The German General Staff And Its Decisions, 1914-1916

General Erich von Falkenhayn, Anon, Anon

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2012
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782890782
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Having had a long and distinguished military career, in 1914 General Erich von Falkenhayn assumed the post as chief of the German General Staff in the middle of the First World War. The German position was at a crisis point, the initial plan to win the war by a wide out-flanking movement through Belgium had been foiled; a new plan would have to decided on. In the West, increasing numbers of British troops poured to the Front; in the East, the ambitious team of generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff pushed for reinforcements to finally beat the Russians. Falkenhayn decided that significant efforts must be made in the Western theatre and came up with a brutal plan to decide the war: he conceived the idea of besieging the historic French city of Verdun in early 1916, of "bleeding it white", as he phrased it. He planned to draw the bulk of the French army into the Verdun salient, thus effectively tying up the French army, and then to methodically destroy them with concentrated artillery fire. The plan failed only by valiant sacrifices and fighting by the French and pressure applied by their allies in other sectors, not least the British effort during the battle of the Somme. Falkenhayn was thereafter removed from his supreme post and would fight on other front in charge of smaller forces.His memoirs of the period of his command are illuminating and give an insight of what was going on "on the other side of the hill" during the First World War.Author — General von Falkenhayn, Erich, 1861-1922.Translator — AnonText taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in London, Hutchinson 1919. Original Page Count – 299 pages.

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• CONTENTS
• INDEX TO MAPS
• CHAPTER I-THE CHANGE OF CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF
• CHAPTER II-GENERAL MILITARY SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER, 1914
• CHAPTER III-THE BATTLES OF THE YSER AND AROUND LODZ
• CHAPTER IV-THE PERIOD FROM THE BEGINNING OF TRENCH WARFARE IN NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1914, UNTIL THE RESUMPTION OF THE WAR OF MOVEMENT IN 1915
• CHAPTER V-THE BREAK-THROUGH AT GORLICE-TARNOW AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
• CHAPTER VI-OPERATIONS AGAINST RUSSIA IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1915. BEGINNING OF THE UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN
• CHAPTER VII-ATTEMPTS TO BREAK THROUGH IN THE WEST IN THE AUTUMN OF 1915, AND THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST SERBIA
• CHAPTER VIII-THE POSITION AT THE END OF 1915
• CHAPTER IX-THE CAMPAIGN OF 1916
• APPENDIX-RELATIVE STRENGTHS OF THE OPPONENTS