We explain who were the main military leaders of World War I and the tactical and strategic decisions they took.
What was World War I?
World War I (1914-1918) was an international armed conflict that faced countries in Europe and other separated continents on two sides: the entrance or the allies (headed by France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan and, since 1917, United States) and the central empires (the German empire, the Austrohungal Empire and the Ottoman Empire).
The tactical and strategic decisions of the military chiefs of both sides They were of crucial importance for the development of war, along with other factors such as economic capacities and political definitions. Some of the decisions made by military leaders contributed to successes and others to the failures of the nations involved. In both and another, They caused huge casualties and the final balance of the war was around nine million dead soldiers and a similar amount of civilians.
Finally, the war was won by the entrance and the German empire was forced to sign the armistice on November 11, 1918.
Alfred von Schlieffen (1833-1913)
Alfred von Schlieffen was head of the German General Staff between 1891 and 1906. Although he retired from his functions in 1906 and died in 1913, a year and a half before the outbreak of World War I, His plan for the invasion of France was applied by Germanyalthough with important modifications, at the beginning of the war.
Schlieffen's main concern was how to face a possible war on two fronts against Russia and France. At the end of the 19th century, Schileffen began to develop his plan and presented it in 1905.
The Schlieffen plan He was inspired by a military operation implemented by the Carthaginian General Aníbal Barca in the battle of Cannas against the Romans in 216 a. C. it was Rapidly and decisively attack France by the northwhich implied the invasion of the neutral Belgium. The goal was to quickly defeat the western enemy To then be able to launch all German military potential against Russia.
This plan was modified and applied by the German army in the first days of the war, despite its initial successes, Allied troops stopped the Germans in the battle of Marne and prevented the rapid victory that was expected in the western front. According to many specialists, the modifications introduced in the plan by the then German Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth Von Moltke, were responsible for failure.
Erich von Falkenhayn (1861-1922)
Erich von Falkenhayn was a Prussian war minister between 1913 and 1915 and replaced Helmuth von Moltke as Head of the German General Staff in September 1914after German troops were defeated in the first battle of Marne.
He faced Paul von Hindenburg because, unlike this, Falkenhayn He defended the need to concentrate all war efforts on the western front. With this objective, he put into practice his theory of the war of wear in the battle of Verdún in 1916. It was about concentrating the entire weight of his army in that city to ensure that the French gather all their troops there and the German numerical superiority could defeat them.
Falkenhayn considered that it should not be repaired in any human cost: almost 300,000 soldiers of the entente and Germans died In a few square kilometers over ten months, and many more were injured.
After the enormous amount of casualties caused by the military decision of Falkenhayn, who had underestimated the French troops, this It was dismissed and replaced by Paul von Hindenburg as chief of the General Staff and Erich Ludendorff as his attachment.
Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937)
From 1916 to almost the end of the war, Erich Ludendorff directed with Paul von Hindenburg the German military effort and much of German politics in a kind of military dictatorship.
He defended the underwater war without restrictions To deal with the British naval superiority and pressed Guillermo II, Emperor of Germany, to remove the most supportive military from a negotiated solution. The sinking of American merchant ships caused the entry of the United States in the war in April 1917.
Ludendorff also forced the resignation of German Foreign Minister, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, in 1917, and He had a decisive role in the negotiations that led to the Brest-Litovsk treaty with the Soviet Russia which guaranteed Russia's departure from war. He also promoted The spring offensive of 1918 on the western front that did not give the expected results.
On September 28, 1918, before the victorious advance of the entente, Ludendorff He informed Guillermo II the impossibility of continuing the war. The power was transferred from Hindenburg and Ludendorff to Max von Baden, appointed chancellor in October, and the Reichstag (German Parliament), until then silenced.
He fled to Sweden, where he elaborated in articles and books the theory of stab in the back as a justification of the German defeat. He participated with Adolf Hitler in the failed coup d'etat of Munich in 1923.
Paul Ludwig von Hindenburg (1847-1934)
After his great successes on the Eastern Front, especially as Commander in Chief of the Army in the Battle of Tannenberg of 1914, Paul von Hindenburg was appointed in 1916 Head of the German General Staff, accompanied by Erich Ludendorff as his attachment. From now on, He was in charge of a kind of military dictatorship in Germany.
