Good morning All,

After reading the current thread on the importance of Verdun and in background research, I am prompted to seek other views relating to the failure of the Schlieffen Plan.

From the start point that the German advance was stopped at the First Battle of the Marne, some commentators state that a contributory factor was that their advance had become "over-extended" logistically. Regarding the Schlieffen Plan other commentators say that it failed because the German advance was too slow. If the Plan had been executed more quickly would the Germans have become "over-extended" more quickly ? In the Plan was there an optimum time/distance (territory) objective before the planners thought that their side's combat effectiveness would start to wane ? (and was there a contingency ?)

Please excuse the lack of references, I'm posting this on my lunchbreak in the anticipation of the "learned" replies being posted to keep me busy this evening !

v o n S c h l i e f f e n do you mean?

Keeping my answer simple, the advance could only [with the exception of cavalry and horse artillery] move at marching speed, and that was limited by the inconvenient need to eat and sleep occasionally.

The retreating allies could fall back on their supply dumps and indeed their reserves and, as the flanking movement progressed, the allies were operating on interior lines.

Proof of the pudding is in the eating, the plan was probably a bit too ambitious for an untried army ...... the Germans had really only had minor actions since 1871.

There wasn't a well defined, written plan. Only an ambitious idea.

his last word`s were {alledgedly }" keep the right flank strong"but did they not take divisions from the right flank and use them in futher south in Lorraine ?


regards John

Thanks Grumpy,

Typo corrected (but as it's usually referred to as the Schlieffen Plan I've omitted the von !)

As pointed out by Adrian(?), there was no plan left by von Schlieffen, rather a Memorandum officially passed to his successor. von Moltke, usually referred to as the Younger to distinguish him from his uncle. Not for the last time, the Imperial Great General Staff overestimated their abilities and underestimated those of the opposing forces, from the Belgians through the French and even the British. The plan which was implemented relied on traversing Belgium and most of France including Paris, thereafter trapping and crushing the French Armies against the Eastern frontier. No allowance was made for determined opposition nor was there any plan in place in case of a check at any time. The Germans met the French and drove them back but there was no overwhelming defeat. This was recognised belatedly by v Moltke. As the French fell back, they regrouped and grew stronger while the Germans grew weaker and communication problems increased. By the time of the Marne, the I, II and III Armies were acting as almost independent units and OHL was more or less in the dark as to the situation in the field. All of this ought to have been foreseen by a command which had a real grasp of the attainable as opposed to the desirable. Hentsch's orders were probably an over reaction to the confusion he perceived but only a force in terminal upheaval would have reacted in the manner that the German armies did.

Steve,

There has been a lot of recent-last couple years-talk about this plan on an academic level that is actually spellbinding. We covered this, I think pretty extensively in our recent book, and I have included some excerpts from the beginning of the section to stimulate your appetite. As a selfish plug you can purchase the book from the publisher, and they have a printer in England. Lots of data for 25 American dollars.

http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemD...px?bookid=60521

Joe,

I was already considering buying it - appetite whetted further !

Noone would ever guess from my meagre number of posts how avidly I follow this forum, nor how impressed I invariably am by the encyclopeaedic knowledge of the 'chums'. That said, there are a few, a very few, subjects wherein certain important aspects of the 14-18 conflict are too often overlooked, or to which are not generally attached sufficient weight and consideration. One such is the Schlieffen Plan.

Whether the Germans advanced too fast or too slowly will always become a circular argument. Certainly the Germans failed to achieve a decisive victory of the type they won at Sedan. (This incidentally reminds us of another general failing amongst historians: namely their underestimation of the influence of the last war on the thinking of those involved in the next.)

What happened at Liege, at Mons, with de Castelnau's counter attack against von Bulow (I'm writing on the hoof and forget exactly who was involved), the faster than expected invasion of Prussia and the transfer of forces away from the western front, Lanrezac's unauthorized but crucial retreat southwards, von Kluck's premature turn eastwards, Joffre's creation of the 6^th(?) army, Galieni's taxi cabs or the somewhat flukey arrival of the BEF in just the right spot to kick off the Battle of the Marne, are all well recorded.

Furthermore, to argue with those who claim Germany underestimated the initial staying power of the allies, not to mention their overwhelming long term advantage in manpower, industrial capacity, wealth and resources, is to knock one's head against the proverbial brick wall. The critics of Hunnish arrogance will always win by playing their ace of trumps…. that Germany lost the war.

However, there is one aspect of the Schlieffen plan that is all too often ignored: it is the old chestnut of 'keeping the right wing strong'. Indeed, legend has it that these were the words on von Schlieffen's dying lips.

Anyone can understand that the greater the force one has available, the greater one's chances of success. It doesn't take a genius to grasp that one. However, von Schlieffen's concept was more subtle than that… the corollary to keeping the right wing strong, was that the left wing should remain weak.

What von Schlieffen actually intended was that while the Germans poured the bulk of their forces through their Belgium 'bridgehead', the French, faced with weak German forces on their right, the German left, would advance victoriously through Alsasce/Lorraine towards the Rhine; and just as the decisive battle of the war took place somewhere near Paris, the French army would be sitting in a field together with its equipment somewhere in western Germany.

Not only would the French advance have lulled them into thinking they were winning, but would also lead their armies further and further away from the decisive front, with more and more difficult territory over which to backtrack when they finally realised they needed to retreat.

I think it was Liddel Hart who described the 'push-shove' nature of the Schlieffen Plan as two people, one entering and one exiting, each pushing on either side of a revolving door.... the perfect working arrangement, for which revolving doors are designed.

