PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XXXIX
Erich von Falkenhayn
FAMILY
Born on September 11, 1861 in Burg Belchau near Graudenz, West Prussia (now Białochowo, Poland), Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn was the son of Fedor von Falkenhayn (1814–1896) and Franziska von Falkenhayn, née von Rosenberg (1826–1888). His brother Arthur (1857–1929) became tutor of the Crown Prince Wilhelm, while Eugen (1853–1934) became a Prussian general in the cavalry. His only sister, Olga von Falkenhayn, was the mother of Field Marshall Fedor von Bock.
EARLY LIFE
Becoming a cadet at the age of 11, young Falkenhayn later joined the German Army in 1880. He served as an infantry and staff officer and became a career soldier.
Between 1896 and 1903, Falkenhayn served in China, which was under the rule of the Qing Dynasty. He also saw action during the Boxer Rebellion and spent time in Manchuria and Korea. After his service in Asia, the army posted Falkenhayn to Brunswick, Metz, and Magdeburg. He became a major-general in 1912.
CHIEF OF STAFF
The next year, Falkenhayn became the Prussian Minister of War. He was in this capacity when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria took place in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Like most German military leaders, Falkenhayn did not expect a great European conflict, but he soon embraced the idea and joined with others pushing for Kaiser Wilhelm II to declare war.
On September 14, 1914, in the immediate aftermath of the German defeat at the Marne, Erich von Falkenhayn succeeded Helmuth von Moltke the Younger as Chief of the Oberste Heeresleitung (German General Staff). Without haste, he moved HQ from Luxembourg to Charleville on the Meuse River.
Even though his forces were making a stand on the Aisne River, Falkenhayn was more worried about security than renewing the offensive. In assessing the situation, he realized that the German right flank was in danger of envelopment by Allied forces in the north… unless it promptly extended westward to the English Channel. So he ordered General Alexander von Kluck and the German First Army to turn the tables on General Michel-Joseph Maunoury’s French Sixth Army. However, he also wanted von Kluck to fortify his troops along the Aisne River.
The objective was to outflank the British and French forces (the so-called “Race to the Sea”) via a series of engagements throughout northern France and Belgium… in which each side made reciprocal attempts to turn the other’s flank until they reached the North Sea and had no more room for maneuver. A new German Seventh Army (led by General Josias von Heeringen) was placed on von Kluck’s right, which alarmed the French commander-in-chief General Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre. In response, the French Second Army (under General Noel de Castelnau) was sent north to hook the German right wing. The “Race to the Sea” had begun…
Heavy fighting took place around Bapaume and Arras… and the towns of Amiens and Abbeville were being threatened by German cavalry… The Belgian fortress of Antwerp withstood a two-week siege before falling to the Teutonic invaders. King Albert’s men retreated westward, leaving only a small fragment of their country to defend. His army soon filled the gap between Dixmunde and the sea, but the Allied left wing remained loosely strung! The Channel ports of Calais, Dunkirk, and Boulogne were being targeted by the advancing Germans.
To save the Belgian Army from annihilation, the sluices of the sea dikes were opened in the region between the Yser River and the Dixmunde-Nieuport rail line, creating a two-mile belt of shoulder-deep water between the Belgian defenses and the German forces. With additional support from the B.E.F. (led by General Sir John French) and French forces in the south, the German advance came to a halt in the First Battle of Ypres (October 20-November 24, 1914). The “Race to the Sea” was over, and a 475-mile trench system now ran from the North Sea to the Alps.
Falkenhayn preferred an offensive strategy on the Western Front, while conducting a limited campaign in the East. He hoped that Tsarist Russia would accept a separate armistice more easily, if it were not humiliated too much. This brought him into conflict with the Eastern Front commander-in-chief Paul von Hindenburg and Chief of the General Staff Erich Ludendorff, who favored massive offensives against the Cossacks. It was a deadlock over which side (East or West) would emerge victorious…
GERICHT
The year 1915 saw massive Teutonic successes in the East and frustrating stalemate in the West. In the hopes that either a massive slaughter would lead Europe’s political leaders to consider ending the war… or that losses would be less harmful for Germany than for France, Falkenhayn was planning a large battle of attrition. He wrote the following in a memorandum to the Kaiser on Christmas Eve 1915:
“France has been weakened militarily and economically – through the permanent loss of coal fields in the northwest of the country – almost to the limit of what it can endure. Russia’s army has not yet been fully defeated, but its offensive ability has been diminished to such an extent that it will not be able to regain anything like its old strength. Serbia’s army can be considered destroyed. Italy has without a doubt recognized that it cannot count on its appetite for spoils being satisfied in the near future and would therefore probably be happy to escape from this adventure in any honorable way possible.
