The Schlieffen plan was a war winning plan that if worked would have properly won the war.

Once the Germans had got to Mons they had another shock they were met by skilful but outnumbered British army. The best they could do was to organise an orderly retreat. They did slow the German advance, but their achievements were not as glorious as people thought. During this time the Germans were about to attach there plan 17, which was that the French troops would charge across the frontier and attach deep into Germany, which would force surrender and launched this attach on Germany. On the 20 August the German forces defending the frontier cut the attacking French troops to shreds and artillery and machine gunfire. The French lost over 200 000 men in 12 days. They now abandoned plan 17 for obvious reasons and regrouped their forces to defend Paris from the advancing Germans. This was the first thing that the Germans could have celebrated about.

But they could not celebrate for long as they had to send 100 000 out of the army advancing Paris because the Russians had mobilised far more quickly than expected and had already had invaded them already so they had to save there motherland. The Germans also had a problem with food and ammunition as the advance was going to fast for the supplies to keep up. The German solders were underfed and exhausted.

The Germans original plan was to go round Paris but they could not do that so they decided to go straight to it. Which meant that the French had to get back to Paris so they had to use unconventional ways such as: trains and taxis.

As the Germans plan was collapsing on both sides of Germany the counter attach made it worse by the Allies as they counter attached and pushed the Germans back to the river Aisne which was breaking the Schlieffen plan. But after they pushed him back the first sign of stalemate happened which was the worst thing that could have happened to the Schiefflen plan as it was only meant to last 6 weeks. This was the end of the Schlieffen plan. The battle of the Marne was the final straw of the Schlieffen plan. Worse still for the Germans they were still in a stalemate. Neither side could break through the enemy lines so they had one choice to get past, go round. The charge began on the 12th October this was called the race to the see.

I think that the key reason why the Schlieffen plan failed was because of Russia mobilising quickly as this was why the Germans had to send troops back to Germany and they had to take on the allies so they were out numbered at both parts of the war. This meant that they had to be very strategic but as they had lost many men in Belgium and had only a few weeks they had not time to change there plan. If the schlieffen plan had worked they would have properly had won the war as they would have controlled the most of middle Europe.

Paul Huggins 11S