Sadly for the Germans, however, 2 things went wrong. Firstly, even before the war started, the sickly and irresolute von Moltke allowed the transfer of divisions away from the right wing to bolster the left; and secondly, Crown Prince William who commanded one of the key German armies on their left (the 4th or 5th, I think), was worried that the war would be all over before he had a chance to claim any of the glory. Crown Prince William did not want as his only contribution to victory the retreat by which the Germans feigned defeat… which of course was exactly what the original plan required. The result was that William was given permission to advance, and in so doing pushed the French back closer to their interior lines and ultimately enabled them to move troops quickly into position for the Battle of the Marne.

The rest is history.

Good evening All, (beginning to sound like Dixon; of Dock Green , not Matt !)

Thanks for all the interesting posts. My understanding of the "plan" in its theory has always been similar to Clutterbucks in that the right flank only sought to engage the French when the French had stopped their predictable advance towards and through Alsace-Lorraine (and beyond), against the left flank. I am more uncertain as to whether the German left flank fully engaged because the Crown Prince didn't want to be left out or whether the French had stopped pressing the advance and the Germans had little option ?

Tom and Adrian's comments that it wasn't an actual plan but just an outline idea with no contingency planning seem incredible when seen through modern eyes (and with the benefit of hindsight).

Leaving aside whether a document existed called the [von] Schlieffen Plan, there is no question that the German attack into France was carefully planned ahead of time. The mobilization and advance of so many Armies, with all of their component infantry, cavalry, artillery and other support units, along with the massive logistics support needed, could not have happened otherwise. Prior to 1914, General Maurice had talked with planners within the German General Staff, one of whom boasted of the plans that were being modified in the annual process. A lot of attention was given to the logistics process, particularly in support of the vital right wing. Although some authors have suggested major logistics failures, the evidence for this is very slim. Often this reason is based on selective quotes from Bloem's biographical account. It is very clear that none of the German Armies, including von Kluck's First Army, suffered systematic large-scale failures of ammunition supply. All of the Armies maintained their capability to defend once the offensive advance stopped. The advance did not stop because of problems with lack of ammunition. After the war, the Americans interviewed all of the key logistics planners and other members of the General Staff involved in First Army. A detailed report was compiled because the logistic support for First Army in the first weeks was rightly regarded as one of the great achievements of the war.

Robert

Thanks Robert,

Very interesting to learn that rather than logistics been a problem it was in fact (at least in the case of First Army) seen as model that the Americans were keen to learn from.

Trying to reconcile your post with earlier ones: von Schliefflen (just) had an idea on which the German war-planning was based, the (thorough) German war-planning subsequently became known as the Schlieffen Plan (although von Schlieffen originall idea wasn't promoted in such expansive detail ?).

Robert, from your reading and research are there any records of contingency planning/alternative scenarios considered by the Germans ?

Are you saying that there really was a Schlieffen Plan which has since been lost? There is no hint of that emerging from any of the recent research. I confess that some of your assertions escape me. If I have misunderstood, I apologise. The Schlieffen Denkschrift called for an army of 90 Divisions to invade Holland and Belgium while falling back on the Eastern frontier. His other quote was supposed to be " Let the rightmost man brush the Channel with his sleeve". He also allocated a paltry force to the Prusso-Russian border, which again, was to fall back when the ineffective Russian army finally mobilised and advanced. There was nothing like that amount of soldiers available, then or in 1914. Schlieffen completely ignored any political considerations in his plans. He considered that to be outwith his responsibility. The final invasion plan owed very little to Schlieffen. Von Moltke took a much more realistic view of affairs when he finalised his plan. He had an enlarged army although it was still well short of 90 Divisions. He respected the neutrality of Holland for the very good reason that this would allow Germany access to the North Sea through a neutral. This was to serve Germany well throughout the war and the Kaiser well after. Von Moltke recognised that the Russian Army was much improved from the derisory force which had been defeated by the Japanese and also that the railways built with French investment had shortened the time to mobilise. As well as taking cognisance of international politics, von Moltke knew that there would be great resistance to deep advances by France into German territory and by Russian advances into East Prussia. He therefore allocated a stronger force on those respective frontiers to hold fast rather than give way.
Mombauer in her " Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World war", ascribes a major part in creating the ' Schlieffen Myth' to Wilhelm Groener a staff officer and Schlieffen's son-in-law, Wilhelm von Hahnke.

I know little about von Schlieffen, and have always accepted the historically orthodox position that the Schlieffen Plan was indeed his brainchild. I am quite ready to be persuaded otherwise.

Yet whether the original idea was von Schlieffen's, or indeed his gardener's, and whether it was presented as discussion paper, a memorandom or a simple outline concept, is really immaterial to the opening of the Great War. However nebulous were von Schlieffen's original precepts, what matters is that they were adopted as the basis of 'The Plan' by which the German high command hoped to win the war.

This is not to say it came in leather bound editions with a gold embossed front cover entitled 'The Schlieffen Plan'. Please believe this is not an attempt to be facetious, but rather acknowledgment of the fact this was a secret... a real biggie... and not something one would want a drunken staff officer to leave in a café. The Plan's begetter and the title under which it went may be of historical curiosity, but was militarily irrelevant.

Clearly there must have been a plan, otherwise the newly mobilised troops would not have known what to do nor where to go. Indeed so devoted were the Germans to their 'Plan' that, if one believes in AJP Taylor and his railway timetables, the German 'Plan' had much to do with why the war actually got started in the first place.

