
Service in Asia made Falkenhayn to be a favourite of the Kaiser and he became one of the military instructors of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia.[5] After his service in Asia, the army posted him to Brunswick, Metz and Magdeburg as a battalion commander in the posted area. On 10 April 1906, Falkenhayn became a section chief of the German General Staff. In 1907, Falkenhayn became Chief of Staff of the XVI Corps. In 1908, Falkenhayn was promoted to Oberst (colonel). On 27 January 1911, Falkenhayn was appointed as the commander of the 4th Guards Regiment. On 20 February 1913, he became the chief of staff of the IV Corps and Generalmajor on 22 April 1912.[3] Before becoming Prussian Minister of War, he was posted to the General Staff for a year as the Supply department head of the General Staff. Despite being a department head, Falkenhayn did not play a significant role on the General Staff.[6]
Prussian Minister of War (1913–1915)
On 8 July 1913 Falkenhayn became
Chief of Staff (1914–1916)
Falkenhayn succeeded Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who was considered mentally unstable, as Chief of the Oberste Heeresleitung (the German General Staff) on 14 September 1914. Falkenhayn was 53 years old, making him the youngest man to become chief of staff.[12] Falkenhayn continued in office as minister of war for another five months.[3] Falkenhayn recommended Adolf Wild von Hohenborn as the new war minister; the Kaiser agreed with his recommendation, making Hohenborn the next war minister.[13] Falkenhayn moved OHL to Mézières, to put OHL at the centre of the right wing of the German armies in the west and ordered the southern armies to dig in, part of the beginning of trench warfare.[14] The responsibility of Falkenhayn increased when the Kaiser failed to decide a grand strategy. Falkenhayn did not want diplomatic interference in the course of war.[15] For the first few weeks, lack of success led to widespread criticism. Falkenhayn recognized the pending failure of the Schlieffen-Moltke Plan and attempted to outflank the British and French in the Race to the Sea, a series of meeting engagements in northern France and Belgium, in which each side made reciprocal attempts to turn the other's flank, until they reached the North Sea coast and ran out of room for manoeuvre.[5]
In November 1914, Falkenhayn acknowledged that Germany would not be able to gain a decisive victory. He advocated a mild peace with the Russian Empire to Bethmann Hollweg, the better to concentrate against the French and British. Neither Bethmann Hollweg nor the generals on the Eastern Front, such as Paul von Hindenburg, Erich Ludendorff or Max Hoffmann, supported the idea since they believed that negotiation with the Russian Empire was impossible.[8] While Helmuth von Moltke the Younger and Hindenburg were highly critical of Falkenhayn and sought to have him dismissed, the Emperor continued to support him.[16] Falkenhayn did not perceive the need to deploy troops on the Vistula, he favoured sending troops to East Prussia, where the Russians took advantage of the weakening 8th Army.[17] A Breakthrough Army (Durchbruchsarmee) for an offensive down the Somme river valley, consisting of nine new divisions, was formed in the first quarter of 1915 but three divisions were not ready in time.[18] The new army was transferred to the Eastern Front and was re-named the 11th Army. The army had success during the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes but creating more new divisions was difficult because of the shortage of junior officers and equipment.[19]
Falkenhayn found that the
Falkenhayn preferred to conduct an offensive strategy on the
Falkenhayn hoped that the French would fight for Verdun, the gateway to France from the east.[5] Verdun offered the Germans the advantages of their artillery firing from three sides into a large salient in the German lines, excellent German communications and Verdun being bisected by the Meuse, which made it difficult for the French to defend.[24] He ordered the Crown Prince to feint in Verdun and annihilate the French armies, which would try to defend the city by sending more troops. Falkenhayn's strategy backfired, the Crown Prince and his chief of staff, Konstantin Schmidt von Knobelsdorf disobeyed the order and tried to seize the city. French artillery on the west back of the Meuse began to inflict many casualties on the 5th Army.[5] Because more than a quarter of a million soldiers during the battle eventually died, Falkenhayn was sometimes called "the Blood-Miller of Verdun".[25]
Contrary to Falkenhayn's expectations, the French were able to limit casualties in the divisions sent to Verdun, General
Romania (1916–1917)
Falkenhayn then assumed command of the
Palestine (1917–1918)
Following his success in Romania in Brașov during mid-July 1917, Falkenhayn went to take military command of the
Belarus (1918–1919)
In February 1918, Falkenhayn became commander of the 10th Army in Belarus.[3] The unit carried out the occupation tasks in Belarus after Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.[29] As an Army unit commander, he witnessed the end of the war in Belarus. In December 1918 he oversaw the withdrawal of the 10th Army to Germany. The formation disbanded in February 1919 and Falkenhayn retired from the army following the dissolution of his unit.[3]
