Robert T. Foley. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. x + 301 pp. $70.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-84193-1.
Reviewed by Bryan Ganaway
Published on H-German (January, 2006)
The dust jacket of this volume proclaims that Foley's thesis is that military scholars have "almost ninety years since its conclusion, the bat‐ made a mistake in arguing that German military tle of Verdun is still little understood." My under‐ strategists were uniformly wedded to a short-war standing was that, early in 1916, the Chief of the thesis. Relying on recently returned German doc‐ German General Staf believed he could force the uments from former Soviet archives, the author French to batter themselves to pieces by attacking argues that from the 1880s a considerable circle a psychologically important point in their lines. of prominent authors and academics understood Over a period of months they would be bled white that the next war would be a Volkskrieg, or total and Germany could then negotiate a workable war, of long duration in which the enemy could peace. Intellectually, it marked one of the points only be defeated after years of bloody attrition. when generals realized that total wars were won Foley presents convincing evidence that ofcers by using the latest technology to kill as many peo‐ from the Franco-Prussian War such as Helmuth ple as possible for as long as necessary. Between von Moltke urged politicians to avoid future con‐ February and December, 1916, both sides expend‐ fict with powerful neighbors because it was likely ed about 40 millions rounds of artillery and bil‐ to be lengthy and drawn out. Junior staf ofcers lions of rounds of machine gun and small arms conducted a lively debate via professional jour‐ ammunition to kill or wound nearly 400,000 men nals about the obsolescence of Kabinettkrieg and on each side.[1] After reading Robert T. Foley's the ominous rise of total war to warn more senior book, that is still pretty much my understanding. I colleagues that there would be no more Sedans. am concerned that he has not engaged deeply Academics such as the historian Hans Delbrück enough with recent scholarship, that he has ig‐ even developed a theory of the war of attrition nored the human component to this story, and (Ermattungsstrategie) in which he suggested that that he identifes too closely with its protagonists. the only way Germany could beat France again was in a protracted confict. If Russia or England joined France, prospects of a German victory H-Net Reviews dimmed. In other words, many military leaders in tial correctness of Falkenhayn's strategy. An un‐ Germany understood long before 1914 that the grateful Kaiser Wilhelm II then fred his comman‐ only way to win the next war was to mobilize all der in chief, promoting Hindenburg and Luden‐ available resources to crush entire enemy soci‐ dorf (who still believed in decisive battles) in his eties. place, with disastrous long-term consequences for Nonetheless, the German strategy for winning Germany. a two-front confict was based on the Schliefen Foley has made his point that any under‐ Plan. It envisioned a speedy victory in the feld standing of German strategy must recognize that over France by marching through Belgium, en‐ many ofcers did not simply hope for a speedy veloping Paris, and surrounding the main French victory in a short confict; they understood that to‐ forces in the eastern part of the country. Foley tal war was going to be a long, brutal process of shows that Alfred von Schliefen and his succes‐ attrition. This insight is not new, however. By fo‐ sors realized the plan had major problems: that cusing solely on strategic debates at the highest invading Belgium likely entailed British entry into levels the author ignores other recent scholarship the confict, for example. They stayed with it be‐ elucidating pre-1914 German conceptualizations cause they understood that Germany was doomed of total war. In German Atrocities 1914 (2001) to lose any war of attrition against the Allies. They John Horne and Allan Kramer showed that all 13 hoped somehow to knock out the French and lev‐ German regiments involved in the attack on el the playing feld. So the Germans tried to avoid Liege, Belgium, shot civilians on a regular basis something they feared by doing something many because the General Staf was terrifed that gueril‐ believed impossible; this logical contradiction was las (franc-tireurs) would disrupt the delicately the heart German strategy. When the Germans timed advance much as they had done in 1870. failed to defeat the French in September, 1914, the Commanders envisioned this confict in terms of Kaiser promoted Erich von Falkenhayn, a sup‐ total war as soon as the Schliefen Plan was put in porter of Ermattungsstrategie, to head of the Gen‐ place years before the war; every part of enemy eral Staf. One of the frst things he did was to ask society was a legitimate target. Horne and Kramer the civilian leadership to negotiate a truce as soon then draw our attention to the 1917 German re‐ as possible, while he tried to organize a battle of treat to the Hindenburg Line. They poisoned ev‐ attrition that would force the French to the bar‐ ery well, chopped down every tree, blew up every gaining table. A furious row erupted among the house, ripped out every road, and forcibly moved military elite over this policy with some support‐ every male between the age of 14 and 55 as well ing Falkenhayn while others argued for the Paul as many young women. Clearly, German ofcers von Hindenburg/Erich Ludendorf axis and their had a well-honed concept of total war regardless focus