History Coursework: Assignment 1.1

 Schlieffen had realised that the Germans could not attack across their border due to the fortresses which France had built along Alsace and Lorraine after 1870.  However, he had admired the encircling movement executed by Hannibal at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC and he had a vision of Germany executing a ‘Cannae’ style battle against the French by encircling Paris.  This battle was to be quick and decisive and there weren’t too many Germans who believed that it wouldn’t be.  

 In December 1905, Schlieffen had put together his Denkshrift (study) in which it stated that the strategy to be used was to be what could be described as ‘a great revolving door’.  Seven German armies were committed to the western front and five of these seven armies were to advance through Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands- the Benelux countries.  Schlieffen envisioned that the ratio of the right wing to left wing would be 7:1 (this ratio was later changed by von Moltke to 3:1).  There would be 59 divisions allocated to the north of Mets and 9 divisions to the south of Mets.  The idea was to make use of the decent railway lines and links owned by Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to get to France.  There were cities in these countries that were crucial for German advancement such as Liege and Antwerp.  The Germans expected the Belgians and Dutch to offer no resistance and surrender to Germany because their armies were no match for the German’s and, therefore, ‘resistance would be futile’.  Any hold up in these countries and the whole plan would be put in jeopardy, as there was no time for minor hold ups, and in truth the plan didn’t have any flexibility.  The two German armies on the far right of the ‘revolving door’ were to ‘brush’ the Channel coast and advance to completely encircle Paris  (Schlieffen had stated that the ‘last grenadier on the right wing should brush the Channel with its sleeve’).  These two armies were key to the encircling of Paris.  This tactic of encircling Paris was known as Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle).  The German armies would then capture the French armies at the Gura Mountains and the Swiss frontier.  The remaining two divisions were to hold an expected French advance into the disputed territories of Alsace- Lorraine.  The French were to be closed in on both sides.  As mentioned previously, this battle was to be a climatic and decisive one, and France was expected to fall within 42 days (6 weeks).  It couldn’t last any longer than this because it was expected that the Russians would have begun mobilising their armies by this time and the Germans still had to move over to the eastern front.  Everyone in Germany believed that with the Schlieffen Plan put into action, the war would be over before Christmas.

 When Moltke succeeded Schlieffen in 1906 as Chief of Staff, he was not as optimistic about the Schlieffen Plan as Schlieffen himself had been.  He didn’t have much faith in it.  He therefore made crucial changes to it.  He decided that he needed to strengthen the army around Alsace- Lorraine and when he didn’t get more men to do this; he took soldiers from the right wing and brought them south of Mets.  This meant that the right wing was weakened dramatically.  As I mentioned before, Schlieffen had envisioned a 7:1 ratio directed to the right wing and Moltke had changed this to 3:1.  He also decided not to attack Holland and the farthest attack was to be on Brussels which made the ‘revolving door’ 250 miles shorter than was previously thought out by Schlieffen.  This also robbed the German army of the Dutch railways.

 Though the Schlieffen Plan was clever, it was not well thought out and minor mishaps would inevitably lead to its failure.  Schlieffen had assumed too much and many of these assumptions were proved wrong.  There wasn’t even a back- up plan if the plan didn’t run as smoothly as it was expected to.