Retirement
In 1919, Falkenhayn retired from the army and withdrew to his estate, where he wrote his autobiography and several books on war and strategy. His war memoirs were translated into English as The German General staff and Its Critical Decisions, 1914–1916 (1919).[30] With the benefit of hindsight, he remarked that the German declarations of war on Russia and France in 1914 were "justifiable but overly-hasty and unnecessary".[31] Falkenhayn died in 1922, at Schloss Lindstedt, near Potsdam and was buried in Potsdam.[3]
Family life
In 1886, Falkenhayn married Ida Selkmann, with whom he had a son, Fritz Georg Adalbert von Falkenhayn (1890–1973), and a daughter, Erika Karola Olga von Falkenhayn (1904–1975), who married Henning von Tresckow (1901–1944), a general who participated in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler.[32]
Assessment
Falkenhayn in many ways typified the Prussian generals; a
Winston Churchill considered him to be the ablest of the German generals in World War I. Trevor Dupuy also ranked him near the top of the German commanders, just below Hindenburg and Ludendorff.[35] Robert Foley wrote that Germany's enemies were far more able to apply a strategy of attrition, because they had greater amounts of manpower, industry and economic control over the world, resorting to many of the methods used by Falkenhayn in Russia in 1915 and France in 1916. As the cost of fighting the war increased, the war aims of the Entente expanded, to include the overthrow of the political elites of the Central Powers and the ability to dictate peace to a comprehensively defeated enemy, which was achieved by a strategy of attrition.[36]
During his term as the Chief of the General Staff, one staff officer wrote that Falkenhayn had lacked decisiveness and foresight in the matters of organization and tactics.[37] All sources portray Falkenhayn as a loyal, honest and punctilious friend and superior. His positive legacy is his conduct during the war in Palestine in 1917. As his biographer Holger Afflerbach wrote, "An inhuman excess against the Jews in Palestine was prevented only 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".[38]
Honours
He received the following decorations and awards:[3]
- Kingdom of Prussia:
- Knight of the Red Eagle, 1st Class
- Knight of the Royal Crown Order, 2nd Class
- Service Award Cross
- Iron Cross (1914), 1st and 2nd Classes
- Pour le Merite(military), 16 February 1915; with Oak Leaves, 3 June 1915
- Knight of the Black Eagle, 12 May 1915[39]
- Brunswick: Commander of Henry the Lion, 2nd Class, 1906[40]
- Baden: Commander of the Zähringer Lion, 2nd Class, 1907[41]
- Kingdom of Bavaria:
- Grand Cross of the Military Merit Order, with Swords
- Grand Cross of the Military Order of Max Joseph, 26 June 1915
- Ernestine duchies: Knight of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order, 1st Class
- Kingdom of Saxony:
- Commander of the Albert Order, 1st Class with Swords
- Knight of the Military Order of St. Henry
- Schaumburg-Lippe: Cross of Honour of the House Order of Schaumburg-Lippe, 2nd Class
- Austria-Hungary:
- Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Leopold, 1914[42]
- Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen, 1915[43]
- Gold Military Merit Medal "Signum Laudis", 11 October 1916
- Empire of Japan:
- Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class
- Order of the Sacred Treasure, 2nd Class
- Qing dynasty: Order of the Double Dragon, Class II Grade II
See also
- Douaumont Ossuary Verdun
Footnotes
- ^ Herwig & Hamilton 2004, p. 72.
- ^ Afflerbach 1996, p. 9.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Erich Georg Alexander Sebastien von Falkenhayn". the Prussian Machine. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
- ^ Huguenin 1912, p. 69.
- ^ a b c d e Tucker 2016, pp. 63–65.
- ^ a b Biographie, Deutsche. "Falkenhayn, Erich von - Deutsche Biographie". www.deutsche-biographie.de (in German). Retrieved 14 July 2022.
- ^ Gerard 1917, pp. 64–65.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Falkenhayn, Erich von | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)". encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
- ^ Foley 2007, p. 82.
- ^ Spenkuch 2019, p. 44.
- ^ Herwig & Hamilton 2004, p. 71.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 June 2022.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
- ^ Bruns 2014, pp. 31–32.
- ^ a b c d Proceedings of the Military History Symposium, USAF Academy. 1969. p. 44.
- ^ The Star and Sentinel. The Star and Sentinel.
- ^ Falkenhayn 2009, p. 38.
- .
- ^ Falkenhayn 2009, pp. 42–43.
- ^ Falkenhayn 2009, pp. 47–48.
- ^ Dinardo 2016, pp. 486–503.
- ^ Scheer 1920, p. 55.
- ^ Andrews, Evan. "10 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of Verdun". HISTORY. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- ^ Foley, Robert (2016). "The Killing Field". History Today. 66 (9): 30–37.
- ^ a b Smith, Audoin-Rouzeau & Becker 2003, p. 82.
- ^ Cowley & Parker 1996, p. 361.
- ^ Barrett 2013, pp. 180–181.
