German Is Military Warrior - A History of Attrition

In 1915 Joffre used the verb Grignotti and hence Grinotage, but others in France spoke of Uzur. In 1920 Friedrich von Bernhardi condemned both Dellbrooke and attrition. He said that a strategy which avoids the offensive and aims for victory through the exhaustion of the enemy is nothing. This line of thought brought stunning operational success in 1939 to 1941, but also eventual and complete defeat in 1945. By then, attrition had been appropriated as the method of war by those possessed of economic strength, not constrained by relative weakness.