Customer Reviews

German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916 (Cambridge Military Histories)

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Robert T. Foley's new book, "German Strategy.." is an examination of German military ideas from the end of the Franco-German War to the First World War. It culminates in an in-depth investigation of Falkenhayn's strategy for 1916, including the role of the Verdun battle in his overall plan.

The book is extremely well researched, and a look at the book's

bibliography shows the hard work, and amount of research the author put into his study. Sources include many unpublished documents from various archives in multiple countries.

On the salient point of Verdun, and Falkenhayn's true intentions, the author weaves a larger picture of German strategy for 1916, with the Verdun battle being but a piece of an overall larger plan. Foley himself admits that reconstructing Falkenhayn's true plan is difficult, due to the amount of secrecy and disinformation involved-that being said he does an admirable job.

Most interestingly Foley does not include Falkenhayn's famous "Christmas Memorandum," of 1915 as one of the pieces in reconstructing the Verdun puzzle. He states that because the authenticity of the Memorandum has never been established, and in fact, has been disputed, he does not include it. Instead, he relies on first hand accounts of conversations with Falkenhayn, and plans requested from, and submitted by, various German armies along the Western front.

He builds a picture of Falkenhayn's strategy for 1916 which is compelling. Verdun was to be the means to draw the French reserves into battle, inflict casualties on them, and weaken other areas of the French front by drawing troops to the Verdun battle. The Verdun battle was also to provoke a premature Allied counter-attack, which would be bled white by German forces on the defensive. Once these aims had been achieved Falkenhayn would use his own reserve forces to launch attacks at other points along the front. Foley also gives a detailed description of the execution of the Verdun battle and how it went wrong.

His book ends by explaining how the failure of Falkenhayn's strategy led the German military to abandon its attempt at a strategy of attrition, and return to the strategy of annihilation.

Foley's book it well written, with copious notes on sources, and well balanced. He even includes footnotes such as, "For a differing view see."

By presenting a comprehensive view of Falkenhayn's strategy for 1916, with Verdun as only one aspect of that strategy, the author goes a long way towards removing the shroud of mystery that has surrounded Falkenhayn and objectives for Verdun.

What happens when the basic strategic assumptions that a country has used to formulate its war plans are shown to be misguided or worse? What happens when these assumptions are at the same time part of your country's strategic culture, the way that your military staff officers have been taught not only to fight, but to think about war? How does one implement such changes against ingrained resistance from the very military that one is attempting to reform?

Failure is likely, and the aftermath for the commander attempting such a radical rethink is liable to be very unpleasant. Consider that even given the best of circumstances, any commander would be hard pressed to change so much under the pressure of war.

Consider the case of Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff from November 1914 to August 1916, who is remembered formost today as the architect of the bloodbath of Verdun.

Robert T. Foley's book traces the strategic discussion back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, when the German strategic theorist Colmar von der Goltz made the case that it was the second part of the war, not Moltke's seemingly decisive victories at Sedan and Metz, which pointed the way to the future, that being Volkskrieg, the mobilization of the people by the state bringing vast resources to bear for the continuance of the war, which had become essentially national projects, not the affairs of narrow interests.

Foley follows the pre-1914 debate and considers the opening offensives in the West in 1914 along with the rise of Erich van Falkenhayn.

Falkenhayn had his own views as to how to best end the war and also to the limits of Germany's resources. It came down to the distinction between following a "strategy of annihilation" or a "strategy of attrition" with Falkenhayn deciding that the latter was Germany's only chance. The distinction here is Delbrück's as Foley points out.

Which brings us back to the questions I asked in the first paragraph. Falkenhayn failed and in fact was not even aware of the real difficulties of the task he had attempted. He was also later burdened with the failures of his enemies, who lacked his sense of honor in accepting responsibility for their actions, especially after the war. The General comes across in Foley's account as a complex, but very understandable human being, unlike say Ludendorff who must have known the truth by the end of 1918, but never accepted responsibility, this all going back again to the choice of strategies. Had Ludendorff followed Falkenhayn's example there would have been no "stab in the back" after 1918.

In all a very interesting history of the Western Front during 1914-16 with some coverage of the Eastern Front in 1915 as well. It is interesting that as we approach the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the war, Germany doesn't look much different from Britain or France in terms of their war aims, we seem to have finally put much of the propaganda of 1914-18 behind us.

Anyone interested in the battle of Verdun and why it developed the way it did would find this book of interest, as would most interested in the First World War. Perhaps the main audience are those interested in strategic theory since this work indicates very well the dangers of changing strategic "horses" in midstream, something that is being attempted today, as it was in 1916.

Reading this book one can only wonder why Germany was so keen to enter World War 1. It was a war in which they were outnumbered by their adversaries. In addition Britain and France in combination were economically stronger. A long war did not hold out much hope for Germany as Britain's naval strength meant that Germany would die by slow strangulation. It is clear that the Germans thought they were militarily stronger than the Entente. However they had not fought a war in 46 years.

The key to German thinking was that they could defeat France quickly before Britain was able to form up any substantial army. They could then turn their forces on Russia. Of course this all went pear shaped. The French were able to defend against the first German onslaught. This enabled the British to build up a big army in France so that Germany was outnumbered on all fronts.

This book is about Eric von Falkenhayn who took over the command after Molte had a nervous break down. The problem was what to do. The previous German strategy had been one of great decisive battles. However in 1915 the Germans did not have the strength to fight a decisive battle anywhere. The reality was that the Russians had just about knocked the Austro-Hungarian Empire out of the war and Italy and Roumania were on the verge of joining the Entente. Falknehayn was also suffering revolt from within as Hindenburg and Ludendorf sought to have him sacked.