Promoted with Ludendorff The Underwater War without restrictions that precipitated the entrance of the United States in the war and the fall of Foreign Minister Theobald Bethmann Hollweg in 1917.
After negotiating peace with Russia through the Brest-Litovsk treaty in March 1918, he launched various offensives in the spring of 1918 in the Western Front. His failure and the consequent counteroffensive of the entente led to the signature of the armistice on November 11, 1918.
In 1925, Hindenburg returned to politics and He was elected president of the Weimar Republic. In 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler's chancellor from Germany. He died on August 2, 1934.
Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918)
Gavrilo Princip He was not a military chief but It was the material author of the attack that caused the outbreak of World War I. Born in a Serbobosnia family, despite his bad health, he soon joined the cause of Serbian nationalism. In 1912, he marched to Belgrade and joined the Nationalist Secret Organization Black hand who led Colonel Dragin Dimitrijević and commander Serbian Vojislav Tankosic, who chose him to carry out the murder.
On Sunday, June 28, 1914, Princip Francisco Fernando de Austria murdered Sarajuque in Sarajuqueheir to the Austro-Hungarian crown.
Immediately after the attack was arrested by the police. During the trial he remained firm and did not betray the Secret Serbian organization as responsible for the attack. Because he is under 20 years of age, he was sentenced to a penalty of twenty years in prison.
He died in jail on April 28, 1918, victim of tuberculosis.
Joseph Joffre (1852-1931)
Joseph Joffre was French Chief of Staff since 1911. He designed with Ferdinand Foch the XVII plan in the case of an eventual war with Germany. The essence of the plan was to drive an attack by Alsacia and Lorena, territories that had passed to the German empire after the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871.
As commander in chief of the French troops in 1914, he knew how to react after the German attack that began the First World War and He managed to stop the German advance in the battle of Marne September 1914. From that moment on, the fronts stabilized for long months despite attempts by both sides of obtaining the break.
After failing in the attempt to break through the German lines in 1915 and be considered responsible for the enormous losses suffered In the Battle of Verdún of 1916, it was replaced by Robert level at the head of the French army in December 1916.
Although it was separated from the positions of responsibility, it remained very popular until its death in 1931.
Robert Level (1856-1924)
The French military Robert Levelle was promoted to Brigade General in October 1914, shortly after World War I started. In May 1916 he replaced General Philippe Pétain as commander of the second French army defended by Verdún and managed to reconquer terrain previously lost to the Germans.
In December 1916, Level was appointed commander in chief of the French army in replacement of Joseph Joffre. Held said position for six months and applied its method consisting of Coordinate front attacks with massive artillery bombings.
His failure in the April 1917 offensive, which caused a huge amount of French and British casualties, caused a series of riots among the French troops that were repressed. Finally, level He was dismissed and his position momentarily passed to Pétainsupporter, like his successor Ferdinand Foch, to drive limited attacks until the United States could send large amounts of soldiers to the western front.
Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929)
French commander Ferdinand Foch participated in a prominent way in the Battles del Marne (1914), Ypres (1914) and El Somme (1916).
In 1918 he was appointed Supreme Commander of the forces of the Entente and Mariscal de France. He successfully directed the final offensive against Germany And he was one of the signatories of the armistice of November 11, 1918. He participated in the negotiations of the Versailles Treaty, in which he accused the French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, of being excessively indulgent with the Germans.
Advocated the division of Germany, with the intention of undoing the gathering of the German Reich that had been achieved in 1871, and demanded the complete occupation of Rhineia by the troops of the entente (against the partial occupation and with a period of fifteen years that was agreed in Versailles). When the Versailles treaty was signed, he said: “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”
Luigi Cadorna (1850-1928)
Luigi Cadorana graduated as a host in 1868 and reached the degree of Lieutenant in 1898. He was responsible for preparing the Italian army to enter World War I. With the position of Chief of the General Staff of the Army since July 1914, he was in charge of the Military Forces since Italy entered the war in May 1915.
He commanded a series of offensives in the Isonzo River area against the Austrians but lost many men and won very little territory. He stood out for his victory in Gorizia (1916), which stopped the Austrian offensivebut the sending of German troops decided the Italian defeat in the battle of Caporetto (1917), which meant important human and territorial losses. Cadorana was immediately retired from command.
