Reasons For The Schlieffen Plan

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 had failed by November 1914. It didn’t entirely go to plan.. What the Germans presumed wasn’t right. Firstly they presumed that it would only take 6 weeks to get through Belgium and that it wouldn’t take long at all, but in the end it took than expected. The Belgians resisted a lot and put up a strong fight. German troops got held up in Belgium and never got round to invading Paris. In addition to this, Russia mobilised quicker than presumed! So

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

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

Although critical for the German war plan, the Schlieffen-Moltke plan was kept a secret to the public, and even staff members of the German Imperial Army. Moltke kept the Schlieffen Plan a secret throughout his service in the army. Even close staff members, such as General Gerog Graf von Waldersee, admitted they had never actually seen the blueprints for the plan. (Ehlert, 90, PPed). A reason that Moltke wished to keep the Schlieffen-Moltke plan a secret was for the reason of altering it if needed without objection from his staff members. Other commander’s opinions may have helped find a better strategy, as well as counter-arguments to flawed areas of the plan. Surprisingly, Moltke did not tell Schlieffen about the changes he had made to his plan. However, Schlieffen found out about his changes and questioned Moltke’s leadership out of spite. (Ehlert, 97, pped).

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

Britain mainly sides with France because they have very similar views mainly on defense and foreign policies. Britain was able to mobilize quickly because of what the Germans were doing to the Belgian people. They were murdering, raping all of these horrible thing because they were bored and this might be the last time they had any

This mission had to be carried out as quickly as possible. Schlieffen thought it would be much easier to conquer France by attacking it from the back rather than push their way through the heavily secured Franco-German border. Schlieffen took into account Britain’s position of protecting Belgium but ignored it. He was sure that the Belgian troops would be well defeated before British troops could cross the English Channel. Therefore the Schlieffen Plan was set. The German army would quickly move through Belgium, defeat France and turn it’s attention to

The German officers driving their troops into and crosswise over France, turned too soon, due to the Schlieffen Plan, and did not encompass and cut off Paris. They were spotted by a non military personnel flying a 1909 Bleriot XI, who reported the attack yet was overlooked by the military on the grounds that all things considered, it was by somebody in one of those novel planes. When the French rang their troops, the Germans were inside of miles of Paris. The Germans were compelled to either delve in or retreat. They dove in. Starting there on, the war turned into a stagnant mess. The Germans suspected that they could find the French resting at the switch and make a short war of it. The French had not won a war in over a century, it ought to have been a simple

In addition, Germany, through the use of the Schlieffen Plan, attempted to overthrow France and Russia to win what would otherwise be a two-front war. Success in the execution of the plan would result into the growth of the German empire; thus, increasing the Germans chances of defeating Britain in a war. Essentially, the nation’s never-ending pursuit for power translated into the war of 1914–World War

Both the allied and central powers based their campaigns on rapid mobilization and aggressive movements against strategic objectives which was best demonstrated through the Schlieffen plan which was constructed by the German war ministry in 1897 and accounted for a large scale conflict fought simultaneously on two fronts namely with the French and Russians, this doctrine called for rapid mobilization of German forces and a direct assault and conquest of the French homeland effectively neutralizing them before the Russian army could muster its troops in a way that posed a threat to Germany itself. The Schlieffen plan depended upon the superiority of German equipment and logistical support which formed the basis and is one of the earliest demonstrations of the “blitzkrieg” style warfare that would be successfully utilized by Nazi Germany in later years and is still used as a model for the conduct of offensive campaigns by modern militaries. The French plan relied upon engaging the German forces along two fronts with one serving as a defensive which would tie up German resources and manpower while also mitigating their logistical superiority

It was not until late in the war that Britain got pulled into fighting when the Germans attacked France through Belgium. " The British had promised to defend Belgium under the Treaty of London of 1839” (Great War) which stated that Britain would protect Belgium from any harm. The harm in this case being the Germans. This caused Britain to declare war and formally attack the Germans, thus adding one more opponent on the western front.

Great Britain sent a warning to Germany, however, because there was no response Britain had no other choice but to enter the war. Great Britain was forced to enter the war which led to total war within the countries. If Germany had never attempted to invade Belgium then Britain never would have had to enter the war and total war could have been avoided all

First of all the Belgians put up unexpected resistance. Although the Belgian army was only a tenth the size of the German army, it still delayed the Germans for nearly a month, defending fortresses and cities. The Germans used their "Big Bertha" artillery to destroy Belgian forts in Liege, Namur and Antwerp, but the Belgians still fought back, creating a constant threat on German supply lines in the North. In addition, the German attack on neutral Belgium and reports and propaganda about German atrocities turned public opinion in many neutral countries against Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm.

Why Did The Schlieffen Plan Fail? In 1905, Alfred Von Schlieffen, who served as the Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 - 1906, devised the notorious Schlieffen Plan to avoid what Germany feared the most; a dreadful two - front war against France and Russia, as it would divide her resources and inevitably, bring them to failure. The Schlieffen Plan was a war strategy designed to wage a successful two - front war through forcing France to surrender so that Germany could deal with Russia, who they believed were still mobilising. The original Schlieffen Plan was for the Germans to bypass the French defenses by deploying 5 of 7 of Germany’s armies through invading Belgium and the Netherlands to besiege Paris.