the schlieffen plan

avoiding war on two fronts

• in 1905, general schlieffen realized that germany could not win a war fought on two fronts at the same time, and so drew up the schlieffen plan

  • france →battle← germany →battle← russia

  • army would be split

  • could not win battling two fronts simaultaneously

schlieffen plan : “one, two punch”

• “knock the french out quickly in the west, then crush the russians in the east”

• french were more industrialized, while russians had a larger land area, would take longer, and were not as well equipped

• german army had been split in 2

  • send small force from the south - distraction

  • french react by descending - soldiers move east - would back away from paris (would weaken the french strength further north, so the german win from the north would be quicker

    • planned to hold the russians with 400, 000 men until reserves could be moved from the western front after the defeat of the french

  • germany’s main thrust - huge sweeping attack from north

  • “hammer” france in 6 weeks - paris

  • send troops to russia

• key was speed

blunders in 1914 : the schlieffen plan fails

• general molke altered the original plan and weakened it

  • first group attacks from south again, but it’s a large group - 4 times the original strngh (10:4), southern forces did not get driven back

  • french unable to chase germans and stay put to defend capital

  • other germans sweep in but forces too small (since first force was almost tripled), slower/less progress

  • france able to launch counterattack

  • germans stuck in their tracks - battle of the marne → made it so germany now had to fight on both fronts

results in a stalemate

• 4 years of “mud and misery” with 8.5 million dead

• plan failed, long war, static, war in trenches, hold territory, “dig in”, who’s willing to lose more men, mowed down by machine guns

• british expeditionary force was effective because it was a well trained and professional army