Talk:Erich von Falkenhayn

Untitled
The assessment section was ridciculous. Therefore, I removed it. If the concept of military attrition is so unique an operational concept that we today cannot even grasp it, then what does the author of the assessment section think about the strategic terror bombing on German cities by the alleis during the Second World War? So the operational objective of attrition of the military personnel is a totalitarian dictatorial thinking and yet the terror bombing on the civilians (mostly women, children and old men) is a very democratic one (having been perpertated by the democracies such as the US and the UK)? What about the concept of taking out a whole village with dumb smart bombs if there is even a remote suspicion of harboring couple terrorists in Afganistan and Iraq by the very democratic United States? If you think that the "blood mill of Verdun" is ungraspably totalitarian by comparison, I think you have a very peculiar sense of balance. Before reverting back the assessment secion, please do enegage in this discussion first.


 * I don't think one has to engage in discourse with an IP vandal who uses words like the above. The argument here is likewise a bit on the deranged side, and it's not related to Falkenhayn or Verdun. It's also important, for the non-weirdos at least, that the blood mill didn't work but had the opposite effect as intended. One can edit the assessment section, of course, but not just vandalize it. Clossius 20:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Fine, if you don't want to engage in discussion, then I will just go ahead and edit it.. Your words are at least as uncouth as mine (more so since by implication you attack me personally whereas I merely said that the assessment section was ridiculous) As for the vandalism claim, I don't understand. Do remember.. I have as much right as you to edit the article. It's not as if your version of the history has a priviliged status.. Contrarily whoever reads this page will agree with me on my judgement that military attrition concept is not extraordinarily unique as to be ungraspable today. You assessmnet is wholly subjective and will mislead.. Let's see who prevails!


 * Yes, let's see. You are not editing, you are a vandal, in that you delete entire sections, and nobody has a right to do that. That you have obviously have no concept of attrition (and don't seem to realize that it is a question of scale and anyway couldn't work very well in Verdun) is thus not even important. Clossius 22:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Now I get it. So if you delete an entire section, then you are a vandal. Let's take the "Ada Lovelace" article for example. She is not supposed to have had solid grasp of Mathematics as to be the author of the first program. And not to be a vandal, we are merely to go along with this kind of nonsense.. to respect the author whatever the defamation to the person being described. Well, that's why there is so much nonsense here in the Wikipedia! I don't buy this. I know better. I'm a graduate of a military academy (not in the States for I'm not an American) and from what I have learned, I can see that your understanding of military matters is below amateur. Or if you don't agree, then explain to me what the concept of attrition is (however ludicrous it is to ask a philosopher about a military concept!)? If I don't get your answer, then I will not delete the section but rewrite it (implying that your stuff has to go). I hope at least you won't object this time now that I have given you a chance to put forth your argument? By the way, why don't you take a look at the article about Attrition Warfare here in Wikipedia? You will see that the "blood bath of Verdun" is nothing unique and surely not ingraspable (it has been grasped and put into practice before and hence, by democratic as well as totalitarian nations, to scales in proportion to what their resources would maximally allow.. war is no joke.), unless you believe every token event in the world and possibly in other worlds ;-| is a unique event as to assign a new type. If you are a philospher of any substance, argue! (and I hope not by Ad Hominem which seems to be your only weapon however)


 * "So if you delete an entire section, then you are a vandal." Yes, I'd say so, especially if you only object to one sentence there. If one bothers to read just one or two books or articles about Verdun (such as the one in the bibliography section), one realizes who's the amateur here. Other than that, if anyone is unqualified to talk military matters and military history, then it's these military buffs (genuinely professional soldiers and military academy teachers don't babble carelessly about blood-mills and attrition, because they realize what this is about). And threats make little sense here, because the system of Wikipedia does make sure that at least individual cranks get their hooliganisms reverted. Especially if it is so clear who started the ad hominem remarks here. There is no point in arguing with people who are non-discursive. Clossius 05:38, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * PS: Just to make sure for those who read that and who are really interested in the subject: The blood-mill of Verdun was not an attrition strategy proper, because its point was that the enemy losses were higher than one's own, calculating in own losses on the 100,000 scale. This was a new quality in military strategy, if one can call it that. Clossius 05:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Clossius, I gather that you have read only one or two articles about this topic. No wonder that your views are so peculiar and out of league with the more common and more established views. Therefore, to begin with, I will point you to a very nice primer to this subject, namely "1914-1918" by David Stevenson (you can easily look this book up in Google or Amazon without me supplying a more pedantic bib). This will give you at least a more comprehensive understanding of World War I, if you have any tendency to learn. The war, and the participants thereof had very complicated and even conflicting motivations than you can ever imagine. In any case, I will address your points directly (as opposed to appealing to some imaginary audience). Your main contention seems to be as follows,
 * 1) The battle of Verdun was not conceived as an attrition warfare but something qualitatively different.
 * 2) Anyone who conceives this kind of thing (let alone grasp it) is totalitarian while the more democratically minded cannot even grasp it.