Finally, while it's most improbable the 'Plan' ever mentioned revolving doors, (and I confess to my lack of contemporary sources for the 'Plan'), I believe there is much evidence for the general principle of keeping the right wing strong TOGETHER WITH its corollary of the weakened left.

Whether the 'Plan' talked of pinning the French against the Swiss frontier or leading them to the Rhine, who can say. Most likely the 'Plan' simply talked of taking the French armies from behind. What is abundantly clear however, is that one fundamental component of the plan was to allow the French to 'come on', thereby extending their lines of supply and communication and leading them further away Paris where the Germans hoped to deliver their coup de grace.

Allowing the French to advance into the German 'trap' was never going to be achieved by a series of German counter attacks which pushed the French back upon their interior lines, and thus closer to the decisive theatre. The well documented exchanges between the high command and the field commanders indicate that such offensive actions had always been considered undesirable and were to be avoided.

It was a weak and vascillating von Moltke who allowed divergence from the 'Plan' under pressure from the Crown Prince's staff and the commander of one of the neighbouring armies (I forget which). These 2 army commanders, whilst seeing the opportunity of tactical gain, lost sight of the strategic big picture.

All that said, having become a convinced Oxfordian after a lifetime believing some fellow from Stratford wrote the plays, I will be sure to buy a copy Mombauer's book.

The German attack on France was predicated on a strategic goal. The French army had to be destroyed as a military force as quickly as possible. The underlying principle was that of die Vernichtungsstrategie - the strategy of eliminating or annihilating the enemy. The historical precedent was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, in which the main French regular forces had been defeated very quickly (by comparison to the duration of WW1).

Whilst chief of the General Staff, von Schlieffen spent his time inculcating a pattern of thinking into the General Staff, many of whom went on to serve in the German army of 1914. It is far more important, IMHO, to understand this pattern of thinking than it is to focus on a very specific output, namely the [von] Schlieffen Plan. In summary, the strategy of annihilating the enemy on the field of battle could only be achieved by pinning the enemy's forces with frontal assaults, and manoeuvring a major force/s around one or preferable both outer flanks of the enemy. The defender would then be caught in a trap, cut off and destroyed. Von Schlieffen required his 'students' to analyse multiple ways in which the strategy could be achieved, using war games, Staff rides, and tactical-strategic problems that he set his students. Foley has collated a significant amount of von Schlieffen's work into the book 'Alfred von Schlieffen's Military Writings'. It illustrates the way von Schlieffen encouraged Staff to consider the problem of a war on two fronts. His legacy was not a rigid plan, but a set of principles and analytical methods that were deeply imbued into the German General Staff.

Two of von Schlieffen's theoretical papers, translated by Foley as 'War Today' and 'Million-Man Armies', are particularly interesting. These were written after he had 'retired'. The latter title points to the increasing magnitude of the problem that the German General Staff had to solve. As time went by, the size and scale of the task probably grew more than the growth in the absolute numbers of the enemy.

Furthermore, the French had not stood still, following the military humiliation of the Franco-Prussian War. One illustration will suffice. The appointment of Foch to the French École Polytechnique coincided, roughly, with von Schlieffen's time as Chief of General Staff. Foch set about inculcating a mode of thinking in his students, which paralleled what happened in more general terms throughout the French army. Two elements of Foch's teaching are of interest to this discussion. One was his belief that the "the will to conquer is the first condition of victory." Foch sought to purge any residual sense of defeatism or passivity in generalship. He regarded these characteristics as the root cause of the military defeat of the regular French army in 1870. Equally important was Foch's insistence on applying the 'will to conquer' in a variety of ways, even during a tactical or operational retreat. Foch constantly reinforced the idea of analysis and learning, as exemplified by his recurring mantra: 'what is the problem?'. In 1914, the French army had to learn very quickly, and it did.

Turning now to the failure of the 'Schlieffen Plan'. Most often this is analysed in the specifics: the right wing was not strong enough; von Moltke lost control of his generals; von Kluck turned inside Paris; etc, etc. Whatever the truth in any or all of these assertions, there is a far far more fundamental and general (pardon the pun) 'cause', IMHO. WW1 saw the engagement of two coalitions that were roughly equal in terms of manpower, types and numbers of arms, and general staff capabilities. By 'equal', I mean that there was no decisive quantum difference between one side and the other - no equivalent of an atomic bomb for example. Under these circumstances, the nature of modern warfare means that there couldn't be a decisive winner 'before Christmas'. No matter how the Germans set out to defeat the French quickly, the French would always have been able to counter. However we examine the war, its very length teaches that there was no simple quick military solution.

The Battle of the Frontiers was but one small part in four years of battles and campaigns, including the blockades (actual and attempted), with all the attendant social and political dimensions. Von Schlieffen knew that this was a distinct possibility, as did von Moltke. They were caught in a dilemma. Counter-balancing the fear of a prolonged war was the fear of the Entente becoming so strong that they could inflict defeat on Germany. In the end, the latter outweighed the former. Afterwards, the failure of the 'Schlieffen Plan' became one of many ways in which the inevitability of defeat was negated in the minds of those who planned and executed WW2.

All battles and campaigns, including the Somme and Passchendaele, must be seen in this broader context. There was no quick win, no simple fix, no 'home by Christmas'.

