Schlieffen Plan

The red dashes show the deployments proposed by Schlieffen in 1905.

The Schlieffen Plan was a plan for a German invasion of France that was drawn up in 1904 by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. It evolved into the plan of attack used in World War I (1914-1918). Although the plan used in 1914 is quite different from any plan that Schlieffen himself was responsible for, it is customary to refer to it as the Schlieffen Plan.

Schlieffen proposed that the German army outflank the fortresses on the Franco-German border by advancing through Belgium. After Moltke replaced Schlieffen in 1906, he made various modifications in the plan. However, this basic concept was retained. If France could be knocked out of the war quickly, Germany could then focus on Russia. When Moltke put the plan into effect in 1914, the speedy result the Germans desired proved unobtainable. Violating Belgian neutrality was a major disadvantage of the plan since this provoked Britain to enter the war as a French ally.

Development

In the 1890s, German strategy was defensive with most troops assigned to deterring a Russian attack. With Russian attention focused on the Far East during the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905), such caution seemed excessive. Schlieffen sketched a plan to outflank the French fortresses on the Franco-German border by advancing through Belgium. A large German force would swing around Paris and attack the French from the south. This "Memorandum for a War against France" was an early version of the Schlieffen Plan. It ignored Russia altogether.

The most controversial feature of the plan was the proposed advance across Belgium, a nation whose neutrality was guaranteed by Britain and other countries. Kaiser Wilhelm II invited Belgium's King Leopold II to Berlin in January 1904 and offered him "the crown of Old Burgundy" if the Belgians consented to the plan. Leopold responded with the greatest astonishment.

When the Japanese defeated the Russians in 1905, the kaiser expressed interest in going ahead with the plan, even without Belgian consent. Schlieffen had to confess that the German army was not ready for war. The French had recoilless artillery, which the Germans lacked. The plan contemplated a significantly larger army than the one Schlieffen commanded. Despite these revelations, Schlieffen and subsequent chiefs of staff continued to use the plan as a tool for obtaining up-to-date weapons and more soldiers.

The beauty of the river Pregel was not enough to distract Schlieffen. "When an aide, at the end of an all-night staff ride in East Prussia, pointed out to him the beauty of the river Pregel sparkling in the rising sun, the General gave a brief, hard look and replied, “An unimportant obstacle.”" -- Barbara Tuchman.

Schlieffen's practice of creating plans based on men and resources that Germany did not have puzzled many of his fellow officers. An agent called Le Vengeur provided a copy of Schlieffen's plans to French intelligence in 1904. There is no record of any traitor being punished. The plan was no secret after January 1909, when a magazine article about it was published. The author of this article was presumably Schlieffen himself. If Schlieffen's army lagged behind in terms of artillery, bluster was an inexpensive and effective equalizer. Despite the military advantage they enjoyed for much of this period, French war plans remained timidly defensive until 1911.

Schlieffen retired in 1906 and was replaced by Moltke. In April 1913, Moltke dropped an alternative plan for an offensive in the east against Russia so that the General Staff could focus on the Schlieffen Plan. This allowed the army "to rule out half measures" and interference from "the politicians," as Waldersee, a former chief of the General Staff, put it. The way was paved for world war, which broke out the following year.

Germany artillery had been upgraded since 1905. But there was still an insufficient number of soldiers to execute the plan, as well as other problems. The retreating Belgians blew up several railway bridges, creating supply problems. In September 1914, German forces under Moltke's command arrived at the Marne, a river north of Paris, after an exhausting march across Belgium and northeastern France. After five days of fighting with French and British forces, they stopped to wait for needed supplies. As the armies rested, they dug trenches. Four years of trench warfare followed.

Outcome and reputation

The Schlieffen Plan allowed the Germans to occupy a vast region that included most of Belgium and northeastern France. But this is not usually interpreted to mean that the plan was successful. It fell far short of its goal to capture Paris quickly so that the Germans could turn their attention to the east. French leaders at the time stated that if Paris was captured, they would have retreated south and continued fighting. So the expectation of a quick victory was never realistic. Instead, the plan led to the realization of a worst case scenario: A four-year two-front war with horrific loss of life and ending in German defeat.

In 1919, historian Hans Delbrück wrote an article in which he argued that an offensive against Russia would have been a more realistic strategy than one focused on France. The immediate provocation for the war was Russian mobilization, so an attack on France, let alone Belgium, was difficult to justify in terms of international opinion.

At this time, Schlieffen's name was not yet publicly associated with any plan. His role was disclosed by former General Staff officers who wrote responses to Delbrück's critique. They argued that Schlieffen's original plan would have worked. Moltke was to blame as he had fatally weakened the plan by not putting enough soldiers on the right wing. For this reason, the Germans were unable to envelop Paris as Schlieffen had wanted. Ironically, this criticism originates with the same group of officers who assisted Moltke in revising Schlieffen's unworkable plan. Germany's needed heroes, or "applicatory history" as the army called it. Wilhelm Groener, Moltke's railway planner and later the foremost spinner of the Schlieffen myth, wrote, "I do not write for history," but rather to teach officers "strategy in the next war."