Germany Before Ww1

The German Command, in planning for a short and swift war, found themselves in a bind when the war started to prolong itself. From the very beginning, their plan started to fall apart, as Belgium, who they assumed would just let them march through to France, took up arms in resisting their approaches (Hull, 2005). The war would get longer and longer and seemed farther away from its conclusion as the months grew colder. As a result of this as well as their Prussian roots, they resorted to dangerously risky and destructive tactics, trying to bring the war to a quicker end while putting more of their resources in jeopardy, a move that eventually did not pay off and ended up leading to the German Empire’s demise (Hull, 2005).

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).

In February 1891 Count Alfred von Schlieffen was appointed Chief of the Prussian General Staff, a post which he held until the end of 1905. The most important responsibility of the General Staff was to produce the annual deployment plans, which stipulated how the German army was to be drawn up ready for battle in case of war. The initial pattern of deployment was the basis of the operational plan for the conduct of the war itself. The General Staff routinely tested these war plans in studies and exercises. During most of Schlieffen’s time as Chief of Staff, the essential strategic problem for Germany was indeed the likelihood that the next war would have to be fought against two enemies on widely separated fronts, the French in the west and the Russians in the east. Schlieffen never found a convincing solution to this problem. His suggestion was to deploy much greater forces on one of the fronts in order to defeat that enemy quickly and decisively, and then to use rail mobility to reinforce the other front and win a decisive victory there too. That sounded fine in theory, but when it was tested in exercises it proved hard to achieve. An initial victory on one front could not be fully exploited because of the need to switch forces promptly to the other front. Once that happened, the first enemy

According to Document ten, the Germans believed a European war was going to happen since 1911 (likely due to the poor diplomatic relations between countries caused by imperialism, according to document five), and they wanted to be the ones to start it in order to gain an advantage. In addition, according to Fritz Fischer, Germany had long aimed to expand in Europe, consisting of, “An eastern empire [and] predominance over Belgium and France. ”(Document Ten) This excerpt provides support to the claim that Germany was using the war to further their imperial control, with the “eastern empire” referring to expansion into russian territory. It could also entail that Germany wanted the belgians and the french to cede their colonies, which would be of great interest to the expansion of the German Empire.

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

Germany sought to conduct a massive counter-offense to seize control of the Allied Forces’ main hub of Antwerp. The German Army intended to split

Both sides originally believed that the Great War would be over quickly. In Germany, this belief was based on the long-established Schlieffen Plan. The German generals were confident in the success of the war plan that Kaiser Wihlem II proclaimed that he would have “Paris for lunch, St. Petersburg for dinner”, enticing that Paris would be captured in 42 days and would then shift their focus to the Eastern Front and defeat the Russians. The Schlieffen plan however relied on strict timing, with no interruptions in its timetable and the assumption that Russia would still be feeble after their defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, thus taking longer to mobilise. With the failure of not considering other alternatives, Schlieffen’s conception assumed the absence of any enemy in which was “…an astonishing assumption for a commander” (AJP Taylor).

The Germans, wasting valuable time and causing large numbers of troops to be left behind to counter continuing Belgian resistance, could not quickly seize strong Belgian forts or crush the Belgian army. As half the German army was caught up in Belgium, France put its plan into action. French attacks got nowhere, however, and French were in fact pushed back across their own border and deep into France very quickly. By pushing the French attackers back into France the Germans were, in fact, forcing the French army out of the trap into which Schlieffen had intended them to fall. The German troops who had fought through Belgium were exhausted and short of supplies. Their numbers had been reduced by Belgian resistance, a battle with the BEF and part of their force being diverted to the fast developing Eastern front. When this was combined with the French troops who were being rushed to defend Paris, the German army no longer possessed the resources to successfully capture Paris. General Moltke, therefore, ordered the German first and second armies to swing East of Paris in an attempt to catch the retreating French army between the Germans swing back from the West and those who had repelled the French invaders in the East. General Joffre had, however, prepared the French for this kind of move and thanks to aerial reconnaissance he knew exactly where the German armies were. The culmination of this huge change of events

German historian Fritz Fischer argues that Germany 's desire for world power was the reason that for the outbreak of WWI. Germany had plans for a war before the crisis that occurred during 1914 and used the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as an excuse to put the plans into effect. Germany also encouraged Austria and its war plans to provoke a crisis in which it can solve the problem that Germany would face if they went to war. This problem is called "encirclement" and Germany would face this problem if it went to war with France and Russia. By having Austria doing so it would allow Germany to dominate and expand its territories. France and Russia signed a full military defensive alliance in 1892-1895 which allowed the possibility of a two-front war. With Germany 's geographical position being between these two great powers, it would cause Germany to lose the war at an instant. In addition to this, France felt bitterness towards the defeat of 1870-1871 and the taking


The second aspect to the Schlieffen Plan was to invade neutral Belgium as a means to get to France, because the German-Franco border was heavily fortified and would mean almost certain defeat for

     Before World War 1 Europe was in the mind set for war, as I have described above, countries were expanding their armies and making plans for war. One of the most famous plans of war was the Schlieffen plan. This plan devised by General Von Schlieffen was based on mass mobilisation. It was believed that in the event of a war it would take Germany thirty-six hours to mobilise, France forty-eight hours and Russia three weeks (Europe Since 1870 105). The Germans would thus attack France first and then after defeating France go on to attack Russia. From these plans we can see that the Chiefs of Staff in Europe were expecting and planning for a war. The military leaders

German military strategist were ready when the declarations of war began flying all over Europe. They intended to lock off the Russians in the east, smoothly kick France out of the war through a plan known as the Schliefffen Plan, then throw their full force, collaborating with Austria-Hungary, against the Russians. The Schliefffen Plan, named after General Alfred von Schlieffen who created it during 1905, called for invading the small countries like Luxembourg and Belgium in order to bypass to the north the strong fortifications along the French border. After a rapid conquest of the small countries, the German advance would continue into northern France, spin around Paris to the west and take the French capital. It almost worked, but German commander in chief General Helmuth von Moltke decided to send his troops east of Paris to engage and defeat the weakened French army straightly. In doing so he displayed his rightwing to counterattack by the French and a British Expeditionary Force, resulting in the First Battle of the Marne, September 6–10, 1914. Despite casualties in the hundreds of thousands, the battle was a stalemate, but it stopped the German drive on Paris. Both sides began digging a network of trenches.

Before World War I, German Chief of staff Alfred von Schlieffen was requested by Kaiser Wilhelm II to create Germany’s army a plan for a war against France and Russia. Germany could not compete with other European powers. Surrounding states afraid of Germany’s quick growth and aggressive attitude were eager to contain it. The Kaiser sought out Schlieffen and directed him to devise a plan that would allow Germany to gain power and assert itself as a dominant state. Because the Franco-Russian alliance was in place at that time in 1898, Germany was unable to attack just one of the countries and not the other. Instead, it would be forced to fight a two-front war. Wilhelm II knew that if they were attacked, Britain would come to France's defense.

After the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Germany pledged their full support to Austria-Hungary in a potential war. When Serbia failed to agree to Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum, Austria decided to declare war on Serbia. Russia, an ally of Serbia, mobilized their troops in response to Austria declaring war, and received support from their other ally France. Consequently, Germany declared war on France and Russia to aid Austria-Hungary. To avoid a two-front war with France in the west and Russia in the east, Germany formulated the Schlieffen Plan. Created by General Alfred von Schlieffen, the Schlieffen Plan involved invading Belgium and quickly defeating France. Germany knew that it would take Russia six weeks to mobilize their troops,