Robert

I like your "style", Clutterbuck - clearing away the historical clutter to get to the bottom line makes your "revolving-door" theory highly attractive, not least because of its logical simplicity. As you say, there must have been a German plan or nothing would have happened; no German unit would have known what to do or where to go. And, as expected by Germany's planners, the French placed their main strength in the East and attacked accordingly; at this point the French followed the German script.

But I do not agree that the name of the German plan, as well as who the original architect was, is a purely academic argument and irrelevant in military terms (as you seem to strongly intimate) - the evolution of the plan from original conception to being put into practice by von Moltke is, in my opinion, highly relevant. You seem to be saying that the original plan, as envisaged by von Schlieffen or A.N. Other, should have been followed to the letter, and if it had then Germany would have won the war in 1914, simply because of your "revolving-door" theory i.e. the overwhelming bulk of the French Army would have been sitting in a field somewhere, deep in Germany, whilst Paris fell prey to the German right-wing flail many miles to their rear.

You tell us that the reason the "revolving-door" theory failed was because the German High Command followed operational/tactical gains at the expense of strategic necessity - this is something I agree with; in my opinion, the German High Command never fully understood the true strategic situation. But, I don't see this as being true just for 1914 (and the rest of the war), I see it as stemming right back to von Schlieffen's (or A.N. Other's) original concept, and I think that you fall into the same strategic trap when you over-simplify.

No plan operates in a vacuum, and, as pointed out in this thread by others, several years passed between conception of Germany's "masterplan" and the outbreak of war, a few years in which the strategic situation facing Germany changed i.e. a speeding up of Russian mobilisation, an increase in French military capability, the increasing closeness of France to Britain through the Entente, Germany's lack of sufficient divisions to follow von Schlieffen's original plan to the letter - so how on earth would it make strategic sense in 1914 to allow massive French and Russian Armies to penetrate, if need be, almost unhindered deep into Germany? Sure, Paris may have fallen, but so might Berlin and other strategically vital parts of Germany - I think those almost unhindered French and Russian armies may have been doing a little bit more than just sitting in German fields waiting for a German victory?

In the event, Germany had no choice but to "evolve" its original masterplan, but let's not get carried away with German failings alone - there were failings on both sides in the early days but the allies had the nous to learn from the situation and take advantage of the opportunities presented to them, so let's give at least some credit for that. The German Army, just like its plan, was not operating in a vacuum - that's the problem with revolving-doors; if someone sticks their foot in from outside, they stop turning.



Cheers-salesie.

The idea that the Great General Staff was not as clever as, perhaps, it thought it was, is appealing. An American historian, Colonel Dupuy, in his book The German Army and General Staff 1807-1945, chose as a sub title 'A genius for war' and argued that their performance was superior to many others for most of the time. (If my memory is correct). I have also read that the the German plan for 1914 was so complicated that it was never completely subject to a war game and hence was not properly prepared. If one reflects on the reasons for the outbreak of war in 1914 one may have the impression that the was some German realisation that if the war, which they considered was necessary, did not start soon it would be too late. Perhaps it was and that was why the plan failed.

Old Tom

I am reluctant to get bogged down in irrelevant details and to that extent, Clutterbuck, you are correct that the name of the plan does not matter. However, if we are debating whether a plan was implemented or whether another plan was used, then we need to know which plan we are discussing. I am saying that there was an official memorandum, handed over by Schlieffen to his successor. This became known as ' the Schlieffen Plan'. Great effort was expended during and after the war to blame Germany's defeat on the fact that this plan was not followed closely. Every deviation from this plan was held up as a contributory cause of the defeat. Intensive investigation in USA and in German archives, especially since the improved access to formerly unavailable material in East Germany, has shown conclusively that there was no Schlieffen plan. The memorandum, at least one copy of which exists, was a very incomplete statement of principles which Schlieffen thought imperative to a German victory. I have already pointed out some of the flaws in the memorandum and I will not repeat them. Germany had to fight a war on two fronts. That had been obvious for years. The decision to attack France first was again obvious, Russia had huge reserves of men and vast areas of land in which to prolong a war. The idea that Germany would attempt that with an unsubdued France on her frontier was unthinkable. Germany attacked France first but using a plan which owed very little to Schlieffen and in fact, differed on several important points. The plan was von Moltke's. If we wish to debate whether von Moltke ought to have done things differently, we can do so but not on the basis that he was deviating from a plan that never was or that he failed because he did not implement the vague and outdated principles sketched out by a man who retired in 1905.

Click to view attachment


This map was located after the appearance of Terry Zuber's 2002 Inventing the Schlieffen Plan was produced and was one of the stars of the 2004 Potsdam seminar on the subject of the Schlieffen Plan. It is an Annex to the 1905 Schlieffen Denkschrift. The various papers produced at the seminar, coupled with additional work, were published in 2006 as Der Schlieffenplan Analysen und Dokumente. The book was published in German in Germany which does not make it easily accessible to everyone interested in this question. I do recommend it, however. One of the main contributors, Gross, demolishes several key points made by Zuber - in particular he demonstrates that Moltke most certainly had access to this particular Denkschrift and its supporting documentation - and I for one, came away from the seminar feeling that the updated version of this plan was indeed the one upon which the campaign in the west was based. If it was not, how do we explain away the correspondence between the initial deployment and the map?

Jack

I again find myself facing those with far greater knowledge than my own and would not wish to disagree with any of the above observations.

I'd previously thought of adding the point raised by Mr Dunlop, namely that the war was predestined to drag on. After all, who could ever have predicted the full implications and effects of Million-Man Armies?

