These important aspects were planned out simply because of one major reason. In the year 1904 both friendly allies, France and Britain signed a treaty which later also involved Russia known as Entente Cordiale. This meant “friendly understanding.” The soul aim of the treaty was to collaborate well with each other against their number one foe, Germany. Germany’s military began to suspect that all three allies were building up a big attack against them so they decided to get them before they got Germany and Germany also loved to conquer so that one day they could have their own huge empire just like the British.
But their plan didn’t quite work as well as it should have. On the 2nd of August 1914 Germany invaded small, peaceful little Belgium. The Belgium’s retaliated quite well by blowing up railways to stop the German army from entering their country on their own will. They also stopped resources and reinforcements from getting to them easily. The Germans also invaded Luxembourg. Britain came upon the decision to declare war on Germany because they had invaded Belgium. The Belgium army was then backed by the BEF- British Expeditionary Force which was made up only 125,000 men. Although it was such a small force it was well facilitated and trained for the war. After helping out the Belgians for a while they moved over toward s the French army at the River Marne so that they could also help them hold of the vicious German forces there. Neither they nor France wanted the Germans to reach Paris or everything would just collapse.
December 1914 came and most of the BEF were either injured or dead. France on the other hand was practically ready for the German’s invasion. They pounced immediately by invading their beloved Alsace and Lorraine. These were two regions which France had lost to Germany back in the war of 1871. This idea was unsuccessful. The battle of the Marne stopped the Germans from advancing any further when they tried to attack the east end of Paris.
The Germans assumed that Russia would take 6 weeks to mobilise but they mobilised in just ten days into the war, forcing German troops to pull back and protect their eastern border. The Schlieffen plan was falling apart.
The Schlieffen plan did not work out as planned because of many reasons.
- Russia mobilised within 10 days rather than the assumed 6 weeks.
- Germany thought they could defeat France in 6 weeks but it took much longer.
- The Belgians and the BEF fort against the German attacks as soon as they entered Belgium.
- Germany thought Britain would not get involved but they did as soon as Belgium became under attack. Britain had promised to defend Belgium.
- The plan depended on speedy defeats off each enemy and the Belgians alongside the BEF slowed down the whole rapid process.
After the failure of the Schlieffen plan Von Molkte came and took Chief Schlieffen’s place in 1906. He decided to make some changes to the Schlieffen plan.
The Schlieffen plan was meant to work like this:
- Defeat France in a short time of six weeks
- Rush over to the eastern border and fight Russia
- Defeat both countries as speedily as possible
But this plan unfortunately did not work out for the German army since Russia mobilised in just 10 days and attacked Germany and the Belgians along with the BEF slowed down the German attack on France.
