Hermann von François (31 January 1856 – 15 May 1933), General of the Army, a famous German general in World War I, fought in the Battle of Stoluponi (1914), the Battle of Tannenberg (1914), the Battle of Jolis-Tanov (1915), the Battle of Verdun (1917) and other famous battles.
Francois
He was one of the most prominent military commanders on the German side of World War I. He was characterized by believing that his judgment was superior to the orders of his superiors, and had the nickname "conceited victor", which enabled him to win brilliant victories on the battlefield, but also brought a significant impact to his military career.
Hermann von François was born in January 1856, and in September 1913 François succeeded General Hermann von François Alexander von Crook as commander of the First Army, under the command of Pritvitz. In August 1914, the troops were stationed in Königsberg, East Prussia. The unit participated in two exercises in 1903 and 1905, with East Prussia as the battlefield, the latter of which was carried out on the basis of the Schlieffen Plan.
Personal characteristics stand out
François's greatest characteristic as a commander is that he ---- emphasizes non-stop aggression and has a fondness for bold assaults. For this reason, there was a fierce clash with Ludendorff at the Battle of Tannenberg. Ludendorff's majestic and great success gave him a remarkable personal prestige at the Battle of Tannenberg, an outcome that had a huge impact on François's military career.
Battle of Tannenberg
François's personality traits ----- easy impulsiveness are well known. In the first battle on the Eastern Front in Stolupouni, François, without informing his superior, the commander of the Eighth Army, Pritwitz, launched an arbitrary attack with the goal of driving The Russian First Army in Campov back to the Russian border.
Russian troops
The success of his operation encouraged Prittwitz to launch an offensive against the Campov army at Gambini for many years. This attack failed, causing the Eighth Army Command to retreat the Germans backwards to the Vistula River. Angered by the Kaiser, Prittwitz was relieved of his duties on 20 August, and command of East Prussia was subsequently transferred to the retired Hindenburg, with Ludendorff as chief of staff of the Eighth Army.
The Germans attacked
Battlefield victories are brilliant
In one of the most decisive battles in Tannenberg, François again refused to accept defensive orders and disobeyed Ludendorff's direct orders twice in succession. On 28 August, Ludendorff, in order to prevent the breach of the defensive line, ordered François's entire army to advance north to Lana to support the battle in the center. But François believed that it was more important to cut off the enemy's retreat, and without informing Ludendorff, he continued to march according to the original route. The next day, his forces cut off the Russians' retreat to the south. Finally, it is well known that this act of resistance helped Hindenburg and Ludendorff to achieve a decisive victory over the Russian Samsonov Second Army--- the suicide of Samsonov, commander-in-chief of the Russian Second Army. François's troops captured 90,000 Russian troops in this victory, and the main victory was achieved by the unit.
Captured Russian troops
Although François's disobedience to the order was not dealt with in any way, Ludendorff's suspicion of him grew. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were promoted to the position of German High Command, especially after Ludendorff became first quartermaster general, and clearly regarded François as an uncontrollable and dangerous person, and François was never again given such command as commander of the army group. These have had a great negative impact on his career. General Auguste von Mackensen was of similar ability to François, and at the Battle of Tannenberg he was of the same rank as François, commanding the Seventeenth Reserve Army. However, compared with François's stagnation at the military level, Mackensen became the supreme commander of a theater in the ensuing war and was promoted to field marshal, which made François greatly dissatisfied and even retreated.
At the Second Battle of Lake Mussoorie, François won only a crushing victory, and was even considered a defeat. After this, François handed over the acting command of the Eighth Army and returned to the army level to command operations. François remained at this level until the end of the war, fighting mainly on the Eastern Front.
Stop The General of the Army
François was awarded the prestigious Blue Max Medal on 14 May 1915. In this account of this honor, his outstanding leadership and outstanding military planning, as well as the successful command of the 41st Reserve Division at the Battle of Jolis-Tanov in Galicia and the defeat of the Russian army on May 2, 1915, were highlighted. François received a handwritten letter from Kaiser Wilhelm II praising him for his award.
William II
François was awarded the Order of the Oak Leaf on 27 July 1917 as a reward for his performance at the Battle of Verdun and was later promoted to general of the army.
After the war, François wrote several books about The First World War, such as Hindenburg at the Battle of Tannenberg. The most famous of these was The Battle of the Marne and Tannenberg, published in 1920, in which he carefully analyzed the german guidelines for the first few weeks of the war.
Hermann von François died on 15 May 1933.
Background material link
Battle of Verdun
In 1916, the German Empire decided to shift the focus of its offensive again to the Western Front, trying to defeat France and force it to withdraw from the war. The German high command of the Battle of Verdun chose the French fortress of Verdun as an offensive target. Verdun was the protrusion of the Allied line of defense, a great threat to the Germans penetrating deep into France and Belgium, and it was also a strong stronghold to Paris and a hub for the French front. On 21 February 1916, the Germans concentrated all their artillery on the front line and bombarded the narrow triangle near Verdun for more than 10 hours, leveling the forests, hills and trenches in this small area, and then advancing with 6 divisions. The French commander-in-chief Xia Fei sent reinforcements and appointed H. P. Pétain was the commander of the Verdun area and organized the French army to resist desperately. Both sides flew aircraft to conduct air combat and bomb each other's airfields and supply lines. For the first time, the Germans used phosgene suffocation bombs, killing and wounding large numbers of French troops and causing panic, but failed to win. The French and British forces launched a powerful offensive against German positions along the Somme river from the end of June to mid-November, and the British used the newly invented 36 tanks for the first time, and the Germans stubbornly resisted and held the defensive line. In October and December, the French mobilized troops at Verdun and began a counter-offensive to retake most of the lost ground. The German strategic offensive finally failed. After the end of the campaign, Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissed Falkenhain as chief of the general staff and appointed Hindenburg as chief of the general staff, with Ludendorff as his deputy. This battle was a typical trench warfare and war of attrition, with nearly 1 million casualties on both sides. Due to the heavy casualties, the Verdun battlefield was known as the "meat grinder", "slaughterhouse" and "hell". This decisive battle was a turning point in the First World War, and the German Empire gradually moved towards final defeat.