Falkenhayn organized an offensive against the Russians which was successful. It was a limited offensive an depended on the use of artillery support to minimize casualties. This took the pressure of the Austrians who were able to then transfer troops to the Italian front. Falkenhayn was also able to put Serbia out of the war which allowed for train contact with Turkey. Throughout 1915 the Germans were able to resist French and British Offensives on the Western Front. The German successes meant that Romania kept neutral in 1915.

Having stabilized Germany's position the question is how to proceed and win the war. Falkenhayn was of the belief that it would not be possible to decisively defeat any of the Entente powers. He hoped to achieve a separate peace with one of Germany's enemies and then concentrate his forces on the powers that remained at war. This he could not achieve.

In the end he decided on a battle that was aimed at forcing France to the peace table. This was the battle of Verdun. The technique was to use artillery to cause large numbers of French casualties whilst minimizing German ones.

Lundendorf and Hindenburg were at this time advocating a decisive battle in the East. Falkenhayn was against this. He was of the view that the Russians faced with an offensive could simply withdraw. The size of European Russia meant that it would be well nigh impossible to land a killer blow.

Verdun of course failed. Whilst the German's were able to inflict significant casualties they in turn suffered large casualties due to the way the operation was carried out. The failure of Verdun allowed Ludendorf and Hindenburg to give Von Falkenhayn the boot and they replaced him.

The German's were able to bring about the collapse of Russia but their battles in the West in 1918 failed.

The book is good as it gives an insight into the development of both German strategy and the tactics they used on the ground. Simple and well written.

"German Strategy and the Path to Verdun", by Robert T. Foley is a book that examines the conflicts of strategy between General der Infanterie Erich von Falkenhayn and virtually the rest of the German High Command during the middle of World War I.

The first two chapters of the book are taken up with discussions on lessons learned from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and development of German strategy. While the early stages of that war resulted in several tremendous German victories that destroyed most of France's standing armies, France continued to fight on and the Germans found themselves engaged in more of a attritional war as the French raised more armies. Up until that point (with the exception, perhaps, of the American Civil War), most wars were settled by a few decisive victories that destroyed the standing army and led to the losing side suing for peace. However, the Franco-Prussian War seemed to point to a change where the future wars would be fought between whole nations, not merely the government in power and it's professional army. While the vast majority of German military thinkers continued to believe that decisive victories were still the way to win a war, a small but vocal minority of Germans believed that given Germany's limitations, a more attritional war of situational attacks and strategic defenses where Germany bled the other country's armies and demoralized them so that they would seek a negotiated peace was the way of the future. I'll be honest in that I believe these first two chapters, although very well researched, were very dry and much overdone, and this ground could have been amply covered in a just a few pages.

However, beginning with chapter 3, which deals with Alfred von Schlieffen's creation and development of his overall strategic plan for victory in a possible future war against both the French and Russians, the pace and readability picks up tremendously. As most of you know, this plan was to basically quickly crush the French so that the Germans could then turn and deal with the Russians before they fully mobilized their armies. However, Schlieffen's plan was adopted in part because German leadership had no other good options, as they did not have the resources to sustain a long war against foes that both outnumbered them and had access to more material resources.

The book continues with the start of World War I, and Schlieffen's plan, as implemented by his successor Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, failed. This left Germany in the position of having to develop a new strategy for victory, or at least to avoid defeat. After Moltke was cashiered in 1914 for failing to deliver victory, Erich von Falkenhayn was appointed in his place, a very surprising and unpopular choice as he was promoted over many generals his senior, and who did not have a network of supporters within the German military hierarchy. He did, however, have the support of Germany's emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who though perhaps not as powerful a monarch as popularly thought, had the power to appoint and dismiss the Chief of the German General Staff.

As the book describes, Falkenhayn came to believe, given the way the war was being waged, that decisive victories in the traditional sense were no longer possible. He also strongly felt that the decisive front was the western front facing France and England, not the Eastern Front against Russia. His strategic solution would be of limited, punishing attacks which expended artillery rather than blood, and strategic defenses that would bleed the enemy dry and drive them to seek negotiated peace. However, virtually the entire German military and political staff were opposed to these views and to the appointment of Falkenhayn, particularly the German commanders for the Eastern Front (Ober-Ost) Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, who were convinced that the western front should stand on the defensive, and that Germany should launch strategic offensives against the Russians that could knock them out of the war. Falkenhayn felt that Russia was too vast to be beaten directly and could perhaps be encouraged to drop out of the war. It's against this backdrop that Falkenhayn launched the German attack at Verdun, with the intent of forcing the French to fight at a politically and strategically important point and suffer so many casualties while trying to hold/retake it, that they would be forced to negotiate a peace favorable to Germany. Failing that, he believed that, after the British wore themselves out attacking the Germans on their front, Germany would then be in a position to launch offensives against her greatly weakened opponents and bring the war in the west to an end.

The book is very well researched is both an entertaining read to the layman but is nuanced and detailed enough for the expert. It points out how Germans, limited in both resources and manpower, struggled to find a way to win the war before she and her allies became exhausted and had to surrender. The conflicts between Falkenhayn and the "easterners", led by Hindenburg and Ludendorff were really a struggle between opposing views of how to conduct a war, and since Falkenhayn was not able to deliver a strategic victory at Verdun, he was relieved of his position, and Hindenburg was promoted into his place.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about how the German High Command developed its strategy in the middle portion of World War I.

This was an excellent review of German strategic thought leading up to the Great War, as well as subsequent development that led to Verdun. Controversy within the German General Staff that undermined Von Falkenhayn's intent is also well-covered, as are Von Falkenhayn's personality traits that led to his downfall. This is a strong addition to my library and expanded my understanding of WWI.