Whilst 'vernichtungsstrategie' may have been achieved had the French army been attacked from behind, the business of going around Paris proved simply too much for the German army. Quite possibly the exhaustion of the German troops contributed to von Kluck's decision to turn across Paris, thus taking the shorter route towards the French rear. Who can say for sure?

Yet however attractive the simplicity of the revolving door may be to the armchair theorist; when all is said and done, whatever the Germans did, the allies would not have just sat back and watched. The French, and probably the BEF, would have reacted in some way or another, so as to bring about the trench warfare which followed, albeit along a different line to that we know so well today.

So I must take my choice. A brilliant and dramatic finale before the leaves fall? Or 4 years of attrition? One cannot have it both ways.

I also much agree with Salesie, for whose kind words I thank him, when he mentions the strategic changes that occurred between von Schlieffen's retirement and the outbreak of war... all very telling points in what was to follow.

The one other point to add, so obvious that we have perhaps all overlooked it, is that most poignant of facts which stares all students of The Great War daily in the face... modern weaponry. Artillery may have been in its comparative infancy in 1914, but the machine-gun had already arrived.

This thread would be incomplete without mentioning the huge advances that had been made in weaponry by 1914; most specifically those weapons designed for defense. Indeed one strugges to think of a single bloody 'plan' that worked for any side at any place throughout the whole war. Until the advent of combined operations, the advances in weaponry alone were the surest guarantee of an enduring stalemate.

I will let Sassoon prove my point:

"Good morning, good morning!" the General said,
When we met him last week on the way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He's a cheery old card" grunted Harry to Jack,
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both with his plan of attack.

Jack, any plan for an advance through Belgium will have to conform to a few strictures. It will have to take out Liege and Namur. It must cross the rivers at a very few suitable crossing points and so on. Schlieffen proposed an advance through Holland and Belgium by a force of 13 army corps which was to wheel with its right flank on the Channel coast. ( At the time there was actually 5 corps available). Figures from H.H. Herwig, " The First World War". Schlieffen was not without critics in his own time. See Herwig for an impressive list of opponents. If we line up the advance as visualised by Schleffen beside the actual advance there are bound to be similarities but I believe there are too many important differences to say that von Moltke followed the Schlieffen plan. I suggest he invaded France through Belgium using his own plan. That this plan was altered later to meet contingencies is another facet which might bear discussion in another thread.

Truthergw

You raise several interesting and valid points. I shall try to pull a response together tomorrow when I have collected my thoughts and refreshed my memory on one or two matters.

Jack

Once again, Clutterbuck, I must disagree with you - the advent of combined operations did not end the stalemate, the massive strategic forces of total-war did that when they finally caused Germany to collapse politically, socially, economically and militarily. There was no pure military victory in the field in WW1, combined-ops or otherwise, nor was there any real prospect of one at any stage (and I'm glad to see that Robert strongly alludes to this in post #15).

You also ask who could have "predicted the full implications and effects of Million-Man Armies?" A certain Ivan Bloch did; Bloch, a Jewish Banker from Warsaw, predicted with eerie accuracy the full implications of the "next Great War" in his treatise published around 1900 - and Messers Kitchener and Haig also realised in August 1914 that it would be a long and bloody war. The uncluttered bottom line, is that Germany seriously overestimated its own military prowess whilst grossly underestimating the capabilities of the allies, and that goes for von Schlieffen, von Moltke, or any other von or non-von you care to mention.

As for using Sassoon? This poem does highlight that the devil that is total-war makes everyone, from private to general, victims in its all-encompassing power (but, of course, this wasn't Sassoon's meaning when writing it).


Cheers-salesie.

This map is the same as Karte 6 in Gerhard Ritters book Der Schlieffen Plan (1956), probably designed by Hanke as visualisation of Von Schlieffens thoughts. Nothing special. No surpise for Zuber.
And for sure Moltke was perfectly known with the strategic ideas of Von Schlieffen. Ritter gives all the comments of Von Moltke. Zuber knows them.
What do you think of Terence M. Holmes claim: there isn't a 40 days scedule in Von Schlieffens Denkschrift; Holger Herwig (et others) isn't correct. (Thwe Jourbal of Military History, Vol. 67, No 2).

In my modest opinion the Potsdam Conference, you mentioned, mr Sheldon, produced no great revisions.

I slightly hesitate to add any more to this thread because it is a highly complex issue and extremely controversial and I do not claim to have a complete knowledge of all the arguments. The appearance of Terry Zuber's Inventing the Schlieffen Plan provided the impulse for the Potsdam seminar, which assembled a group of subject matter experts to examine the entire question of Aufmarschplanung in general and Zuber's claim in particular. My sole role was to sit, listen and learn.

The question of how to handle a war on two fronts had pre-occupied the German General Staff ever since 1871 and much thought had gone into it. It seems that what altered German assessments of Russian capabilities was the Russo-Japanese war, during which neither the Russian army, nor its navy distinguished themselves (to put it mildly). Analysis seemed to suggest that a two front war could be won, provided that the necessary force levels could be found and that the campaign in the west could be conducted with sufficient speed. It is important to stress that Schlieffen had been working on this matter ever since he assumed his office in 1901 and that the principle of exploiting Germany interior lines and the railway system to defeat its enemies in detail dates from then. The plan he 'handed' to his successor Moltke was his best effort, following years of intensive work and numerous tests of aspects of it. Above all, whatever his writing states about length of campaign, the main principles that speed was of the essence and that the first part had to end in in decisive victory was always at the centre of his thought. Any other outcome would lead to catastrophe.

