This disconnect between Falkenhayn and the Crown Prince would cost Germany dearly as the offensive continued. “It must be over by the end of February, and then the Kaiser will hold a grand review on the Place d’Armes of Verdun and peace will be signed.” “We have to take Verdun,” he said in an address to his commanders. Taking the broad stroke of Falkenhayn’s plan to heart yet missing its intent, the Crown Prince would set his Fifth Army to the task of directly taking the multiple fortresses that constituted Verdun. It fired the opening shots of the Battle of Verdun. Germany’s ‘Long Max’ 380-mm siege gun could hurl a 1,600-pound, high-explosive shell more than 20 miles. According to his journal entries, he favored a breakthrough that would secure a conclusive victory. The Crown Prince had serious doubts about Falkenhayn’s bloodletting plan, named Operation Gericht. “Should they do this, then France would bleed to death.” As French forces massed troops to retake the lost ground, German guns would pound them relentlessly inflicting murderous casualties.įalkenhayn’s plan, as outlined in his Christmas Memorandum of December 1915 (the veracity of which some historians would later question), was supposedly one of strangulation for the French who would be forced to fight to the last man. One seized, railways, more than a dozen of them, would feed men and resources into what would be referred to as the Verdun salient in the Allied line. The Crown Prince Wilhelm (1882-1951), one of two operational planners for the offensive, took the directive to mean “to capture the fortress of Verdun by precipitate methods.” Yet, Falkenhayn’s plan was to seize the strategic initiative in along the Meuse, which he saw as the best location on the Western Front for a German army breakthrough. Second, when the orders were sent down from Falkenhayn to conduct offensive operations “in the Meuse area in the direction of Verdun,” they were misinterpreted. Those nine days allowed the French to reorganize and strengthen their defenses, as well as to begin to bring in reinforcements (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)įirst, the offensive itself was supposed to have launched on Februpoor weather forced it to be postponed until Feb. The German assault on Verdun should have been a breakthrough moment for the Imperial German army, but there were several miscalculations that the High Command did not plan for or anticipate. In the air, they could more than 150 planes led by the effective Fokker Eindecker. Falkenhayn knew that the French had effectively stripped the various fortresses around Verdun of heavy artillery and thousands of troops and, believing that the area was ripe for a German breakthrough while the Austrians protected his rear against the Russians, amassed his force accordingly.īy early February 1916, the Germans had gathered overwhelming superiority on the ground, with nine divisions against France’s two, nearly 1,400 heavy artillery pieces. THE BATTLE OF VERDUN was the result of preparations, planning, and execution by Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn (1861- 1922). The offensive instead drained Germany of irreplaceable troops and resources.” (Image source: WikiMedia Commons) “Multiple miscalculations cost the Kaiser’s army a chance for a potentially decisive blow against France. The Kaiser’s generals hoped the battle would break the French army and even force the enemy to sue for peace.
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