The Failure of the Schlieffen Plan.

        The Schlieffen Plan was designed so that it had to have been carried out exactly the way Schlieffen wanted it, if it was distorted in any way, chances of failure were raised dramatically. As the plan was carried out, it was constantly being changed by Moltke to what he thought would be benefiting Germany.  To consider why the Schlieffen Plan failed it is not only important as to how Moltke changed the plan, but also why he did so.           The forces involved in the Schlieffen Plan were not as strong as Alfred von Schlieffen had planned.  Once the French border of Alsace had been captured by the German army, the original Schlieffen Plan intended that Alsace be emptied of all soldiers in order to keep the right wing of the German army strong.  The reason as to why Schlieffen felt it was not important to maintain a force in the captured city was that the Italian forces were meant to take on that duty.  Moltke did not want to take that risk.  He left behind two corps (separate groups or divisions within the army) in Alsace.  These two corps, along with the two corps sent back to Germany’s eastern front to guard against Russia just might have been enough to win the Battle of Marne which ultimately resulted in the failure of the Schlieffen Plan.

        Besides the technical changes made in the plan, there were also political changes.  The plan was to invade through the Dutch-Belgian frontier; this would be entering two neutral countries.  In doing so, the plan expected France to take defensive measures by occupying the Meuse Valley, and violate the neutrality also.  After this had happened, the plan was to let the German diplomats settle the dispute, and while this was happening Germany would capture the Belgian city of Liege, which would be used as a railway junction for supplies and reinforcements.

        Moltke knew that Holland would not give permission for the Germans to cut through their country as Holland was also a neutral country.  Because of this, Moltke decided that the right wing of the army which was meant to cut through southern Holland did not do so.  Also Moltke believed that the Belgian city of Liege could not be overrun quickly enough and that this city would delay the right wing.  He wanted the German forces to move as fast as possible through Belgium so the Belgians would not have time to put themselves in a state of defense.  If the Belgians had raised defenses between fortifications throughout Belgium the Germans would have been delayed even longer, so Moltke decided to take Liege in what was called the coup de main.  The original Schlieffen Plan was to have the German forces go to the south and north of Liege, and surround it, capturing it from behind.  This plan would not slow the German march into France.  Moltke did not want to go north of Liege because it would involve the German army crossing the Dutch border.  Two days were taken in order to carry out the coup de main, which means the German army could have been attacking France two days earlier.

        The major flaw which was made in the Schlieffen Plan was the flaw of Schlieffen’s assumptions.  The main assumption that Schlieffen had made was that the German army was basically indestructible, even though their army was rather large; it was a mistake to assume that the German army was so much more advanced than the other armies, such as France.  The Plan assumed that Belgium would just let Germany force their way through the country and that no other country would come into the war to aid Belgium.   Schlieffen assumed to defeat France in six weeks, but instead trench warfare came about and the war in France lasted 4 years.  Schlieffen also assumed that Russia would be slow to mobilize, where he was wrong again, they had mobilized faster than expected.  The main assumption of Schlieffen that rendered the entire Schlieffen Plan as invalid was the fact that Schlieffen planned the German army to have a much larger force than it actually had.  Schlieffen had envisioned the plan to work if the German army was composed of 41 1/2 corps but Moltke’s army was comprised of 35 corps.  Also in order for the plan to work through Schlieffen’s eyes, the defensive wing compared to the offensive wing would have to be 4 to 37 ½ (1 to 9 3/8) but under Moltke’s command, the ratio of defense to offense was 8 to 27 (1 to 3 3/8).  The Schlieffen Plan was an all out offensive maneuver, but Moltke did not take the risk which Schlieffen was willing to take.

        The German army had already declared war on France and invaded Belgium to get into France; this was enough to thrust a third party, the British into the war.  The British at first sent a telegram to Germany, telling them to remove their forces from Belgium.  To this telegram there was no response.  Britain was hesitant at first to join the war, but being finally convinced by Sir Edward Grey in Parliament, Britain joined the war against Germany with the idea that if Germany controlled Europe, trade would suffer.