Mind you that the validiy of 2) is independent from 1). I will deal with 2) first, because it is simpler. Let's assume that the strategy adopted by Falkenhayn in the battle of Verdun is indeed not that of attrition (which in proper form at least, as Clossius seems to grant now, can be grasped by anyone whether totalitarian or not), but something more terrible that a democratic person or nation cannot grasp it. Let's call it X. Now 2) will be proved false if there is a concept Y such that a democratic person or nation can grasp it (and put into practice) but yet Y is more than or equally terrible to X. As I have mentioned earlier in this page, all the terror bombings aimed at the civilians in WWII and also many campaigns and battles before and after Verdun (for example the battle of Artois and Champagne and the battle of Somme which happened right in conjunction with Verdun) are clearly more or equally terrible than Verdun in that they either disregarded the lives of mass of civilians (those of enemy or not) and/or the lives of their own soldiers (as in Somme; mounting losses of their own didn't deter the leadership in carrying on with the offensive). Since these were perpetrated by the democratic nations (implying that they conceived it, grasped it and put it into practice) it proves that Y exists and therefore 2) is clearly false. 2) is TOO NAIVE! Now dealing with 1), let's assume that the democratic nations' conception of attrition is not "higher causalities in the part of the enemy" but merely "high causalties on the enemy" as Clossius seems to contend. Since any sane military command must assume some casualties of their own in any sort of operation, this conception precludes no casualties of their own but should admit a little casualties. So the conception can be restated as "high casualties on the enemy and low casualties on their own". In other words, high ratio of enemy casualties to the casualties of their own. Now, this looks awefully like the "higher causalities" conception of Falkenhayn. Admittedly, there is this contention that the democratic nations would not have their own soldiers sacrificed in the 100,000s of scale like the Germans. If this is an absolute principle, then the operation will cease if the causalty rate reaches a certain level, say 50,000, even if there were an imminent break-through prospect or the kill ratio were 10 to 1 favourable. The actual battles that took place show (such as the battle of Somme) that nowhere close did the democratic combatant nations stick to this principle absolutely but operated under the covert principle that if things get favourable, they would be willing to endure much more sacrificies. On the other hand, although the German command were supposed to be willing to endure 100,000 causalties of their own in the outset, it is highly unlikely to assume that this principle were absolute in that they would have endured it even if the kill-ratio were unfavourable. From these, we see that both commands, one from democracy and the other totalitarian, were IN PRACTICE operating under the virtually same principle, namely "most return on investment" and not out of some humanitarian or inhumanitarian concerns. Therefore, 1) is false because the concept of attrition of the allies was in practic not much different from whatever you might wish to call the Falkenhayn's. As a matter of fact, the battle of Verdun is a classic example of the War of Attrition and that it was applied in a larger scale hitherto doesn't alter the fact. The battle of Somme produced more causalty and was more of a butchering even though it lasted much shorter period. Finally, the battle of Somme was not a copy of the German strategy but was conceived earlier and independently.(It was only pre-empted by the German offensive, the battle of Verdun). I recommend you to read the book I mentioned to you! Read Encyclopedia Britannica! read at least the wikipedia article on Battle of Verdun! Now what I have problem with Clossius is that he is making value judgments about history, which is not even based on due evidences. Even if his judgements are plausible, it is not in keeping with the nature of encyclopedia (fact-oriented, mind you) to attach such views which are bound to be controversial. Clossisus, if you are a honest intellectual who can admit one's own wrong, please do so. Otherwise, TELL ME WHY I'M WRONG instead of being childish.


 * I very moderately modified the assessment section this time. I only modified words which might look too judgemental while retaining the gist. Let's put an end to this nonsense confrontation with that.