“If conclusions are nowhere being drawn from these facts, then this is due to various phenomena, which do not need detailed discussion. There is only one matter – the most important one – that cannot be passed over. That is the incredible pressure that England still exerts on its allies.
[ . . . ]
“Thus it is all the more important that all the means suitable for harming England in what is properly its own territory are simultaneously brought to ruthless application. These means are submarine warfare and laying the groundwork for a political and economic alliance not only between Germany and its allies, but also between Germany and all those states that are not yet fully constrained within England’s sphere of influence. The formation of this alliance is not the topic of this exposition. Solving this task lies solely with the political leadership.
“Submarine warfare, however, is a means of warfare just like any other. Those in charge of leading the war effort cannot avoid taking a position on this. [ . . . ]
“An advance against Moscow would lead us nowhere. We do not have enough strength for any of these enterprises. Thus Russia is not a suitable object for attack. Only France remains. [ . . . ]
“There are targets lying within reach behind the French section of the Western Front for which the French leadership would need to use their very last man. Should they do this, then France would bleed to death, for there is no retreat, regardless if we ourselves reach the target or not. Should they not do this, and should these targets fall into our hands, then the effect on morale in France would be enormous. For these operations, which are limited in terms of territory, Germany will not be compelled to expend itself to a degree that would leave it seriously exposed on other fronts. Germany can confidently await the relief operations that can be expected at these fronts – and, indeed, hope to have enough forces available to meet the attacks with counterstrikes. For Germany can conduct the offensive quickly or slowly, break off the offensive for a period of time or strengthen the offensive, according to its objectives.
“The targets in question are Belfort and Verdun. What was said above applies to both of them. All the same, Verdun is to be preferred.”
Erich von Falkenhayn
December 24, 1915
He proposed a limited offensive at a vital point in the French lines that would compel every French soldier available to the fight. The fortress of Verdun was selected because (1) it was exposed to attack on three sides, and (2) it was only twelve miles from the mail railway supporting the entire German front… and the capture of Verdun would ease that worry. The Kaiser approved the operation, which was code named Gericht (judgment). The attack would be initiated by the Crown Prince’s Fifth Army, focusing on enemy positions east of the Meuse River on a six-mile front (which were being held by the French Second Army).
In truth, the plan ignored the lessons from the failures at Ypres: that the attacker bleeds more than the defender. Having played a more conservative role in late 1915, Falkenhayn now wanted to “bleed France white” in a large battle of attrition, so shattering and terrible in impact on BOTH sides that the people and governments would be shocked into making peace short of ruin for Germany. He assured the Kaiser that German losses would be only a third as many as the enemy! But the truth was that (1) protection favored the French, and (2) there was no chance of victory or breaking the deadlock! The front was limited so that a breakthrough was impossible. Falkenhayn wanted just enough men to keep the battle going, but not enough to end it.
Little did the Germans know that the great fortress was in decay. In light of Liege and Antwerp, French G.Q.G. concludes that ring forts had become death traps for their inmates. So, the cannons from Verdun were trucked off to be used in other battles on the front.
Nevertheless, twenty forts and forty redoubts guarded Verdun… along with the minor works that were spread along the four natural lines of defense. The protection radius measured anywhere from five to ten miles.
Joffre and the French High Council for National Defense met in Paris on February 8, 1916. They all agreed that if a German offensive was launched, the stage was Flanders (in Belgium).
But there were artillerymen and reservists at Verdun who got reports of increased German activity in the lines and on the Meuse railroads. There were calls for reinforcements, but G.Q.G. sent mere driblets of men. Even though it was not possible on such a limited front, the French feared an enemy breakthrough. Simply put, the protectors of Verdun were unable to rationalize the irrational!
Early on the morning of February 21, 1916, the Germans began a full-scale bombardment, which lasted twenty-one hours along a six-mile front. Two millions shells were employed, falling at a rate of 100,000 rounds per hour. The French forward trenches were obliterated; ravines, forests, and redoubts were worked over.
