Schlieffen Plan Research Paper

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 First World War raged through the world from 1914 to 1918. Germany and Austria-Hungary fought the allies consisting of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States. The war led to massive destruction and many deaths on both sides. All the European powers had to move millions of men so that they could be at their positions and be ready for war. One of the most famous war plans in First World War was the Schlieffen Plan. The plan was created by the chief of the German general staff Alfred von Schlieffen from 1891 to 1905. The plan's main purpose was to avoid a two-front war with France and Russia but it had major issues. The plan took big risks and was very inflexible. The plan depended on that France would be quickly beaten, and that Russia would be slow to mobilize and was therefore based on assumptions. The Schlieffen Plan had strengths but the weaknesses were too big for the plan to be successful.

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 devised by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the General Staff in the German army in 1905. There were a number of different aspects to the Schlieffen Plan, and all were aimed at defeating France as quickly as possible, preferably in under 6 weeks. The Germans believed this was possible because they had defeated France in Alsace and Lorraine in the 1871. The main aim of the Schlieffen Plan was to knock out and capture France and then attack Russia in order to avoid fighting a war on two fronts at the same time.

In consequence, The Schlieffen Plan offered German planners an offensive strategy that struck quickly in order to fight a war on two fronts. Wilhelm’s perceptions that the offense was the strongest course of action was misguided and built with bias that only led to a glorious German victory. Diplomatically, Wilhelm perceived that he would not be accused of instigating the global conflict. His sly maneuvers to use Serbia as a scapegoat in order to mobilize Russia and then mobilize in retaliation stands as a strong indicator that he personally wanted to be the aggressor, but seen as the reactionary actor. Lastly, Wilhelm perceived that his conquest would be achievable relatively quickly. He thought that he would be able to defeat France and then focus on Russia, before Russia was finished mobilizing their military. These three significant events before the war reinforce Wilhelm’s status conscious and aggressive personality, which largely drove policy towards the war in 1914.

The Schlieffen Plan was a plan intended to ensure German victory over a Franco-Russian alliance by holding off Russia with a minimal strength force and swiftly defeating France by a massive flanking movement through the Low Countries. Unable to fully understand and visualize the reasoning that a temporary sacrifice of territory would not interfere with the right wing offensive, Moltke chose to reinforce the left wing at the expense of the right wing . His modification of the plan significantly contributed to the halt of the German offensive on the Marne and the frustration of the German efforts for a rapid, decisive victory

Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of the Imperial German General Staff, created The Schlieffen Plan for war against France and Russia. It was designed to avoid a two front war. Seven eighths of german troops were sent to surround the strong french defenses by going through Belgium and the Netherlands while a third were ready at Germany and France’s border to attack. After the success of the attack on France, they planned to send the rest of the troops to Russia. Germany had no plan for dealing with Russia once the troops got there.

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.

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 had been created by Alfred Von Schlieffen but he had died before world war one started. The plan was meant to be foolproof. First of all, Germany planned to defeat France quickly by marching through Belgium before Russia could get involved. It was intended to avoid a war on two fronts. Germany believed that Russia would take six weeks to mobilize their troops. Germany would hold the French on the frontier with their weak forces and follow this by holding up Russian

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

The German Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen between the years 1891 to 1905, created the Schlieffen plan in order to prepare for if they were to ever come upon war with France and Russia. In other words, it was to prepare for mobilization. The purpose of the plan was to help Germany avoid a two front war with Russia and France. But also the successor of Schlieffen was named Helmuth von Moltke, who reduced to the size of the German army and put them at greater chance of being defeated. They were surrounded by empires such as France and Russia and needed to avoid off an attack that could occur from the two at the same time. They decided to go through France first because Russia was a vast land with an enormous army and they had expected Russia

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,

The very last thing that the Germans wished for was a war on two fronts. Unfortunately for them, they got one. In preparation, Germany came up with a plan called the Schlieffen Plan. It was first created in 1897 and took about nine years to complete entirely! The biggest flaw of the plan was that it was based completely on theory. This whole plan was basically just a guess as to what would occur. From July to August of 1914, it turned out that this plan was utterly wrong.