Talk:Erich von Falkenhayn

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The assessment section was ridciculous. Therefore, I removed it. If the concept of military attrition is so unique an operational concept that we today cannot even grasp it, then what does the author of the assessment section think about the strategic terror bombing on German cities by the alleis during the Second World War? So the operational objective of attrition of the military personnel is a totalitarian dictatorial thinking and yet the terror bombing on the civilians (mostly women, children and old men) is a very democratic one (having been perpertated by the democracies such as the US and the UK)? What about the concept of taking out a whole village with dumb smart bombs if there is even a remote suspicion of harboring couple terrorists in Afganistan and Iraq by the very democratic United States? If you think that the "blood mill of Verdun" is ungraspably totalitarian by comparison, I think you have a very peculiar sense of balance. Before reverting back the assessment secion, please do enegage in this discussion first.

I don't think one has to engage in discourse with an IP vandal who uses words like the above. The argument here is likewise a bit on the deranged side, and it's not related to Falkenhayn or Verdun. It's also important, for the non-weirdos at least, that the blood mill didn't work but had the opposite effect as intended. One can edit the assessment section, of course, but not just vandalize it. Clossius 20:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Fine, if you don't want to engage in discussion, then I will just go ahead and edit it.. Your words are at least as uncouth as mine (more so since by implication you attack me personally whereas I merely said that the assessment section was ridiculous) As for the vandalism claim, I don't understand. Do remember.. I have as much right as you to edit the article. It's not as if your version of the history has a priviliged status.. Contrarily whoever reads this page will agree with me on my judgement that military attrition concept is not extraordinarily unique as to be ungraspable today. You assessmnet is wholly subjective and will mislead.. Let's see who prevails!

Yes, let's see. You are not editing, you are a vandal, in that you delete entire sections, and nobody has a right to do that. That you have obviously have no concept of attrition (and don't seem to realize that it is a question of scale and anyway couldn't work very well in Verdun) is thus not even important. Clossius 22:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Now I get it. So if you delete an entire section, then you are a vandal. Let's take the "Ada Lovelace" article for example. She is not supposed to have had solid grasp of Mathematics as to be the author of the first program. And not to be a vandal, we are merely to go along with this kind of nonsense.. to respect the author whatever the defamation to the person being described. Well, that's why there is so much nonsense here in the Wikipedia! I don't buy this. I know better. I'm a graduate of a military academy (not in the States for I'm not an American) and from what I have learned, I can see that your understanding of military matters is below amateur. Or if you don't agree, then explain to me what the concept of attrition is (however ludicrous it is to ask a philosopher about a military concept!)? If I don't get your answer, then I will not delete the section but rewrite it (implying that your stuff has to go). I hope at least you won't object this time now that I have given you a chance to put forth your argument? By the way, why don't you take a look at the article about Attrition Warfare here in Wikipedia? You will see that the "blood bath of Verdun" is nothing unique and surely not ingraspable (it has been grasped and put into practice before and hence, by democratic as well as totalitarian nations, to scales in proportion to what their resources would maximally allow.. war is no joke.), unless you believe every token event in the world and possibly in other worlds ;-| is a unique event as to assign a new type. If you are a philospher of any substance, argue! (and I hope not by Ad Hominem which seems to be your only weapon however)
"So if you delete an entire section, then you are a vandal." Yes, I'd say so, especially if you only object to one sentence there. If one bothers to read just one or two books or articles about Verdun (such as the one in the bibliography section), one realizes who's the amateur here. Other than that, if anyone is unqualified to talk military matters and military history, then it's these military buffs (genuinely professional soldiers and military academy teachers don't babble carelessly about blood-mills and attrition, because they realize what this is about). And threats make little sense here, because the system of Wikipedia does make sure that at least individual cranks get their hooliganisms reverted. Especially if it is so clear who started the ad hominem remarks here. There is no point in arguing with people who are non-discursive. Clossius 05:38, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
PS: Just to make sure for those who read that and who are really interested in the subject: The blood-mill of Verdun was not an attrition strategy proper, because its point was that the enemy losses were higher than one's own, calculating in own losses on the 100,000 scale. This was a new quality in military strategy, if one can call it that. Clossius 05:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Clossius, I gather that you have read only one or two articles about this topic. No wonder that your views are so peculiar and out of league with the more common and more established views. Therefore, to begin with, I will point you to a very nice primer to this subject, namely "1914-1918" by David Stevenson (you can easily look this book up in Google or Amazon without me supplying a more pedantic bib). This will give you at least a more comprehensive understanding of World War I, if you have any tendency to learn. The war, and the participants thereof had very complicated and even conflicting motivations than you can ever imagine. In any case, I will address your points directly (as opposed to appealing to some imaginary audience). Your main contention seems to be as follows,

1) The battle of Verdun was not conceived as an attrition warfare but something qualitatively different.
2) Anyone who conceives this kind of thing (let alone grasp it) is totalitarian while the more democratically minded cannot even grasp it.

