The stalemate developed on the Western Front because the Schlieffen Plan failed. The success of the Germans hinged upon them swiftly taking control of France and this did not occur.

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Abby Taylor – History Coursework

  1. The Germans had been expecting a war for many years and so already had a plan to help them win when war finally broke out. The Schlieffen Plan was thought up by the war minister, Count Alfred von Schlieffen who said that Germany needed to avoid fighting on two fronts. The Russians were expected to take six weeks to mobilise their army and the plan was to take advantage of this by sending the German army to defeat France first, knocking them out of the war which would leave German troops free to be sent East to help the Austrians defeat Russia. Germany would invade France by passing swiftly through the neutral country of Belgium. Although the Germans knew that Britain had sworn to protect Belgium in the Treaty of London, the British were not expected to uphold the Treaty and go to war over a “scrap of paper” and so the Belgians were expected to put up no resistance as they were not involved in the alliance system. This would allow the German army to move quickly through France and approach Paris from the opposite direction to the one in which the French were expecting them to attack from. Paris could then be taken whilst it was still undefended and once Paris was under German control France would be out of the war.
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b)The stalemate developed on the Western Front because the Schlieffen Plan failed. The success of the Germans hinged upon them swiftly taking control of France and this did not occur.

The Schlieffen Plan depended on the German Army being able to pass quickly through Belgium but the Belgian army attempted to hold up the German advance by putting up resistance from their frontier forts. They even blew up their own bridges and flooded land. Although this did not completely stop the German advance, it did slow it down and bought time for the British and French troops to ...

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