There appears to be evidence that the famous turning movement round to the west of Paris was regarded by Schlieffen as a worst case scenario. In his writings he envisaged several places in Western France where the French army could be decisively defeated by encirclement, despite the existence of the French system of fortresses. It seems quite clear that, with reservations, Moltke accepted the main tenets of Schlieffen's thinking, whilst remaining sceptical about the feasibility of a really wide encircling maoeuvre. Already by 1908, he had ruled out violation of Dutch neutrality, for example. This led immediately to an increase in the significance of the Liege forts and the need for weapons to reduce them swiftly. The swift regeneration of the Russian army was also a cause for concern. It certainly put even greater pressure on the need for speed in the west, where he still placed his main effort for obvious reasons.

Over the next few years, changes in the strategic situation had to be taken into consideration by Moltke, so the plan inherited from Schlieffen incorporated several important changes; viz. strengthening the German left flank, avoidance of Dutch territory and increased emphasis on reducing Liege swiftly. However, that said, there remained far more points of similarity than differences between the plan developed by Schlieffen and that of Moltke:

- German planning predicated upon offensive action and not to be defensive or reactive.
- Exploitation of interior lines to solve the problem of a two front war by fighting two single front wars in succession.
- Main emphasis on decisive action in the west, coupled with delay in the east.
- Swift decisive war of annihilation in the west based on a strong right flank and encirclement of French fortresses, following a breakthrough by means of violating the neutrality of Belgium and Luxembourg.
- Following victory in the west, immediate move of the bulk of the forces east by railway in order to defeat the Russians, whose advance had in the meantime been delayed.

This was a very high risk strategy, because of time pressure on producion of a decisive victory in the west, but had the German Reich had to confront the hopeless scenario of a two front war from the outset, it would have been forced to make considerable changes to its foreign policy and would have had considerable implications for the place of the armed forces in society in the broadest sense - not something that was acceptable: hence the Schlieffen Plan, to whose main threads Moltke clung.

Now of course it is true that the man in charge in 1914 was Moltke. He gave the orders; it was 'his' plan and he bore the responsibility for its success or failure, but that is not the same thing as claiming that there never was a Schlieffen Plan. There was an echo of this in the Desert War over Montgomery's plan for Alam Halfa and Alamein. Those battles were fought on Montgomery's plan, just as 1914 was Moltke's, but that is not to say that the work of predecessors had not been condsidered and found to be appropriate with modifications.

This is already long, but there are seven major criticisms of Terry Zuber's work, which we can discuss later if anybody is interested. I can only end as I did in my previous post. There was a Schlieffen Plan all right and it informed the work of the German General Staff for the years leading up to 1914.

Jack

That is correct. Dupuy analyses are based primarily on comparisons of casualties. Most of the information relates to WW2 but he found the same pattern in WW1, namely that German forces inflicted more casualties on their enemies in both offensive and defensive actions, compared with the performance of their enemies in those same types of actions. Thus, when a German force lost, it took fewer casualties and inflicted more casualties than an enemy force (per soldier) that an enemy force that lost (Dupuy did not say that when German forces were defeated that they took fewer casualties than the attacking enemy force in that same action). Dupuy analyses hold up well, but he failed to take into account the most significant outcome of all - the Germans lost strategically. Thus the final 'casualty' rate (including all men disarmed or otherwise rendered hors d'combat by the Armistice) changes dramatically when the strategic 'loss' is factored in, compared with the tactical and operational analyses.

Robert

I think the first operational deviation from the plan was in the centre, (where the far lower numerical of the defending Germans to the attacking French) where after easily repulsing the French frontal attacks (Battle of the Frontiers) they were given permission to attack the French who after suffering terrable losses were in a totaly confused state, thus reserves were drawn from the German Right flank to support this counter attack, and a gap began to appear on there between the 1st and 2nd german army's(need to check if it was 1st and 2nd) this resulted in the German right flank (The plane stated the last German soldier on the right flank, his sleeve must brush agains the English Channel) turning instead of behind paris but in front, this resulted in it being attacked by the French pouring out of paris (6th Army) and the British pushing into the gap! From this moment it has been stated that the germans had lost the war!

Salesie, I can't quite allow you to get away with all of that. It is of course true that clever generals and brave soldiers count for little in the face of the overwhelmingly 'massive strategic forces of total war'. Only a fool would argue otherwise. I alluded to this fact in para 4 of my above post #9.

It seems however we need to differentiate between strategic forces and military tactics. Were we always to revert to your catch-all argument concerning the stupidity of the Germans and the economic requirements for the waging of total war, our studies should be better directed to comparing methods of industrial production, the financing of manufactures and procurement of resources. When not tramping through the industrial heartland of 19^th century Britain in furtherance of our WW1 studies, we could spend our weekends at Blackpool and Brighton, rather than waste our time in France and Belgium.

If however our interest lies in what happened on the battlefield, we must recognise, as did Hindendorf & Ludendorff, that by October '18, and for whatever additional reasons, the German Army in the field was breaking up. That breakup, unquestionably had much to do with the Germans suffering a string of demoralising defeats, and those defeats had much to do with the advent of combined operations. Combined operations were the key to unlocking static defensive positions of the kind which had dominated the conflict. This is not to ignore the strategic might of the allies, for without planes and tanks combined ops would be somewhat more tricky to undertake.

