The Pros And Cons Of 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

to deal with the French and Russian forces , staunch allies, in order to avoid a war on

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

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

Back in Germany, the Chief of General Staff had crafted a plan of attack in the event that there would emerge a two-front war in the country emerged the Scliphen plan.

He also assumed that Belgium would not resist and would let Germany through as well as surprise the French and prevent them from mobilising and defending themselves. The plan also assumes that the mobilization of the Germany army would discourage Britain from getting involved and it assumes that Paris would fall within a week or two.

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.

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

The Schlieffen Plan was designed to give Germany dominance. The plan was for German armies to travel through Belgium to France, and defeat France. Then further moving on to Russia to defeat them before they had fully mobilised. Unfortunately, Germany could not reach Russia in time, as RUssia started to mobilise too quickly.

The Schlieffen plan purpose was to capture Paris within 6 weeks, then turn against Russia in the war. The failure was caused due to modifications made to the original plan. This reduced strength, speed, and attack in their


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