On the fourth day of battle, the 24th Brandenburgers of General von Lochow’s III Corps attacked and won Fort Douaumont. It was the keystone of the massive ferroconcrete arch supporting Verdun, and its capture alarmed Joffre. He ordered General Philippe Petain and his staff to Chantilly posthaste from Noailles.
LA VOIE SACREE
Petain soon took control of coordinating the artillery and opening a line of supply. In truth, his main task was to establish adequate communications, which turned out to be more of an engineering job. There was only one branch line and a narrow-gauge railway supplying half a million French troops and 150,000 draft animals!
The road running from Bar-le-Duc was rebuilt. Thirty-five hundred trucks brought two thousand tons of supplies of which the garrisons needed daily. If a truck broke down along that route, it was quickly pushed off the road so as not to disturb the flow of traffic. In total, twelve thousand trucks were used… and a division of Territorials were employed in road repairs.
Sixty-six French divisions (190,000 troops) and 27,000 tons of ammunition and materiel were delivered into the fight. This vital route earned the name La Voie Sacree (The Sacred Way).
Pétain kept the divisions in the line at Verdun until casualties reached one-half of the infantry and then relieved them. The procession of divisions back and forth was analogous to the operation of a “noria”, a type of water-wheel that continuously lifts water and empties it into a trough.
After nearly one week of battle, the Germans were within four miles of Verdun, but the offensive was grinding to a halt. Falkenhayn and the Crown Prince discussed a new strategy on February 29, 1916… and the plan was to broaden the advance to the west bank of the Meuse near the heights of Hill 295 (also known as Le Mort Homme, or The Dead Man) and Hill 304 (where Petain’s men were fresh and well provisioned). The Crown Prince felt that such a deployment should have taken place well before the opening bombardment. But the more the Germans extended to the east, they were subjected to deadly enemy cross fire from the west (hence the move to the west side of the river).
DOWNFALL
By April, Falkenhayn’s belief of “victory by attrition “ without exposing his own army to such loss was faltering. The limited offensive on a six-mile front was abandoned in favor of a twenty-mile-wide full frontal assault!
As a result, the Germans relapsed to nibbling tactics. Hill 304 was captured in early May, Le Morte Homme on the 29th, and Fort Vaux on the second of June.
But Petain’s frequent rotation of units and removal of ineffective commanders earned him a promotion and kept the French Army intact. In April 1916, Petain handed over command of the French Second Army to General Robert Nivelle, who made a rapid rise since the war began. Extremely fluent in English, Nivelle was effective in winning the favor of politicians, and he would play a large role in turning the tide of battle.
On June 21, 1916 (four months since the start of battle), the Germans unleashed their last major bombardment; their objective was the capture of Forts Souville and Tavannes. Phosgene gas (nicknamed “Green Cross”) was also used to inflict massive casualties, but the French lines did not break. A final German assault was launched on July 11, 1916. It reached Fort Souville, but the French were able to beat it back. The fortress of Verdun was saved from catastrophe.
Since February 21st, twenty million shells had been fired into the battle zone. Forests and villages were wiped off the map. As August came to a close, the number of casualties on both sides were enormous. France lost 315,000 men; the Germans suffered 280,000 dead, wounded, and missing. The Verdun sector went silent for three months, but the German armies had already turned to the defensive.
In late October 1916, General Robert Nivelle launched an offensive employing new artillery tactics. The infantry and artillery were used in a combined advance, and it became known as the “creeping barrage”. It was so effective, that Forts Douaumont and Vaux were recaptured on the first day of the attack! The offensive continued into mid-December, with the German suffering heavy losses. On the 18th of that month (after ten long months), the Battle of Verdun was effectively over.
The “hell of Verdun” could be summed up in cold, calculating figures. France lost 542,000 men (dead, wounded, missing, prisoners); Imperial Germany suffered 434,000 casualties. The survivors were crushed by horrifying memories of the dead, maimed, and disfigured troops littering the battlefield. Forty million artillery shells were spent by both sides, which meant two hundred rounds had to be fired to take out one soldier! In just over three hundred days of battle, the average daily losses numbered 3,250! Three-quarters of the French Army went into the meat grinder at Verdun, but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best…
Falkenhayn was sometimes called “the Blood-Miller of Verdun”. Contrary to his expectations, the French were able to limit casualties in the divisions sent to Verdun. After the relative failure at Verdun, coupled with reverses on the Eastern Front (the Brusilov Offensive and the recent entry of Rumania into the war), the beginning of the Anglo-French offensive on the Somme, and the intrigues of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Erich von Falkenhayn was replaced as Chief of Staff by Feldmarschall von Hindenburg on August 29, 1916.
