Falkenhayn replaces Moltke

On 14 September 1914 General Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army, was removed from command of the German army. His duties were taken over by the Prussian Minister of War, General Erich von Falkenhayn. The change was kept secret and was officially announced only on 3 November 1914.

Moltke’s collapse

Moltke directed the German offensive in the west from headquarters in Luxembourg, hundreds of kilometres from the front. The plan that was to bring victory over France within a few weeks collapsed on the Marne. On 9 September the German armies of the right wing began to withdraw from the Marne, and over the following days the retreat spread to the armies in the centre as well.

From the start of the war Moltke had borne the weight of responsibility badly. In poor health and racked by doubts, he was at the end of his strength in the days of defeat. On 11 September he personally visited the headquarters of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Armies and ordered them too to retreat, in order to stabilise the front on a new line. The entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II concluded that the Chief of Staff was no longer capable of exercising command.

The decision of 14 September

On 14 September the chief of the Kaiser’s military cabinet, General Moriz von Lyncker, informed Moltke that Wilhelm II expected him to step down on grounds of health. That same evening the Kaiser entrusted Falkenhayn with direction of the General Staff of the Field Army.

The change was not announced. At a moment when the fate of the campaign in the west hung in the balance, the dismissal of the commander-in-chief might have been taken as an admission of defeat, both in Germany and abroad. Moltke therefore remained at headquarters for some time, although he no longer had any influence on decisions. Only on 3 November 1914 was it officially announced that Falkenhayn had become Chief of Staff, while also keeping the post of Minister of War. Moltke was given the subordinate post of head of the Deputy General Staff in Berlin. He died in June 1916.

The new Chief of Staff

Erich von Falkenhayn was born in 1861 at Burg Belchau (Białochowo) near Graudenz, into a family of Prussian nobility. Among other things he served as a military instructor in China and took part in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. In 1913 he became Prussian Minister of War. He was 52, younger therefore than many of the generals he was now to command, and not all of them were pleased about it. He held both posts until January 1915, when he gave up the ministry.

Falkenhayn soon understood that Germany would no longer win a quick, decisive victory. In the autumn of 1914 he still tried to outflank the Allies’ left wing in the race to the sea and to break the front in Flanders in the First Battle of Ypres, but without success. In 1915 he agreed to an offensive in the east which, after the breakthrough at Gorlice, drove the Russians out of Galicia and Congress Poland. In February 1916 he launched the attack at Verdun, which was meant to bleed the French army white. The bloody and indecisive battle, the Brusilov offensive in the east and Romania’s entry into the war sealed his fate. In August 1916 he was replaced by Paul von Hindenburg.