- ^ a b Did a German Officer Prevent the Massacre of the Jews of Eretz Yisrael during World War I?, Jewish Ideas Daily version of The Jerusalem Post Magazine article from 9 December 2011
- ^ "Falkenhayn, Erich von – Kulturstiftung" (in German). Retrieved 16 February 2023.
- ^ Falkenhayn 2009, pp. 1–336.
- ^ Falkenhayn 2009, p. 96.
- ^ Kolster 1994, p. 94.
- ^ Craig 1956, pp. 253–254.
- ^ Tucker 2014, p. 231.
- ^ Cowley & Parker 1996, p. 915.
- ^ Foley 2007, p. 268.
- ^ Lupfer 1981, p. 8.
- ^ Afflerbach 1994, p. 485.
- ^ "Kaiser Rewards Falkenhayn". The New York Times. 13 May 1915. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
- ^ "Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Herzogtums Braunschweig für das Jahr 1908". (1908). In Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Herzogtums Braunschweig (Vol. 1908). Meyer. p. 17
- ^ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1910), "Großherzogliche Orden", p. 202
- ^ "Ritter-Orden: Oesterreichsch-kaiserlicher Leopold-orden", Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, 1918, p. 75, retrieved 5 February 2021
- ^ "Ritter-Orden: Königlich-ungarischer St. Stephan-orden", Hof- und Staatshandbuch der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, 1918, p. 56, retrieved 5 February 2021
References
- Afflerbach, Holger (1994). Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich [Falkenhayn: Political Thinking and Action during the Empire]. Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte (in German). München: Oldenbourg. ISBN 978-3-486-55972-9.
- Afflerbach, Holger (1996). Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich [Falkenhayn: Political Thinking and Action during the Empire]. Beiträge zur Militärgeschichte (in German) (repr. ed.). München: Oldenbourg. ISBN 978-3-486-56184-5.
- Barrett, Michael B. (23 October 2013). Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-00870-1.
- Cowley, Robert; Parker, Geoffrey (1996). The Reader's Companion to Military History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-66969-3.
- Bruns, Larry D. (2014). German General Staff In World War I. Verdun Press: London. ISBN 978-1-78289-498-8.
- Craig, Gordon A. (1956). The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 275199.
- Dinardo, Richard L. (1 September 2016). "The Limits of Envelopment: The Invasion of Serbia, 1915". The Historian. 78 (3): 486–503. S2CID 151882764.
- Falkenhayn, Erich von (2009) [1919]. General Headquarters, 1914–1916 and its Critical Decisions (Pbk repr. Naval & Military Press, Ukfield ed.). London: Hutchinson. ISBN 978-1-84574-139-6. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
- Foley, R. T. (2007) [2005]. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 (pbk. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-04436-3.
- Gerard, James W. (1917). My Four Years in Germany. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. OCLC 806288485.
- Herwig, Holger; Hamilton, Richard F. (2004). Decisions for War, 1914–1917. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54530-3.
- Huguenin, Curt (1912). Geschichte des III. See-Bataillons [History of the 3rd Marine Battalion] (in German). Tsingtau: Adolf Haupt. OCLC 72550441.
- Kolster, Wedig (1994). Potsdam und Der 20. Juli 1944: Auf Den Spuren Des Widerstandes Gegen Den Nationalsozialismus [Potsdam and 20 July 1944: On the Trail of the Resistance against National Socialism]. Freiburg in Breisgau: Rombach. ISBN 978-3-7930-0697-8.
- Lupfer, Timothy T. (1981). The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine during the First World War. Leavenworth Paper (Number 4). Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. OCLC 872716040.
- ISBN 978-0-521-66176-8.
- Scheer, Reinhard (1920). Germany's High Seas Fleet in the World War. London and New York: Cassell. OCLC 495246260– via Archive Foundation.
- Spenkuch, Hartwin (2019). Preußen - eine besondere Geschichte Staat, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Kultur 1648–1947 [Prussia: A Special History, State, Economy, Society and Culture 1648–1947] (in German) (e-book ed.). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-35209-0.
- Tucker, Spencer C. (2014). 500 Great Military Leaders. Santa Barbara, CA: ISBN 978-1-59884-758-1.
- Tucker, Spencer C. (16 May 2016). World War I: The Essential Reference Guide: The Essential Reference Guide. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-4122-4.
Further reading
- Ritter, Gerhard (1972). The Sword and the Scepter: The Problem of Militarism in Germany: The Tragedy of Statesmanship–Bethmann Hollweg as War Chancellor [Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: das Problem des Militarismus in Deutschland. Dritter Band: Die Tragödie der Staatskunst Bethmann Hollweg als Kriegskanzler (1914–1917)]. Vol. III (trans. ed.). Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press. ISBN 978-0-87024-182-6.
- Watson, Alexander (2008). Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British armies, 1914–1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52188-101-2.