My final point concerns Ivan Bloch, of whom I know nothing. Mr Bloch reminds me of the British colonel, who on 11^th November declared "We've let them off the hook. In 20 years time we'll have to do it all over again". Whilst meaning no disrespect to Mr Bloch, or the good colonel, the plain truth is that if enough people say enough stuff, then someone somewhere is going to get it right.

As for Kitchener and Haig; it's true that early in the war Kitchener was making certain pronouncements about the war's duration which turned out to be accurate. He certainly realised that the existing arrangements were hopelessly inadequate for the task. As for Haig, most of his utterances were either an attempt to puff himself up or to cover his own ****. Sounds to me like he was already establishing his excuses with an eye on Sir John French's job.

[size="3"][/size]

Clutterbuck, do you really believe that strategic forces and military tactics can operate in isolation in total-war? If so, you make precisely the same mistake the German High Command did! And, I did not call the German High Command stupid, but I do believe them to have been geo-political naivetes who grossly misjudged the true strategic situation confronting them, and in doing so failed to recognise how the strategic realities actually impacted negatively on their own strategic, operational and tactical decisions. Don't ignore, as did the German High Command, the strategic context in which WW1 was fought - not if you want to understand the true place of military operations/tactics in total-war i.e. military considerations are but one part, a vital one but just one part nonetheless, of a winning team.

It is my contention that to talk about military operations/tactics in WW1 without considering the overall strategic context at all is akin to talking about the loss of the Titanic without mentioning the ice-berg i.e. the German Army in the summer of 1918 did not collapse because of all-arms assaults per se, it had shot its strategic bolt; out of food, out of war materials, low on morale with desertions reaching epidemic proportions, out of reserves with political collapse and social revolution at home and many men refusing to answer the call-up or refusing to return to the front - remember, the Kaiser and his petty princelings did not flee from allied armies sweeping into Germany but from their own people, and it was the strategic forces, pressing down on Germany for four long, hard years, that caused this collapse, not all-arms assaults by the allies.

Here are a few of my own thoughts about the strategic realities and how they impact greatly on military considerations (some coming from a rather obscure thread in the home-front section):

Interesting questions, ******, but impossible to answer definitively because of their hypothetical nature i.e. the Hindenburg Program did come into existence in 1916 so there is no way of knowing how the German socio-economic Home Front would have actually performed without it.

It is clear though that Falkenhayn’s, part military part civilian, Home-Front policies were failing by 1916, hence the introduction of Hindenburg's (de facto Ludendorff's) initiatives. Given that neither Falkenhayn's nor Hindenburg's socio-economic programs were up to the job of delivering the required industrial production and food requirements to win a total-war, it seems sensible to me to look beyond Germany itself - after all, powerful strategic forces were in play and affecting Germany from outside, so to focus on what Hindenburg (Ludendorff) did in isolation is to ignore the true nature of the situation, what the allies did also plays a vital role in this matter.

The year 1916 was the year that deeper forces began to break-through, these deeper forces being the strategic realities of total-war i.e. military matters in the field being but one consideration; industrial production, food, social cohesion, economic clout and efficiency, access to raw materials, and political stability being other highly significant factors needed to win total-war.

For all its rhetoric prior to 1914, Germany entered the First World War not wholly prepared to put its enormous industrial potential behind the war effort - the result of her military planners' short war fantasies. As an importer of food, industrial raw materials and labour in 1914, the German economy was peculiarly dependent upon international markets, and could ill afford a long war. When the Schlieffen Plan went awry in September 1914, the German war economy was left in a parlous situation strategically, and by 1916, under Falkenhayn, the shortages of raw materials and labour had become acute. Consequently, any policies carried out by the Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn and the War Ministry were sure to come under intense criticism. This criticism, of course, came from those convinced they could do better; a strange coalition of businessmen, certain they could produce more and better weapons, and members of the German High command. And in August 1916, this coalition had its way, Falkenhayn was removed and a "new order" came in with Hindenburg as its figurehead - in effect, the socio-economic management of Germany went from partial militarisation under Falkenhayn to total militarisation under Hindenburg (de facto Ludendorff), with a few businessmen reaping great rewards from the "new order's" policy of printing "new money" to pay for the war effort.

This "new order's" policies initially led to greater, but strategically insignificant, war production, but soon ran into trouble just as Falkenhayn's management had. I won't go into any socio-economic detail because that would focus too much on Germany itself, and the main problem for both these differing policies lay outside of Germany, and thus for all practical intents and purposes were beyond German control.

From day one, the allies placed a stranglehold on Germany. The British Royal Navy, the most powerfully strategic weapon in the world at the time, blockaded Germany cutting it off from the vitally strategic supplies necessary to fight total-war. And, just as important from a strategic point of view, the Royal Navy was powerful enough to ward off German attempts with its U-boats to blockade Britain whilst maintaining its virtually impenetrable blockade of Germany. Denied almost total access to the raw material, food and labour imports it relied upon pre-war, Germany was at a serious strategic disadvantage from the outset of war. Whereas, the Royal Navy's domination of the sea-lanes gave Britain ready access to its Empire and foreign markets, thus allowing Britain, particularly after waking up in mid 1915 to what was actually needed in total-war, to greatly step-up its own efforts in order to out-perform Germany in all aspects of total-war.

