Moltke, the chief executor of the plan, was aware of these problems. He made some changes to the Schlieffen plan to take into account some of these complexities. Now, Moltke has been criticised by many historians for these changes, with them saying that these ultimately doomed the whole plan. However, though he took units from the right wing (the one to go west of Paris) and gave them to the left wing (to go to the east of Paris), he didn’t change the ratio that much between the two wings. Since it seemed apparent that the Italians wouldn’t help during the war (with rising tensions between Italy and Austria-Hungary), so that would reduce a fair number of units from the left wing, so Moltke transferred units to even the ratio out to what it had been before. Some other historians may say that the Germans should have gone through the Netherlands as well as Belgium to get to France faster. Moltke, however, quite rightly saw no real reason to add the Netherlands to Germany’s growing list of enemies. These changes, I feel made no difference to the plan, if not making it better. However, one change that I think bypassed the whole point of the plan was the fact that, later in the war, Moltke ordered the right wing, already weakened by sending some units to Antwerp to fight the Belgians, to go the east of Paris to assist more German troops down at Alsace-Lorraine, where French troops where fighting fiercely. This meant that a good chance to force the French to surrender was lost, as the French, under Joffre’s orders, the French forces defending Paris rushed to the front using any methods of transport possible, including buses and taxis! The French forces on the eastern border of France, having failed to take Alsace-Lorraine, retreated, and met up with French forces fleeing from Germans by the River Marne. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF), having held off the Germans at Mons, retreated and joined with the French at the River Marne. Until this point, the Schlieffen plan was going well. Most of the Allies were in retreat, so Moltke, sent more units away, this time to the eastern front to resist the advancing Russians, who were worrying Moltke. Many other accusations thrown at Moltke have been something along the lines like “Moltke had no confidence in the plan.” I myself agree with this, and even if a plan is the best one possible, it can’t be executed if the General doesn’t have a lot of confidence in it. Other accusations are “He was too far from the front to properly control events,” and “Moltke had no drive by the end. He didn’t scrape his troops together ruthlessly.” All of these are correct, and they probably played an important part in the failure of the Schlieffen plan, but what about the Allies. Surely they played an important part in the plan’s failure? And there is truth in this. If the Belgians hadn’t held up the Germans, and cause some to be diverted away from the main plan, then the Germans may have had a chance of sweeping around Paris and encircling it. Also, if the highly trained BEF hadn’t held up the Germans at Mons for a day, then the German force would have slaughtered the French 5th army. If the Russians hadn’t mobilised so quickly, Moltke wouldn’t have had to divert even more troops to the eastern front, instead of strengthening the German forces to the west and making victory a lot easier for the Germans on the western front. Then there was the Battle of the Marne. Up till that point, the Germans were doing quite well in the war. Joffre’s excellent leadership kept the French fighting. It was he who intended to stop retreating and counter-charge the Germans. Kluck, leading the German forces, switched most of his troops to a position facing the new French 6th army. However, this left open a gap between the German forces. The BEF and 5th army were hesitant to exploit this, aware of the possibility of a trap. However, the nerve of Sir John French, leader of the BEF, prevailed, and the BEF and 5th army advanced in Joffre’s counter-attack. The Germans retreated, despite the fact that Kluck was defeating the 6th army, and this lost them the Battle of the Marne, a battle of manoeuvre. This was a significant defeat for the Germans, as it meant the end of Germany’s best chance of a quick victory in the west.
So, in conclusion, I feel that the Schlieffen plan failed for several reasons. I feel that the plan was too complex to actually succeed because there were also too many assumptions. The plan was very complicated, and relied on all of these assumptions to be correct. If one of them was wrong, then the whole plan could come crashing down amongst any general’s ears. The plan was just too inflexible from the start. However, it could be said that it was also thanks to the Allies that the Schlieffen plan failed. They had improved since the plan was first made, thus ensuring that the assumptions made about them were wrong. This means that the resistance the Allies put up caused enough disruption to the plan to ensure that the plan failed, due to its complexity and inflexibility. Moltke also played an important part in this. His doubt about the plan’s complexity meant he didn’t take proper risks. He also changed the plan either for the better or for the worse. The worst change in my opinion was sending the right wing force to the east of Paris instead of the west, and sending some troops the east front. This is another way the plan went wrong. Schlieffen had assumed that it would take 6 weeks for Russia to mobilise (which was probable in 1904), but this assumption proved incorrect, as did the others, and Russia instead mobilised in around 10 days. This put pressure on Moltke to finish the campaign in the west and transfer troops to the east end. This, I feel, caused Moltke to make some bad choices, and some fatal changes to the plan. If he had remained calm under the pressure, he may have kept the troops he transferred with their original forces, and the Germans’ strength would possibly have overwhelmed the Allies, forced the British and French to surrender, and then moved the whole German army to the eastern front and overwhelmed the Russians, thereby ensuring the victory of the war for Germany. So, all in all, I believe that the Allies managed to prove the assumptions wrong, thus putting great pressure on Moltke to change the very inflexible plan (due to all the assumptions), which led to Moltke to making some bad changes, and therefore ending any real chance of a decisive victory on the western front, so that Germany had to fight a war on two fronts for several years.
