Preparing the Great War: The Schlieffen Plan

Résumé du document

Between 1905 and 1914, due to the instability of Europe dominated by alliances, every country in Europe was preparing for the war and developing war plans and strategies, which had to suit their conceptions of the war. Germany, which was allied with Austria-Hungary (which had a poor army), feared a combined attack from France, Britain and Russia, all these countries having signed an alliance treaty, the Entente Cordiale. The position of Germany in the centre of Europe made it more vulnerable, because it was encircled by its enemies. Therefore, there was a need to deal with two fronts: an eastern front in Russia and a western front in France. The German's conception of an inevitable war was, like in the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, a war movement, short and offensive. The Germans trusted their army (well-equipped, thanks to a successful industry) and they still had in mind Bismarck's motto "blood in iron": all the problems can be solved by the military strength.

Extraits

[...] Moreover, Schlieffen calculated that it would take the Russians about six weeks to organize their army, enormous in terms of size but very poorly equipped, to be able to fight against Germany on the eastern front. That's why Germans had about six weeks days, no more, to defeat France and thereby obtain surrender. Afterwards, the German troops would be able to concentrate on the east front. In order to invade France quickly and effectively, Schlieffen had not the choice: his plan had to disregard the Belgian and Dutch neutrality. [...]

[...] Having underestimated the difficulty of supply, the army was hungry. There was another assumption of the Schlieffen Plan which turned out to be wrong: on the eastern front, it took the Russian army only ten days to mobilize, instead of the 42 days expected by the Germans. Consequently, two German divisions had to be sent rapidly to the eastern front, letting a smaller German army in France. Moltke decided not to be on the forefront of the events, his isolation from the western front was a decisive point which contributed to the failure of the application of the plan: lacking a commander, the front lines were badly led. [...]

[...] Schlieffen, though he was a rather clever tactician, took two risks: the first was that the Russians would be slow to get ready for the war and the second was that Britain would not join in the war when Germany will invade Belgium (Schlieffen did not consider the treaty of 1839 between Belgium and Britain, in which Britain had promised to go to help Belgium if its neutral position was affected, for Schlieffen it was only a “scrap of paper”). In 1906, Helmut Von Moltke replaced Schlieffen at the head of the German Staff. He decided to modify the plan; his version avoided invading Holland (he needed the help of the Dutch ports to provide material to the army) and concentrating attack through Belgium, thinking mistakenly that this country would not resist any German attack, allowing the German troops to enter rapidly in France. [...]

[...] The Germans dug themselves in trenches; thus creating a line of trenches, from Dunkerque to Alsace. The hope for a short war had disappeared and nobody knew when it would stop. In conclusion, though the Schlieffen plan was a cleverly devised plan, lack of good commandment in application made it fail. We can notice that ideas from the Schlieffen Plan were used in 1939; this shows that this plan was a clever strategy, a military work of art, though this is source of argument between historians. [...]

[...] The intent of the plan was not to conquer cities or industry in order to weaken the French war efforts, but only to concentrate on defeating quickly, and by surprise, the French army. The Schlieffen Plan, in theory, was a cleverly devised plan: it fused ideas from the strategies of 1870 and new directives adapted to the situation. It anticipated well the French strategy and experimented the tactics of “defence by means of attack”. However, there are many criticisms to be done about the theoretical Schlieffen plan. [...]