 * Which was all my point actually was. I said in the edit summary that part of the piece was perhaps POV and that it could be edited. What you now did was comparatively non-vandalist and non-hooligan, so there it goes. The discussion is also not as loony as before, and if this is your view on WWI and if you assume that anyone not agreeing with your views, which you call mainstream, is necessarily wrong, so be it - no need to discuss them. Clossius 09:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the discussion of Falkenhayn's approach to Verdun is quite right, especially in the implication that the Germans were promoting attrition as a tool of war while the Entente wasn't concerned with losses. There is substantial evidence that an assumption (not particularly valid, but that's a different issue) of numerical superiority was part of Franco-British planning all along. Stacy McMahon 16:24, 7 November 2006

"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."

I think this needs fixing: Rumanian troops were not superior in either number or equipment: out of 600000 mobilized only 360000 were armed and active in the operations army, about 300000 after Tutrakan, with no heavy artillery, no mountain artillery and hardly any aviation. There might have been more Rumanian troops than German troops, but the Germans were not alone. Moreover, it was not "Rumania" what he conquered, only the southern part, and it was not conquest but it was evacuated by the Rumanians when their ammo began to run low and only after destroying all the oil wells, moving or destroying all the food that was in storage owned by the state, and evacuating the recruits that became of age in 1917 and 1918 ... hardly a "perfect" victory. Emilper (talk) 15:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Verdun and Palestine
I took the liberty of pointing out that, despite Falkenhayn's failures at both areas of conflict, his casualties (in the case of the former) were significantly lower than that which the Allies sustained- and that, in the case of the latter, they were fairly equal in number (mentioning, as well, that the forces he was using belonged to the Ottoman Empire). 65.255.147.8 (talk) 04:32, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Assessment
''Falkenhayn in many ways typified the Prussian generals; a militarist in the literal sense, he had undeniable political and military competence but showed contempt toward democracy and the representative Reichstag. In a book on Falkenhayn's strategy, Foley (2005) argues that the Allies, who had larger resources, copied and successfully used Falkenhayn's "blood-mill" approach; in that sense his method would, indirectly, have led to Germany losing World War I.''

This is blatant editorializing. The assertions made are completely unsupported and unsourced, and there are gaps in logic large enough to fly the Hindenburg through - for example, (1) how did Falkenhyn typify "Prussian generals", and how are "Prussian generals" different from German generals; (2) what justifies his characterization as a "militarist", and what does it mean to be a militarist "in the literal sense" (as opposed to what, the figurative sense?); (3) how did he show contempt for democracy?

Also if Foley's argument has been accurately characterized it is obviously absurd, since Falkenhyn didn't invent the concept of war of attrition.

Finally, on another note, this section should note that Falkenhyn was the only senior officer on either to argue after Verdun that the war was stalemated and should be ended through a negotiated peace. Lexington50 (talk) 05:27, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
 * He argued in 1915 that the Germans couldn't defeat decisively the coalition against it and used the crisis on the eastern front to infict enough damage on the Russians to get them to accept a deal and Bethmann-Hollweg went along with it enough to put out peace feelers. When they failed Falky tried again at Verdun, by provoking the French into military operations intended to be as costly as the Herbstschlacht the year before. Falky's strategy was an ingenious (and desperate) attempt to win from a position of weakness, before the military power of the Allies became overwhelming. It was already too late.Keith-264 (talk) 09:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