John Pershing (1860-1948)
When the United States entered the war in April 1917, General John Pershing was chosen by President Woodrow Wilson To command the US expeditionary force. Pershing had served in Cuba and the Philippines and in 1916 he had commanded a failed punitive expedition against Pancho Villa in Mexico that, anyway, served to disperse the forces of Villa.
Pershing arrived in France in June 1917. From the beginning, He opposed US troops under the French or British command. When, as of March 1918, German troops began a new offensive on the western front, Pershing He agreed to dispose of his resources under the command of Ferdinand Foch, supreme commander of the enchant's forces.
When the situation was reversed and the allies passed to the offensive, Pershing returned to his previous policy but in coordination with Foch's provisions. He directed the assault of the outgoing of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918 and the offensive of Meuse-Argonne between September and November. Allied operations caused the German defeat that concluded with the November 1918 armistice.
Douglas Haig (1861-1928)
When the British expeditionary force was created to combat on the western front at the beginning of World War I, Douglas Haig was appointed as commander in chief of field marshal John French. After the important casualties suffered by the British in some of the battles freed during 1914 and 1915, French was forced to resign and occupied his place Douglas Haig.
Haig's strategy, which was to wear the Germans at any cost, It caused the greatest amount of casualties in the British ranks in the battles of the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917). The little advantage obtained at such a high human cost made him criticism.
Haig had tactical disagreements with the French military authorities, especially with Robert levelle. When the Frenchman Ferdinand Foch took over the Supreme Command of the Allied forces, Haig maintained the tactical command of the British forces and both worked coordinatedly. Promoted to Campo Mariscal in 1917, Haig had a prominent role in the allied offensive of mid -1918 that led to victory.
HORATIO KITCHENER (1850-1916)
Field Marshal Horathio Kitchener served as Secretary of the United Kingdom during the first years of World War I. Unlike many of his contemporaries, predicted that war would be long and that it would be necessary to recruit a great army.
He stood out for increasing and organizing British forces through a professional recruitment and training campaign. The posters calling volunteers to enlist had their face and the British army reached the figure of more than one million soldiers in 1915. He died on June 6, 1916 when the ship on which he was traveling crashed into a German marine mine.
Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935)
British scholar and archaeologist Thomas Edward Lawrence, also known as Lawrence in Arabia, He got involved in World War I as a spy in the Middle Eastwhere the British sought to cause an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Lawrence He convinced the British authorities to support the Arabs with weapons and money and became one of the leaders of the rebel forces. He drove guerrilla operations against the Turks and He was one of the commanders who won in the battle of Áqaba (current Jordan) in July 1917.
The troops of the Arab leader Faysal entered with Lawrence in Damascus in October 1918. Before the war ended, the United Kingdom and France agreed not to recognize Arab independence and, instead, the territories conquered to the Ottomans (Sykes-Picot Agreement). Disillusioned, Lawrence returned to the United Kingdom even before the armistice was signed.
Aleksei Brusilov (1853-1926)
Aleksei Brusilov was educated in the Pajes Corps of the Russian Empire and amounted to the general range in 1906. When World War I broke out, the eighth Russian army commanded and contributed to the success in Galitzia against the Austrohungary troops in August and September 1914.
In 1916, Brusilov was put in charge of the four armies that fought at the Southwestern end of the guidance frontl. As of June 1916, He drove the so -called “Brusilov offensive” In Galitzia that caused many casualties but allowed to capture almost 400,000 Austrian prisoners.
This led the Germans to send troops to the eastern front that, otherwise, would have contributed to strengthening the German position in Verdún. The Brusilov offensive also reduced Austrian pressure on northern Italy and motivated Romania's entry into the war as part of the entente. Therefore, While the offensive did not change the situation of the eastern front, it had beneficial effects for the allies.
Brusilov became commander in chief of the Russian armies in 1917 but, due to the revolutionary events, he lost office in August. In 1920, when the Bolshevik government was already consolidated, it was integrated into the Red Army and exercised as a military consultant and cavalry inspector until its retirement in 1924.
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References
- Hart, P. (2014). The Great War 1914-1918. Military history of World War I. Criticism.
- Showalter, from & Royde-Smith, JG (2023). World War I. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
- Stevenson, D. (2013). 1914-1918. History of World War I. Debate.stone, N. (2013). Brief History of World War I. Ariel.