RECOVERY IN RUMANIA
Falkenhayn then assumed command of the German Ninth Army in Hungarian Transylvania on September 6, 1916. One year earlier, he went to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria proposing an ultimatum to Rumania: cooperate or risk invasion.
Rumania has tightened trade relations when the Teuton armies met reverses… then eased them when the pendulum swung the other way. The Corn Treaty, which supplied food to the starving people of Germany and Austria-Hungary, was signed by Rumania around the time of the proposed ultimatum. But after witnessing the success of the Brusilov Offensive, Rumania became a belligerent against the Central Powers on August 27, 1916.
The same day Falkenhayn resigned as Chief of Staff, three Rumanian armies (the First, Second, and Fourth) moved north on a two-hundred-mile front into Hungarian Transylvania. The Rumanian Third Army was left to defend the Danube River against the Bulgarians in the south.
From the north, Falkenhayn promptly launched a joint offensive with General August von Mackensen in the south. The army consisted of Bulgarians, Ottoman Turks, and Germans. The sizeable, but inexperienced, poorly-trained, and ill-equipped Rumanian Army had to defend a 1,600-kilometer (990-mile) front, the longest in Europe!
Falkenhayn had quickly assembled two Teutonic armies for the campaign, but Mackensen struck first, crossing into the Dobrudja on September 2, 1916. The latter pressed on between the Danube River and the Black Sea. Tatrakan (a fortress on the Danube) fell the day Falkenhayn launched his attack in Hungarian Transylvania. The Russians tried to assist Rumania with no success, as the sole Black Sea port of Constanta fell to the Central Powers on October 23, 1916. Mackensen then split his forces: one wing headed for the mouth of the Danube; the other in the direction of the Rumanian capital, Bucharest.
Meanwhile in the north, the Rumanians had engaged the Austrian First Army (led by Arz von Strassenburg). But on the left, Falkenhayn’s Ninth Army checked the advance and launched a counterattack on September 18th. He won a decisive victory at Hermannstadt (modern day Sibiu) by month’s end, and it forced the Rumanians out of the Hungarian kingdom and back into the mountains.
After receiving reinforcements, Falkenhayn advanced through the Transylvanian Alps in early November 1916. Pushing the Rumanians back onto the plains, he wheeled left and joined up with Mackensen‘a five German divisions from Dobrudja. On the 23rd, they crossed the Danube above Sistova and turned east.
In a last ditch effort, Rumanian commander-in-chief General Alexandru Averescu struck at the gap between the German armies. A fight ensued as December opened, but he was defeated at the Arges River west of Bucharest. On the 6th of that month, the Rumanian capital fell without a struggle!
Soon, the Germans reached the precious oil fields north of Ploiești. In the final week of 1916, the Rumanians (with Russian support) made a stand near the Siret River.
Rumania now consisted of Moldavia and an army of only 150,000 troops out of the original half million. The Germans lost only 60,000 men and extended the Eastern Front another 250 miles. They did gain substantial supplies of oil and grain, although many installations had been put out of action by British agents.
PALESTINE
In mid-1917 (following his success in Rumania), Erich von Falkenhayn went to take military command of the Ottoman Yildirim Army Group (Heeresgruppe F, Army Group F), which was being formed in Mesopotamia and at Aleppo. After long discussions with the Ottoman upper echelon, Falkenhayn was sent on September 7, 1917 as supreme commander of two Ottoman armies in Palestine. He was given the rank of Mushir (Field Marshal) of the Ottoman Army.
General Edmund Allenby arrived in Egypt to succeed General Sir Archibald Murray as head of the British forces in Palestine. He raised an army of seven divisions numbering 88,000 men. The War Cabinet wanted Allenby to capture Jerusalem as “a Christmas present to the British nation”.
However, the immediate task was to break the well-defended Turkish line of 35,000 men. It ran southeast from Gaza twenty-five miles to Beersheba. Falkenhayn felt that the British would strike at Gaza… and it was a major miscalculation!
On October 31, 1917, Allenby’s men launched an assault on the Turkish left flank at Beersheba. One Turkish division faced five British divisions and eight tanks advancing from both the east and the west. But it was the Australian cavalry that overran the town defenses and captured the vital water wells intact. The Turkish Seventh Army has no choice but to retire to Sheria. Beersheba became British on the first day of battle; Gaza was already invested by naval bombardment.