        The assumption that Belgium would be easy to push over was one that cost the German forces time which may have aided them in the coming battles with France.  The original plan was to cut across Belgium as was needed, staying away from central fortifications in Belgium as it would take up more time.  This plan was changed as German Nationalists convinced Moltke it would be a good idea to seize as much of Belgium as possible en route to France, this did not work as the Belgian Army put up a harder fight than the Germans had expected.  The Belgians had also destroyed various railways intended to be used by the Germans.  This all delayed the German army by more than ten days than expected.  This shock to the Germans, along with the news of the Russian army already marching across the East Prussian border and the early arrival of the British Forces should have been enough to drive the Germans into formulating another plan of attack, but instead they carried out their Schlieffen Plan as best as they could and continued into France.

        With 1,000,000 French Soldiers and 100,000 British Expeditionary Forces, the French used a plan to attack the German Army at Alsace and Lorraine, called Plan Seventeen.  After three weeks of fighting the French and British forces were forced to retreat.  The French Allied forces retreated to make a line across the River Marne on September 3rd.  On September 6th The German Forces pushed forward and met the French Allied forces at what would be known as the Battle of Marne.  After three days of fighting the German Army was split into two groups by the French army and from that moment was unable to break though the French allied lines.  At one point during the battle the French 6th army was so close to defeat by the Germans but were saved by Paris taxis who delivered 6,000 reserve troops to the front lines.  On September 9th, 1914 Moltke ordered the German army to retreat.  This was the moment the Schlieffen Plan had failed on the western front.

        Against the French the German army had not been very close to defeat until the Battle of Marne, but there are some reasons as to why the Battle of Marne changed the shape of the Schlieffen Plan so drastically.  This reason again, is that Moltke was forced to change the plan to accommodate circumstances that had not been expected by the original Schlieffen Plan.  These unexpected circumstances were that the Russian army had already mobilized as the Germans were fighting the French; therefore, German forces were moved from France, where they were greatly needed, to the eastern side of Germany to defend against Russia.  Also, as the invasion into France was occurring, Moltke decided again to change the Schlieffen Plan by taking more soldiers away from the route to Paris in order to attack the fortifications on the French-German border to the south-east.

        It is safe to say that The Schlieffen Plans main focus was on the war with Russia, as it was assumed that not only would the French army be easily defeated, and the capital be captured within six weeks, but the Russian army would be extremely slow to mobilize due to their weak advancements in technology and that they would be coming from much farther than the distance between Germany and France.  After France was defeated the German army could slow down their pace and focus only on the Russians whom they also believed to be an easy adversary.  The Germans were wrong in this ideology as well.  Before the Schlieffen Plan had been put into use, Russia had already begun developing their railway systems, for faster mobilization.  This ensured that Russia would be on the doorstep of Germany well before the Germans had expected them to be.

        The problem with the Schlieffen Plan, and the reason for why it had failed was that it simply was not realistic.  The plan assumed that the German army was so far superior to that of the Belgian, French, and Russian armies that they could just march through all of these countries within a matter of weeks without these countries putting up much of a fight.  Moltke should have realized as soon as the Germans were delayed by the Belgians that his Schlieffen Plan was not going to work, already he had sacrificed manpower and time, which was the most crucial component of the plan, to getting across Belgium into their destination, France.  After the Battle of Marne, the German ‘master plan’, the Schlieffen Plan had failed. The Germans were forced to fall back and reorganize their “two-front war” with France and Russia.  Although the plan had failed horribly this event did not mark the end of World War I for Germany as a new aspect of warfare was born as a result of this plan, trench warfare.  This new kind of war ensured that this war would not be as quick and decisive as the Germans had planned, but it would continue on for four more years.

The Failure of the Schlieffen Plan

Gurnek Bassi

Student # 0342809

History 2S03

Professor M. Horn

October 10, 2004

Bibliography

Bond, Brian.  War and Society in Europe, 1870-1970.  Quebec: McGill-Queens University Press, 1984.

Mombauer, Annika.  Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Prior, Robin.  The First World War.  New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.

Ritter, Gerhard.  The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth. London: Greenwood Press, 1979.

Spiering, Menno.  The Idea of Europe Since 1914:  The Legacy of the First World War.  Chicago: SMP Distribution, 2002

Strachan, Hew.  The First World War.  New York: Viking Books, 2004.

Zuber, Terence.  Inventing the Schlieffen Plan: German War Planning, 1871-1914.  London: Oxford University Press, 2003.