Mind you that the validiy of 2) is independent from 1). I will deal with 2) first, because it is simpler. Let's assume that the strategy adopted by Falkenhayn in the battle of Verdun is indeed not that of attrition (which in proper form at least, as Clossius seems to grant now, can be grasped by anyone whether totalitarian or not), but something more terrible that a democratic person or nation cannot grasp it. Let's call it X. Now 2) will be proved false if there is a concept Y such that a democratic person or nation can grasp it (and put into practice) but yet Y is more than or equally terrible to X. As I have mentioned earlier in this page, all the terror bombings aimed at the civilians in WWII and also many campaigns and battles before and after Verdun (for example the battle of Artois and Champagne and the battle of Somme which happened right in conjunction with Verdun) are clearly more or equally terrible than Verdun in that they either disregarded the lives of mass of civilians (those of enemy or not) and/or the lives of their own soldiers (as in Somme; mounting losses of their own didn't deter the leadership in carrying on with the offensive). Since these were perpetrated by the democratic nations (implying that they conceived it, grasped it and put it into practice) it proves that Y exists and therefore 2) is clearly false. 2) is TOO NAIVE! Now dealing with 1), let's assume that the democratic nations' conception of attrition is not "higher causalities in the part of the enemy" but merely "high causalties on the enemy" as Clossius seems to contend. Since any sane military command must assume some casualties of their own in any sort of operation, this conception precludes no casualties of their own but should admit a little casualties. So the conception can be restated as "high casualties on the enemy and low casualties on their own". In other words, high ratio of enemy casualties to the casualties of their own. Now, this looks awefully like the "higher causalities" conception of Falkenhayn. Admittedly, there is this contention that the democratic nations would not have their own soldiers sacrificed in the 100,000s of scale like the Germans. If this is an absolute principle, then the operation will cease if the causalty rate reaches a certain level, say 50,000, even if there were an imminent break-through prospect or the kill ratio were 10 to 1 favourable. The actual battles that took place show (such as the battle of Somme) that nowhere close did the democratic combatant nations stick to this principle absolutely but operated under the covert principle that if things get favourable, they would be willing to endure much more sacrificies. On the other hand, although the German command were supposed to be willing to endure 100,000 causalties of their own in the outset, it is highly unlikely to assume that this principle were absolute in that they would have endured it even if the kill-ratio were unfavourable. From these, we see that both commands, one from democracy and the other totalitarian, were IN PRACTICE operating under the virtually same principle, namely "most return on investment" and not out of some humanitarian or inhumanitarian concerns. Therefore, 1) is false because the concept of attrition of the allies was in practic not much different from whatever you might wish to call the Falkenhayn's. As a matter of fact, the battle of Verdun is a classic example of the War of Attrition and that it was applied in a larger scale hitherto doesn't alter the fact. The battle of Somme produced more causalty and was more of a butchering even though it lasted much shorter period. Finally, the battle of Somme was not a copy of the German strategy but was conceived earlier and independently.(It was only pre-empted by the German offensive, the battle of Verdun). I recommend you to read the book I mentioned to you! Read Encyclopedia Britannica! read at least the wikipedia article on Battle of Verdun! Now what I have problem with Clossius is that he is making value judgments about history, which is not even based on due evidences. Even if his judgements are plausible, it is not in keeping with the nature of encyclopedia (fact-oriented, mind you) to attach such views which are bound to be controversial. Clossisus, if you are a honest intellectual who can admit one's own wrong, please do so. Otherwise, TELL ME WHY I'M WRONG instead of being childish.

I very moderately modified the assessment section this time. I only modified words which might look too judgemental while retaining the gist. Let's put an end to this nonsense confrontation with that.
Which was all my point actually was. I said in the edit summary that part of the piece was perhaps POV and that it could be edited. What you now did was comparatively non-vandalist and non-hooligan, so there it goes. The discussion is also not as loony as before, and if this is your view on WWI and if you assume that anyone not agreeing with your views, which you call mainstream, is necessarily wrong, so be it - no need to discuss them. Clossius 09:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the discussion of Falkenhayn's approach to Verdun is quite right, especially in the implication that the Germans were promoting attrition as a tool of war while the Entente wasn't concerned with losses. There is substantial evidence that an assumption (not particularly valid, but that's a different issue) of numerical superiority was part of Franco-British planning all along. Stacy McMahon 16:24, 7 November 2006