Failure Of The Schlieffen Plan During World War I

The Schlieffen Plan was a German battle plan to fight a two front war devised in 1905 by Alfred von Schlieffen as the Chief of the General Staff for Germany. The plan called for the German army to apply overwhelming force in France to capture the capital of Paris within six weeks before changing focus to Russia. The plan intended to achieve a quick and decisive victory by sweeping a line of armies through neutral Belgium and into France. In actuality, Helmuth von Moltke made significant changes to Schlieffen’s original plan before and during World War I. Ultimately, the plan ended in failure when the German advance halted at the First Battle of the Marne (Limbach, 2014).

The Schlieffen Plan is commonly – though misleadingy – identified with the German western offensive at the start of the First World War in August 1914, which began as a campaign of rapid movement but ended in deadlock and trench warfare. The plan is generally seen as a desperate gamble almost certain to fail, and its recklessness is counted as part of Germany’s war guilt – the plan held out the false promise of a quick victory, and so it underpinned the “short war illusion” that led Germany into a long war of attrition, ending with her defeat and collapse in 1918. This analysis confuses two quite different moments in history. The Schlieffen Plan was not designed to meet the strategic challenge Germany faced in 1914,

Germany's plan was to avoid fighting a catastrophic defensive war on two fronts, because they felt threatened by not only Russia, but France and Britain as well, who were both "rivals" of Germany and allies of Russia at the time. Therefore, they planned, in the event of a massive threat or attack, to quickly defeat France to stop a destructive attack from the Western Front, and then focus on the main problem on the Eastern Front, which involved the Balkans, Serbia, and

To a large extent the failure of the Schlieffen plan was the most significant reason for

When Germany declared war on Russia in 1914, they also had their own military plan, which called for a two front war with France and Russia. It was called The Schlieffen Plan and was developed by General Alfred von Schlieffen in 1903 but was revised in December of 1905. At this time, he was chief of the German General Staff, and Europe was separated into the Triple Alliance, which consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy, on one side and the Triple Entente, which consisted of Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the other. Schlieffen was sought out by the Kaiser in order to construct an arrangement that would allow Germany to

The Schlieffen Plan was created by Alfred von Schlieffen, and he created it to avoid fighting both France and Russia at the same time. The problem was that France and Russia were on opposite sides of Europe. Which meant they would have to split their army in half. The Schlieffen Plan stated that Germany would defeat France while Russia would be mobilizing itś army. They assumed that Russia would take six weeks to mobilize,and that France was weak and Russia was strong. They didn´t think that GB would be fighting for France because of the treaty signed seventy - five years ago. The Schlieffen Plan had many flaws and assumptions.But instead of taking six weeks Russia took ten days, and started fighting when they weren't ready. Which made

Schlieffen had decided that the German forces were to advance into France via the undefended plains of neutral Belgium. Captain B. Morgan (2001, Pg.6), researcher at the USA Naval War Collage stated that if France were to attack Germany at Alsace-Lorraine Germany would have 48 divisions positioned at the border to hold the French off. While the remaining two thirds of the army, also know as the right flank entered France via Belgium. Then swing northwest around Paris and fold back upon the rear of the French forces, enveloping and crushing them against the forces of the German left flank. The key to the plan’s success and its primary strength was its sheer boldness in its swiftness and the quick defeat of France. Ken Webb (2012, pg.5), author of World War I From Sarajevo to Versailles commented that Schlieffen believed that the swing through Belgium had to be massive and rapid for the plan to be able to achieve such swiftness if the planned needed to be complete in forty-two days before Russian Mobilization.

It was one of many different plans under construction at the time, including a plan drafted by Field Marshals Rundstedt and Model to encircle 10-15 Allied Divisions. When Hitler held a conference on his plan, everyone was surprised to discover the ambitious objective: Antwerp [See map]. To put this into perspective, the German army had an approximated ½ to ⅓ the required fuel to make the trip.

To avoid the French fortress system, the Germans had developed a plan to surround Paris in a flanking maneuver to quickly conquer France. The plan was expected to be carried out in only 40 days, however, many important steps were not taken which cost the Germans the vital element of haste. The Schlieffen plan was not foredoomed to failure, yet it it did fail due to three factors: the reduction to the right wing on the Western Front, the choice to avoid the path through Holland, and the poor coordination and regulation of the German armies.

In the years before World War I almost ever county was making plan if a war started in Europe. The chances of a war in the years prior were steadily increasing which caused nations to start worrying about a massive war. Along with tensions the rise in Militarism which is, “a policy of aggressive military preparedness”("Militarism."). In an another form of Militarism was the rapidly expanding armies of all the nations. Because of the reasons listed before many nations started to draw up massive and complex plans for if war started, which would orchestrate millions of men. The main plan of Germany was the Schlieffen Plan made by General Alfred Von Schlieffen, which was a plan to deal with the two side war Germany would have to face.

In order to accomplish the plan, he would have to conquer France first and quick, so Schieffelin recognized that it would be easier to defeat France by attacking from the rear, then pushing into the heavily guarded Franco-German border. They had to do this by going through other

In the year of 1914, German decided to put into practice one of the most ambitious military plan in the history of Europe. Before the outbreak of the war the Kaiser instructed his chief staff Alfred Schlieffen to devise a strategy that could allow the Germans to fight against their enemies that surrounded them(France and Russia). This plan was developed in a study written in the early 1906 .It involved the attack the northwest of Belgium and defending the Alsace-Lorraine border with a smaller German army. Once the tactic was archived, the second facet of the plan consisted that the Germans would move their troops to the Eastern frontier to fight against the Russian Army.

World War I was one of the bloodiest and hardest fought wars ever, with new technology and fighting techniques paired with new massive national armies and a conflict involving countries from all over the world, resulted in over 38 million civilian and military casualties. Germany was a major player in this conflict, and had two countries on the enemy side on its eastern and western borders. Russia to the east and France to the west, Russia of course being the bigger threat. Germany did not want to end up fighting a two front war of attrition that they would probably lose, so they decided to make a plan to prevent that. This plan was called “The Schlieffen Plan.” It stated that

The Schlieffen plan was created in 1905 by German General Count Alfred Von Schlieffen. The plan called for German forces to go through Belgium to flank the French and trap there forces from behind and defeat them before the Russian army could mobilize

The Schlieffen Plan was Germany’s plan for war against Russia and France. The purpose of this plan was to help Germany survive the earliest part of World War I by knocking France out in the West before turning their focus to Russia whom was East of them. The ultimate goal and way of accomplishment was to quickly defeat the French before Russia could mobilize its forces to join the fight. This plan was requested by Kaiser (German emperor) Wilhelm II, created by the chief of staff Alfred von Schlieffen in 1903, and revised in 1905. Due to the Franco-Prussian alliance Germany could not attack just one country but rather be forced to fight both in a two front war. Wilhelm was aware Britain would likely intervene, potentially causing Germany to