At the beginning, Schlieffen planned only to attack through a small portion of Belgium. Eventually, however, he was persuaded by German nationalists to expand his plans to attack through all of Belgium. The first wave of the attack called for a great wheeling movement through Belgium. A wheeling movement would allow the Germans to circle around behind Paris and capture the French armies at the Gura Mountains and the Swiss frontier. Schlieffen was inspired to do this by Hannibal's defeat of the Romans at Cannae. Schlieffen allocated six weeks and 7/8 of Germany's forces to destroy France while 1/8 held the Eastern Front against Russia.
The plan was used for the invasion of France and also for individual conflicts. One of the key points of this plan was that it was absolutely necessary to put all possible force behind the invasion of France and not to hold any soldiers back in reserve. It was Germany’s hope to end this war quickly by attacking France immediately and overrunning it before Russia had a chance to mobilize. The violation of this plan was what many consider to have caused the Germans to loose the war. The plan involved attacking Belgium and then proceeding south in France. Unfortunately for Germany, the Belgium’s didn’t simply step aside for the Germans but they fought back making it much harder for Germany to carry out the Schlieffen plan. Aside from these war plans Germany also tried to stop countries from getting involved in the war by starting revolutions in them. The French 6th army attacked the German 1st army at the Marne on the morning of the 6th September. General Alexander Von Kluck wheeled his entire force to meet the attack and opening a 50km gap between his own forces. Von Klucks role in the plan was to command the extreme right of the German forces in attacking the left flank of the French army and encircling Paris, bringing a rapid conclusion to the war. Von Kluck switched his advance south and east of Paris rather than the planned north and west with a lack of direction from the German high command and effective French & British counter attacks.
Von Klucks Army was part of the strong right wing and positioned on the outer edge of the German advance through Belgium & France.
Even though the Schlieffen plan failed because mainly the Belgium’s put up a fight, the Russian’s mobilized quicker than expected and the plan changed. As well as the fact that Germanys army simply wasn’t strong enough. The Schlieffen wouldn’t have failed if the Belgian army put up a fight and this meant that the troops were ten days late, but when the British planned to stop the Germans they had failed and the French plan failed. The Russian’s got their army ready in less than the Six week predicted by the Germans. They attacked Germany, and troops were pulled from the Schlieffen plan to defend on the east border. I think that everyone should have speeded up a bit and the German plan of action should war be declared on them by the Triple Entente (The alliance of Britain, France and Russia). It was devised between 1905 and 1906 by Alfred Von Schlieffen. It also planned to take France out the war quickly so Germany could face Russia with their entire army because Russia was so huge and also fairly inefficient as a country it meant that it would take a long time for Russia to mobilize her army. This meant that Germany could attack France with all her army while Austria (Germany’s ally) was to send their forces at the Russian’s army to stop them attacking Germany so that Germany could attack France without fear of being invaded on their eastern border.
Although Schlieffen died in 1912, Germany still used his plan when the war broke in 1914. The plan ultimately failed because of unexpected Belgian resistance which slowed the German offensive enough for the French to rally and defeat them at the Battle of Marne. After the Battle of Marne both sides settled into trench warfare for the duration of the War.
The war had begun in August with both sides certain that their sudden attacks with cavalry and infantry would create a war of rapid movement which would bring them cheap and quick victory. The failure of the Schlieffen Plan and Plan XVII ended this possibility and led to a war of fixed entrenchment. The possibility of further outflanking movements was gone. For the next four years the rival commanders struggled and blundered in an attempt to find a way to break the stalemate which had emerged by the end of 1914.
Both sides had become aware that it was easier to hold a defensive position than it was to launch an offensive. However, this did not stop them launching repeated disastrous offensives, relying on weight of men, artillery and supplies.
The war began to turn into one of attrition, one where the likelihood of a sudden decisive battle was small and where instead each side attempted gradually to wear the other down.
The generals decided only a 'big push' would be able to break through the enemy lines and restart the war of rapid movement. This was not achieved until the attrition of 1915-18 finally weakened the German lines in mid-1918.
The initially hastily constructed trenches took on a more permanent look as two massive armies consisting of over 4 million men faced each other over 800 kilometres of continuous trench lines from the coast of Belgium to the Swiss border.
The British and French armies deployed their troops separately, not as a unified command, with the British just north of the River Somme and the French to the south.
Von Moltke was destroyed by the Battle of the Marne and was replaced with Erich von Falkenhayn in December 1914 as the German commander.
Casualties (dead and wounded) so far were:
Britain 85 000 of an army of 160 000
France 850 000 of an army of 1 million
Germany 677 000 of an army of 1 500 000
On Christmas Day 1914 troops on both sides declared an unofficial truce, sang songs to each other across no man's land and then came out and exchanged gifts
August 1914
September 1914
The Schlieffen Plan failed - 80 kilometers from Paris
1,500,000 German troops under Helmuth von Moltke advanced on 4 August according to the Schlieffen Plan. Armies 1-5 were to wheel through Belgium, Armies 6 and 7 to attack the French border, aiming for a brief decisive swing to the south to capture Paris (1st Army under von Kluck) and to pin the French army against the Swiss border.
This opening German campaign failed due to:
1. Delays caused by:
(a) German advance through Belgium slowed up by destruction of railways by retreating Belgians and a twelve-day delay at the fortress/rail-link city of Liege
(b) The British Expeditionary Force (BEF), under Sir John French, arrived in Belgium on 17 August; it delayed von Kluck's 1st Army at the Battle of Mons then retreated largely intact.
2. Indecisiveness caused by this initial delay to the timetable of the German advance led to:
(a) The French armies under General Joffre having time to rush north, using railways
(b) Von Moltke withdrawing some reserves from the Western front to reinforce his East Prussian armies after the initial Russian advance on the Eastern front
(c) Von Kluck on the German right flank, fearing he was losing contact with the 2nd German army on his left, swung south earlier than planned, bringing him east of Paris, exposing his flank to regrouped French forces around Paris
(d) Joffre counter-attacking on the River Marne on 4 September. After five days the Germans retreated to defensive positions on the River Aisne and their advance halted while the British and French regrouped
This Battle of the Marne (4-18 September) proved to be the decisive blow to the Schlieffen Plan. The French army, bringing reserves by taxi from Paris, drove between two German armies and halted the rapid German drive 80 kilometers short of Paris. The French government had already abandoned Paris for the safety of Bordeaux. The Germans lost the chance of a quick victory and now faced the draining prospect of a war on two fronts. This battle saw the first trench fighting of the war
(e) Von Moltke being far behind the front lines, communication between the advancing armies being poor, and the need for coordination between the separate German armies becoming crucial as the timetable changed
(f) The initial rapid advance of the German soldiers outstripping the capacity of their supply columns to resupply them over 128 kilometers of narrow country roads.
The French army had intended to win a swift victory by punching a series of holes in the German lines at Lorraine, using superior numbers in vital sections. They tried this from 14 to 20 August but were repulsed and counter-attacked by the German 6th and 7th Armies.
After both the French and German troop movements halted, the two armies engaged in a series of outflanking maneuvers, made more urgent by the strategic need to capture crucial channel ports on the French and Belgian coastline, for resupply in the event of a drawn-out war. This period from October to 17 November involved heavy fighting, particularly the First Battle of Ypres in Belgium, where the British lost 50 000 casualties protecting a vulnerable salient but saving the main channel ports by preventing a German breakthrough.
