AOL Web Search

The Battle of Verdun, 21 February-15 December 1916, became the longest battle in modern history. It was originally planned by the German Chief of General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn to secure victory for Germany on the Western Front. The aim was to crush the French army before the Allies grew in strength through the full deployment of British ...

Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922) was a Prussian General of the Infantry, Prussian Minister of War (1913-1915) and Chief of Staff (1914-1916). Falkenhayn came from a West-Prussian Junker family, where the military played a dominant role; one of his brothers, Eugen von Falkenhayn (1853-1934), was also a general. Falkenhayn already entered cadet ...

Erich von Falkenhayn was strongly criticised for his tactics at the Battle of Verdun. Once the war was over, he defended what he had done by writing an article to explain his decisions. Verdun was one of the most costly battles in World War One in terms of lives lost, with many historians arguing that it ‘bled the French Army to death ...

In 1916 the Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, planned a Vernichtungsschlacht in exactly the sense disavowed by Clausewitz: the battle of Verdun was conceived as a machinery of massacre. Robert Foley's book examines Verdun as an episode ‘unique in the annals of warfare’, but also looks for its origins in a relatively ...

The History Learning Site, 31 Mar 2015. 14 May 2023. Erich von Falkenhayn is most associated with the Battle of Verdun in 1916 – one of World War One’s bloodiest battles. Falkenhayn was criticised for his tactics at Verdun and after the war he tried to justify the tactics that he used – that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of ...

Erich von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 – 8 April 1922) was a German soldier and Chief of the General Staff during the first two years of World War I. He became a military writer after World War I. Born in Burg Belchau near Graudenz in the province of West Prussia, Falkenhayn became a career soldier. Between 1896 and 1903 he served in Qing China, and saw action during the Boxer Rebellion ...

Erich von Falkenhayn had been fired from his position as Chief-of-Staff but he had a new task: Leading the combined Austro-German forces into Romania. So, th...