Allenby launched the decisive strike at Sheria, outflanking the town from the east. The Turkish Seventh Army was routed and pushed back to the Mediterranean coast behind the Eighth Army. The fortress of Gaza was evacuated on November 7, 1917, and the British rode in victorious. Further solidifying Allenby’s triumph was the fall of Junction Station on the 14th and Jaffa two days later. The focus now centered on the Holy City…
Falkenhayn quickly established a new Turkish front that ran west from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean Sea. In late November 1917, the Turkish Seventh Army launched powerful attacks from strong defensive positions. On the 24th of that month, Allenby halted the offensive; he needed to reorganize and reinforce his front line troops. But the task of capturing Jerusalem fell to XX Corps (led by Sir Philip Chetwode).
On December 8th, the main thrust came from Nebi-Samweil, the commanding heights six miles to the west. A secondary thrust came from Bethlehem in the south. The result was the capture of the Holy City the following day. Allenby arrived on December 11th to claim victory…
But the Ottoman Turks were not quite finished. On Boxing Day (December 26th), they staged a counterattack that was soon beaten back with losses numbering 25,000 men. The loss of Jerusalem sapped Turkish morale, and the 465-year-old Ottoman Empire (the so-called “sick man of Europe”) was careening toward final defeat.
Ludendorff could not spare the men to save Turkey. As 1917 came to a close, 36,000 men under Erich von Falkenhayn now faced 103,000 riflemen under the command of Edmund Allenby. To the British, the tiger was fighting a sick tom cat!
The fall of Jerusalem also sealed the fate of Falkenhayn himself. He was soon relieved of his command and replaced by General Otto Liman von Sanders.
Even though Falkenhayn failed to prevent the British from conquering Jerusalem, he is credited with avoiding a destructive defensive stand for the walled ancient city with its many holy sites. He also played a crucial role in stopping the forced removal of the Jewish population of Palestine, which Governor Djemal Pasha had planned along the lines of the Armenian Genocide. The evacuation of the entire population during the harsh winter months had also been planned by Djemal Pasha and was thwarted by German officers (including Falkenhayn).
FINAL YEARS
On March 4, 1918, Falkenhayn became commander of the German Tenth Army in Belarus one day after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, which ended the fight in the East with Bolshevik Russia. Later in mid-June, his HQ was moved to Minsk, and he remained there in an administrative capacity until the end of the war. Before the year drew to a close, Falkenhayn oversaw the withdrawal of his men back to Germany. The army he led eventually disbanded on February 25, 1919.
That same year, Falkenhayn retired from the German 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). With the benefit of hindsight, Falkenhayn remarked that the German declarations of war on Russia and France were “justifiable but overly-hasty and unnecessary”.
His reputation as a war leader was attacked in Germany during and after the war, especially by the faction which supported Paul von Hindenburg. Falkenhayn held that Germany could not win the war by a decisive battle but would have to reach a compromise peace. But his enemies said Falkenhayn lacked the resolve necessary to win a decisive victory.
Erich von Falkenhayn died on April 8, 1922 at Schloss Lindstedt, near Potsdam. He was sixty years old.
FAMILY TREE
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). The latter married Henning von Tresckow (1901–1944), an officer who helped organize the July 20th plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
ASSESSMENT
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Falkenhayn in many ways typified the Prussian generals. A militarist in the literal sense, he had undeniable political and military competence and showed contempt for democracy and the representative Reichstag. He addressed the Reichstag in 1914 as follows:
“Only through the fact that the Prussian army is removed by the constitution from the party struggle and the influence of ambitious party leaders has it become what it is: the secure defence of peace at home and abroad.”
Militarily, Falkenhayn had a mixed record. His offensive at Verdun proved a strategic failure. During the campaign against the Rumanians in 1916, Falkenhayn demonstrated considerable skill in commanding the German Ninth Army, driving the Rumanian Army out of Transylvania, breaking through the southern Carpathians and forcing the shattered Romanian forces northeast into Moldavia. His defence of Palestine in 1917 was also a failure but his forces, overwhelmingly Ottoman in composition, were outnumbered and outclassed and casualties were fairly equal.
Winston Churchill considered him to be the ablest of all the German generals in World War I. Dupuy also ranked him near the top of the German commanders, just below Hindenburg and Ludendorff. 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.
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.”