Erich von Falkenhayn was a German soldier born November 11, 1861 in Burg Belchau and died on April 8, 1922 in Potsdam. Supreme commander of the German army from September 1914 to August 1916, he was notably the designer of the Verdun offensive, intended to "bleed the French army white".
During the First World War, the German High General Staff became a nest of intrigue from the moment General Erich von Falkenhayn succeeded von Moltke as head of the General Staff of the Western Front. Haughty and sharp, this one depends entirely on the favor of the Kaiser, because his character and his acerbic words earn him the hostility of most of his peers.
Falkenhayn conceived the offensive on Verdun knowing full well that the Eastern Front "clique" was plotting against him. His failure will also allow Hindenburg and Ludendorff to supplant him and become the true masters of Germany, which they will lead to defeat in 1918.
Three criticisms can be made of Falkenhayn:he never informed his Austro-Hungarian allies, for whom the offensive on Verdun was a total surprise; he seriously underestimated the resistance capacities of the French army; finally, he never explained to the commanders in the field the ins and outs of his strategy of attrition.
Disgraced following the failure of his plans at Verdun and before the Allied offensive on the Somme, he took part in the Romanian campaign in 1916 and 1917.
His Memoirs (written in the third person) reveal an unusual arrogance and smugness. Until his death in 1922, Falkenhayn would continue to erroneously claim that for every German soldier killed in battle, the French army lost two.
His grandson, Henning von Tresckow, was a German officer in World War II and plotted against Adolf Hitler.