on winning the decisive battle, preferably of what happened at Verdun. In War Land on the on the Eastern Front. Foley does an excellent job Eastern Front (2000), Vejas Liulevicius convinc‐ of using this ugly bureaucratic fght as a ingly demonstrated that after German forces con‐ metaphor for control over the direction of the quered much of Poland, the Baltic States and German war efort. Kaiser Wilhelm II eventually Byelorussia in 1915, army commanders hoped to supported Falkenhayn and in 1916 he launched realize a long-held dream by reorganizing these his long-planned attack on Verdun. It succeeded areas into a German protectorate characterized in killing and maiming lots of people, but it did by Kultur. Civilizing and rationalizing the violent not end the war. Foley believes that the Germans east would turn Slavs into good Germans. Not sur‐ failed because the 5th Army commander and his prisingly, the locals resisted and in German eyes subordinates really did not understand the essen‐ the east switched from being an inviting arena of
2 H-Net Reviews people and places (Leute und Boden) who could as possible over a period of years. He also seems be safely assimilated to a dangerous one of na‐ to suggest that Versailles was a Diktat, as the tions and spaces (Völker und Raum) where alien memoirs of just about every Imperial German tribes had to be eliminated. At the end of the war, Army ofcer argued. I think Foley would have most German troops withdrew but 40,000 of the been better served by taking a step back from the most diehard stayed on as Freikorps and fought a perspective of German staf ofcers and engaging brutal battle in Lithuania and Latvia against the more deeply with the experience of regular sol‐ inhabitants that anticipated World War II. One of diers and the work of other colleagues who have these was Rudolf Höss, the commandant at also thought deeply about the meaning of World Auschwitz.[2] It is more accurate to say thatGer‐ War I. man Strategy and the Path to Verdun enhances Notes our existing understanding of German concep‐ [1]. Foley arrives at lower fgures by limiting tions of total war; it does not break new ground. the date of the battle from 21 February 1916 to 31 Just as troubling in my opinion, the author's August 1916, even though intense fghting took exclusive focus on strategy leaves little room to place until the end of the year. He lists German discuss the huge numbers of young men who casualties as 281,333 and French at 315,000 (p. were killed, maimed or traumatized as generals 256). put theory into practice.[3] In The Face of Battle [2]. Höss had this to say of his experience: (1976), John Keegan was sensitive to both the "The fghting in the Baltikum was of a wildness strategic and human element of the Battle of the and grimness, which I had experienced neither Somme, Verdun's 1916 Allied counterpart. He has before in the World War nor afterwards in all the also remarked on the strange reluctance of many Freikorps fghting. There was hardly an actual military historians to engage with the tremendous front, the enemy was everywhere. And when it violence that total war visits on human bodies, al‐ came to a clash, it became a slaughter to the point though this theme should surely fgure promi‐ of complete destruction ... Back then I believed nently. French historians of World War I such as that a further intensifcation of human destruc‐ Stéphane Audoin Rouzeau and Annette Becker de‐ tive madness was not possible." In Vejas Gabriel voted one third of their book 14-18: Understand‐ Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Cul‐ ing the Great War to the violence experienced by ture, National Identity and German Occupation in soldiers and civilians in "battles" such as Verdun. World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Foley's focus on high-level strategy gives the book Press, 2000), p. 241. coherence, but only at the cost of limiting its wider relevance. [3]. The German artillery bombardment on the frst day obliterated most of the French de‐ Foley ends with the following sentence: fenders in the frst line. One French battalion of "Through attrition on the battlefeld, the Entente 1,200 was reduced to 7 lieutenants and 100 enlist‐ armies reached the goal of the traditional opera‐ ed men in a matter of hours. The survivors had tional approach advocated by most German sol‐ their uniforms blasted of. Their bodies were com‐ diers--a peace dictated to a prostrate enemy" (p. pletely blackened by carbonized earth and vegeta‐ 268). I am not sure what to make of this state‐ tion. Somehow they maintained enough discipline ment. On the one hand, the author wants to point to slaughter the frst waves of Germans who ex‐ out that the Germans lost because the Allies fg‐ pected to meet no resistance. One French lieu‐ ured out frst that winning total wars depended tenant later wrote "Humanity must be mad to do on mobilizing technology to kill as many people what it is doing? What scenes of horror and car‐
3 H-Net Reviews nage!... hell cannot be so terrible." Even the opera‐ tional name chosen by Falkenhayn, Gericht, omi‐ nously translates as judgment, among other things. Changed to Gerichtshof it becomes place of execution. See Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall, The American Heritage History of WWI (New York: American Heritage, 1977), pp. 172, 185-194.
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Citation: Bryan Ganaway. Review of Foley, Robert T. German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2006.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11333
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