The strongest army along the right wing that consisted of 90% of his troops attacked down the western front. The main route to get there was through the flat plains of Flanders. This was to be accomplished quickly due the neutral grounds and flat land of Belgium, with little or no resistance at all from the Belgians. The first wave of attack called for a great wheeling movement through Belgium, this would allow the German army to circle behind Paris and capture the French at the Gura Mountains and the Swiss frontier. Although this plan was severely halted by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who had signed the Treaty of London in 1839 otherwise known as the ‘scrap of paper’, which bound Britain to guard the neutrality of Belgium in case of an invasion. To add to this the Belgians also put up more resistance than expected and surprised the Germans at Liege (The Battle of Liege 1914). The invasion via Holland was later discounted due to the fact that Germany wished to have Dutch neutrality for as long as possible. Secondly, Switzerland in the south was almost invasion-proof. This was due to the heavily wooded areas in and around this region including the Vosges and more north bound, the Ardennes.
This was not a key invasion route because of several factors. The Vosges and Ardennes are extremely concentrated areas of heavy woodland with very poor communication services which would have made it very hard work for Germany to attack through this land. Of course Schlieffen could have invaded through the river valleys that lay in between the wooded areas, although the problem would lie at the end of these river valleys. Each of them guarded by the French forts that had been built by Vauban in the 17th century. So planning to attack through Belgium meant outflanking the French where they were likely to be most vulnerable. Schlieffen was inspired to do this by Hannibal’s defeat of the Romans at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC where the inevitable tactic of ‘manoeuvre sur la derrière’ was implied. This was intended to move their main army corps around the back of the enemy to catch them unaware from behind and encircle them. Schlieffen aimed to use this tactic again to chase the French around Paris to meet the oncoming Germans that lay along the Alsace Lorraine border.
Schlieffen laid out 37 ½ of his divisions to control the decisive wing – the wing which would sweep down the western front and around the back of Paris. The other 4 divisions which complete Schlieffen’s 47½-division army would remain the pinning force around Alsace and Lorraine. The 37 ½ divisions took the western front, Schlieffen knew exactly what he expected of these troops, as he knew what France was like due to spies but most of all previous wars including the Franco-Prussian war – Battle of Sedan in 1871, (this battle forced the French to give Alsace Lorraine to the Germans). As they passed the western wing they attempted to capture the main channel ports – Calais and Dover. If they did this the British Army would not have had much chance of crossing the channel to help the Belgians, capturing the central ports would also give the Germans great trade benefits.
The small German force of 4 divisions situated along the Franco-German border would entice the French to move forward in an attempt to regain Alsace Lorraine. Only then would Paris be attacked by the main bulk of the 37 ½ divisions of the German army. Paris was the major city in France; main railway and communication networks ran through the city. If Paris were to be captured, it would damage the French morale immensely and none the less damage their overall fight for the war. The 4 divisions of the pinning force were assumed to be supplemented by the Italians due to their alliance; this would give more strength along Alsace Lorraine. Schlieffen contained his 19th century mentality throughout his entire devised plan. He seeked to re fight previous wars perfectly, known as adage.
As expected the French forces moved towards the Franco-German border to the lost territory of Alsace Lorraine. They wished to put Plan 17 into action. The French were to attack straight through the heart of Alsace Lorraine to regain their land. In order to do this 4 French armies would advance on either side of Metz and Thionville. The 4 German divisions along with several Italian divisions were driven back by France along Alsace Lorraine by the French, although this was intentional. This meant the Germans sucked the French into this area away from Paris allowing the 37 ½ divisions to advance even further almost unopposed. The French were then caught between fresh forces from Paris and troops retreating from Alsace Lorraine. The German decisive wing soon began to move more easterly as their supply count started to run low thus not going around Paris; this became a crucial factor of the final result of the war. Another major factor soon hit Germany just as their plan started to look promising, replacements soon had to be taken from the western front. Russia had mobilised much sooner than the Germans had hoped for. Germany had to move 100,000 of its troops from the western to the eastern front. This weakened the German advance even more in the west. Trains were scheduled to take hauls of German troops back to Germany in order to fight the oncoming Russians. Germanys combined forces fought the Russians at the Battle of Tannenburg from August 17th to September 2nd 1914.
As the French began to think they had the upper hand on the Germans along the Franco-German border, with poor leadership skills the French wore red and blue uniforms which of course stood out among the battlefield. This made defending Alsace Lorraine an easy job for the Germans and initially began to demolish the French. As they realised this, they began to retreat from the Franco-German border and became confronted by two German forces, only the movement south easterly of the decisive wing allowed the French and British to halt their attack at the Battle of the Marne in 1914. Allied reserves would be thrown in to restore the ranks and attack the German flanks. Battle commenced on September 5th 1914. The German commander made a crucial error on the western wing, Alexander von Kluck ordered his army to pursue and destroy the French army that had retreated back towards the Marne. In doing so a 50 kilometre gap had expanded between 1st and 2nd German armies, this then allowed both the French and British forces to attack the Germans exposed flanks.
Due to this endangerment of both 1st and 2nd armies, the forces were ordered to withdraw to the Aisne River to regroup. This then began the race to the sea, which was to control all the channel ports and outflank the other being the highlighted objectives. The French then turned their forces around to defend the Marne. Germans began to dig in to high ground beginning the start of trench warfare and ending the Schlieffen Plan.
So overall the Germans partially managed to fight a war on one front first towards the beginning, but assumptions caused them to make wrong judgements. For example Russia took less time than expected to mobilise all their troops. That led to redeploying some of the German troops from the western front which in turn led that wing to be increasingly less powerful. Moving southeasterly along the western front caused the Germans to bypass Paris, which was a major blow as Paris was seen to be one of their main aims. This consequently led to the battle along the river Marne which was seen as the real turning point within the war, as neither side began to make ground. With Germans along the Marne and thousands over in Russia fighting at Tannenburg, the plan had not reached its main aims and objectives in order to make the French surrender.
Will Beach 10J (JPS)