Word: falkenhayn
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Germany's commander in chief, Erich von Falkenhayn, conceived of the Verdun battle as a device to draw in the French and "bleed their army white." He systematically refused to release reserve divisions, which on several occasions would have allowed hapless Crown Prince Wilhelm, who commanded the Verdun army, to win the battle and so bring an end to the carnage. Falkenhayn's plan specified that the French would lose three to five men for every German who fell. He died, after the war, still insisting that this is what happened, though the facts, brought to him from...
...reach Istanbul against opposition, a German Army, by any route it took, would have to fight its way through mountain passes. One set of passes leads through the mountains of Transylvania into the plain of the lower Danube, the route General von Falkenhayn took when he conquered Rumania in 1916. But the main route to Istanbul leads through Belgrade to Nish and thence through Sofia and down through the rich Bulgarian plain and the Maritsa Valley. From Nish through another pass is a route down the Vardar River to Salonika on the Aegean, a port which would serve...
...famous international journalist calls on the Kaiser, finds him weary, baffled, eager for disinterested advice on the risky plan of General von Falkenhayn, who believes that a tremendous blow at Verdun and Belfort will catch the French napping, end the war. Hindenburg opposes...
...emulate the Turk but failed at the start in failing to force the Dardanelles. Lacking support from British and French troops, the Serbians and Rumanians found themselves penned up between the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians on one side and Bulgarians and Turks on the other. The Germans under Falkenhayn and Mackensen had little difficulty in storming the passes in the Transylvanian Alps and the Iron Gate to overrun Rumania. They might try it again...
...made no big military reputations at the time. "Papa" Joffre was kicked upstairs as early as 1916 and General Foch was bitterly criticized for misjudging enemy strength and strategy. The British high command shifted from Sir John French to Sir Douglas Haig. The Germans fired Moltke, then tried Falkenhayn and finally brought from the East old Paul von Hindenburg, who lost his war. But a few younger men in secondary posts came through the ordeal with reputations not only untarnished but so brightened that now, a quarter of a century after Armageddon 1914-18, it is they to whom their...