No point in blaming failure of invasion on Moltke
I cut "due to Moltke's interference" after "the failure of the Schlieffen plan." It serves no purpose in this biography of Falkenhayn, and it is unnecessarily dogmatic about a very complicated historical dispute. There is a strong argument that (1) the plan was doomed to fail regardless and that (2) Moltke's *lack* of communication with his generals, rather than his "interference," contributed to the Germans' failure. Whatever the merits of this debate, there is no need to treat it as settled one way or the other in a Falkenhayn article. --Tbanderson (talk) 16:19, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Verdun
It may have been a strategic failure but perhaps not; what was it supposed to achieve? With the resources at Falkenhayn's disposal, a defensive strategy was doomed and an offensive one beyond the German army's power. As a spoiling offensive which inflicted attrition on the French and substantially reduced the Somme offensive Verdun was a success of sorts, although perhaps not enough to be a strategic one. The magnitude of the Somme offensive was a rude shock despite the diversion of two experienced armies and Falkenhayn's plans after the Anglo-French relief offensive began were unrealistic but operational solutions to strategic problems were all that Germany had left by then. Keith-264 (talk) 17:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, there's dispute, but the large majority of sources stats that Verdun was supposed to be a battle of attrition, and to work it would obviously needed to bleed "them" more than "us". In that the battle was a sounding failure to the Germans. Frenditor (talk) 20:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Newer sources like Foley and Strachan see it in rounder terms than that so the majority is not necessarily right. The battle was part of a strategy not one in itself.Keith-264 (talk) 21:02, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Which strategy exactly? Of course a single battle cannot respond for the entire strategy of a country. Frenditor (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Battle of Verdun Keith-264 (talk) 21:19, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The article seems to support the attrition point of view. Frenditor (talk) 21:29, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Not really, the battle at Verdun was to be the catalyst for open warfare and a decisive victory.Keith-264 (talk) 22:17, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Recent edits
All the sources - Herwig, Greenhalgh, Foley, Hindenburg's memoirs - are pretty clear that the Somme (which despite some moments of worry was seen as a German defensive success) was the least of the relevant factors in F's removal. Those sources perhaps but many others give it a more prominent place. Keith-264 (talk) 08:40, 21 May 2016 (UTC)


 * And which ones would those be, eh? Care to name any so we can check? Or are you, as usual, trying to convey an impression of deep erudition whilst reading what you want to read into books? Certainly, the Somme hit the Germans harder than is often realised in the English-speaking world, and I've probably been aware of that a lot longer than you have. Nonetheless it was contained and the Germans were able to strip off 15 divisions iirc for the east, and it was ultimately, as Jack Sheldon points out, trumpeted as a German defensive success (after Falkenhayn's fall from power). Falkenhayn was discredited by Verdun and the final catalyst was the moment of panic because of the Brusilov Offensive and the entry of Romania into the war - so says everything I've read about this for the last few decades. Before editing, I specifically checked a number of books including the ones mentioned above to make sure that they even mentioned the Somme at all as a factor in Falkenhayn's removal. The answer is that they do mention it, but very clearly as the least of the important factors (Hindenburg attributes less importance to the Somme than to events in Italy, just as in 1917 he attributes less importance to Third Ypres than to events in Mesopotamia).


 * The "best" I've managed to come up with is Philpott's Bloody Victory in which (p.279) he makes the bald and unsubstantiated assertion that Falkenhayn was the Somme's "most august victim" and then on p.336 he backs this up with a meandering passage about how the Somme was weakening Germany's efforts in the east by chewing up German reserves (his source for this being not deep research into "German sources" but rather a typically exaggerated claim by Charteris, Haig's notorious intelligence adviser) and vaguely conceding that the Germans shuffled troops around (conveniently omitting to mention that despite the Somme there was actually a major net transfer of German troops from west to east, as discussed above). I trust you aware that this was one of the exaggerated claims for which Philpott was taken to task by Elizabeth Greenhalgh - she points out that the disappointing results of the Somme were a direct factor in the removal of Joffre and Foch at the end of the year, but it was only a lesser factor in Falkenhayn's removal. So if Philpott's claim were to go into the article all the rest of this stuff would need to be added, making clear that his is a poorly-argued minority position, openly attacked by at least one other historian, and not supported by others. That would just waste space belabouring something which needs to be properly discussed on the Somme page.


 * Now, for what it's worth, Falkenhayn later claimed that the Somme had made no difference whatsoever to the course of the war, and I've spent the last few years trying to remember for the life of me when and where he wrote it; that comment is obviously parti pris as are the comments of Hindenburg and Ludendorff exaggerating the mess Germany was in on the Somme before they took over (again, one could point to historians pointing this out), which is why one has to be so wary of the habit, common in a certain sort of British milhist which many of us love to read when we are relatively new to the subject, of plucking phrases from the memoirs of German generals and "evidence from the German side" to paint an exaggerated picture of the effectiveness of Britain's Western Front offensives and the degree to which they contributed to the Central Powers' eventual implosion.Paulturtle (talk) 14:08, 21 May 2016 (UTC)


 * WP:civil Try not to fall off your low horse Paul, there's a good chap.Keith-264 (talk) 14:30, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Recent edits
Would you cite your edits pls? Keith-264 (talk) 04:44, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Already did in the article: "He received the following decorations and awards: " HzgiUU149377 (talk) 04:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 10:15, 28 June 2022 (UTC)