Erich von Falkenhayn (1861–1922), General der Infanterie

Extract from The Kaiser's Warlords: German Commanders of World War I (Elite 97)

Born at Graudenz on 11 November 1861, he joined the Army at an early age. In 1899 he was sent as a military instructor to the German force in China; he served there until 1903, seeing action as a staff officer during the Boxer Rebellion. Returning to Germany, he continued to serve in the General Staff Corps; his service in China, and his fine reports on the subject, earned the favour of the Kaiser, and in 1913 he was appointed Prussian Minister of War. After the setback on the Marne he was chosen to replace Gen von Moltke as Chief of the General Staff on 14 September 1914. He was rewarded for his services with the Pour le Mérite on 16 February 1915, followed by the Order of the Black Eagle on 12 May, the Oakleaves to his Pour le Mérite on 3 June, and an à la suite commission in the 4th Foot Guard Regiment on 11 September 1915.

Falkenhayn's impoverished but aristocratic family background, his cautious nature and his good education earned him the full support of the Kaiser, but he was subject to the rivalry of the 'Easterners' Hindenburg and Ludendorff. While he succeeded in stabilising the Western Front, he was put under great pressure from the 'Easterners' to release resources to them to make up for Austro-Hungarian failures in early 1915. In April he sent eight divisions from the West to form the new 11th Army (Gen von Mackensen), which drove the Russians back at Gorlice-Tarnow in May; but more soon had to be sent to replace Austro-Hungarians withdrawn from Galicia in June after Italy entered the war. By the end of the year it was clear that no decisive strategic victory was yet possible in the East, and Falkenhayn concentrated on the West; here the failure of Allied attacks against his defensive systems in 1915 had convinced him that such attempts to achieve major break-throughs were pointless. Instead he embraced a policy of attrition, in the belief that in the face of massive and continuing casualties French willpower would fail.

Falkenhayn's reliance on the tactics of attrition, in an attempt to bleed France white at Verdun in 1916, was so complete that the horrific and apparently open-ended loss of German lives left him bankrupt of ideas. For the first time since the start of the war the Central Powers experienced serious setbacks, at Verdun and on the Somme, in Russia and the Balkans, and in the fall of Gorizia to the Italians. Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg and the Austro-Hungarian Gen Conrad von Hötzendorff intrigued against Falkenhayn; and on the news of Romania's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, the Kaiser dismissed his former protégé on 29 August 1916, replacing him as Chief of the General Staff with Hindenburg.

Falkenhayn accepted the subordinate command of the 9th Army on the Transylvanian front in September. He defeated the Romanians at the battle of the Red Tower Pass on 30 September, and advanced together with Mackensen's army towards Bucharest, entering the Romanian capital on 6 December 1916. With Romania defeated, Falkenhayn was sent to Palestine where he commanded the Turkish forces in early 1917, receiving the honorary colonelcy-in-chief of the 152nd Infantry Regiment on 11 July 1917. After a series of setbacks Falkenhayn was defeated by the British Gen Allenby at Gaza on 31 October 1917; Jerusalem fell in December, and Falkenhayn was replaced in command by Gen Liman von Sanders in February 1918. On 24 February, Falkenhayn took over command of the 10th Army, in which post he served until the end of the war. He retired after the Armistice, and died on 8 April 1922 near Potsdam.

© 2006 Osprey Publishing Ltd, The Kaiser's Warlords: German Commanders of World War I (Elite 97)