In my opinion, the Hindenburg program was doomed to failure from its outset just as Falkenhayn's policies were i.e. the deeper, strategic forces in-play made failure inevitable. Indeed, Wilhelm Groener, the General appointed by Germany's "new-order" in 1916 to head the Hindenburg Program (also Ludendorff's successor in 1918), and sacked, as a scapegoat, in 1917 when the program was clearly failing, said after the war that the German General Staff never truly understood the strategic and political realities of the war, never really took the consequences of failing to achieve their strategic objectives in battle seriously. In other words, Germany went to war in 1914 grossly overestimating its own prowess whilst seriously underestimating the capabilities of the allies - and it continued under this delusion for four whole years. But the saddest part of all this is that sections of the German military, though the de facto rulers of Germany, had the audacity to claim it had been let down by civilians at home, whilst conveniently failing to mention the true reasons for the Kaiserreich's demise i.e. the allies, Britain in particular, played a strategically astute game - and this lack of reality in the stab-in-the-back scenario led to Germany making exactly the same mistakes some twenty-odd years later.

Consequently, it seems to me that if the Hindenburg Program had not been initiated in 1916 then an argument could be made to say that the German Home Front may have stayed intact a little longer - but, in my opinion, this would be an extremely shallow argument simply because it ignores the fact that control of its war-time economy was virtually taken out of Germany's own control by allied actions...

...It wasn't just German men being transported from the front, there were also many men forced to leave the occupied territories to work in German industry and agriculture - Belgians etc. taken against their will and "exported" to Germany as forced labour (a pre-cursor for the next war). And this attempt by the Hindenburg Program to solve the labour crisis did create transport bottlenecks which the Falkenhayn regime had managed to avoid, but Falkenhayn didn't try to import "labour" (up to 1916) to solve the acute shortages of labour, if he had then the same problems would have undoubtedly occurred.

In a way, the importation of labour into Germany i.e. soldiers returned from the front as well as forced labour from the occupied territories, had a certain logic to it: 1) Shorten the line by retiring to the Hindenburg line and go on the defensive in the west to release some troops for home service (as well as for the east). 2) Germany was a net importer of labour pre-war, and the acute labour crisis was caused by the allied blockade so why not "import" again, by force, from the external countries Germany did have access to? 3) Forced labour will alleviate many of the problems coming from internal German labour markets created by the Hindenburg Program's own policies (i.e. strikes etc.). (The forced labour move, could explain why the failed German peace feelers put out in late 1916 contained an insistence that Germany retain, by annexation, the captured territories of Belgium and northern France?)

But this "logic" was deeply flawed: The real problem for both Hindenburg's and Falkenhayn's regimes was the acute labour shortage plus the raw materials famine; in other words, the effects of the blockade were two-fold, and both were inseparably linked, making the problem akin to having two diseases where the medicine to cure one disease made the other much worse i.e. transporting huge numbers of men to cure the labour crisis entailed using raw materials that industry could ill afford to lose, and the initial increase in war-material production going out was actually counter productive to the extra labour coming in, and visa-versa.

Germany was in strategic check, and the only way out was to break the blockade - and this strategic necessity applied to both Hindenburg's and Falkenhayn's policies; without breaking the blockade neither approach could possibly work, without breaking the blockade Germany was not in control of its own war economy at the strategic level, and thus any tactical/operational attempts to remedy the situation were mere window dressing.

All of which makes Wilhelm Groener's words, about the German High Command's failure to recognise the strategic and political realities, all the more insightful i.e. Britain had used, to great success, the blockade strategy in the Napoleonic wars - was Germany so convinced in the omnipotence of its army in 1914-18 that it ignored such a vital strategic lesson of history, ignored an almost identical strategic move by Britain which actually made it possible for Prussia, an ally of Britain at the time, to free itself from Napoleon's grip? It seems that the quick-war fantasy, coupled with a grossly inflated belief in its own military prowess, was so ingrained within the German psyche that even when its army failed to win a quick war in 1914, it still ignored an important historical lesson stemming from Prussia's own rise to power...

...Interesting last few posts, about the German defensive posture on the Western Front. I think what has been overlooked is that by 1916 the manpower/war-materials shortage in Germany had become acute, and with the removal of Falkenhayn and the rise to power of Hindenburg (de facto Ludendorff) and the implementation of the "Hindenburg plan" to solve the strategic problems caused by the naval blockade, then the strategic consequences of a lack of such resources had a major effect on German military thinking, and consequently this filtered right down to the operational/tactical levels. In other words, until the manpower/materials shortage was addressed then prudence was the order of the day i.e. shorten and strengthen the line by withdrawing to the Hindenburg line, thus releasing troops for the Home Front (to help ease the industrial manpower shortage) as well as for the East where there were better prospects for victory, and, as Tom says, deal with the Entente when stronger.

Of course, the Hindenburg plan created more problems than it solved, which accentuated Germany's strategic problems despite the collapse of Russia; Germany could not escape the strategic "check-mate" situation developing in, and maturing from, 1916. The need for prudence versus the necessity to attack meant that, whichever way it went, Germany would be in strategic "check" i.e. not enough resources for the do-or-die spring offensives of 1918 to succeed, no time left to wait; use up resources and lose, wait it out and lose.

The German strategy of defence in the West and aggression in the East was a blunder - but any other military strategy would have been equally flawed. The strategic necessity for Germany was to break the blockade - even the idea of unrestricted submarine warfare was flawed, not enough naval resources to totally blockade Britain and, at the same time, to break the Royal Navy's blockade on itself. Without breaking the blockade, strategic check-mate was inevitable. And, bear in mind, Britain's blockade strategy was not new; it had been used successfully in the defeat of Napoleon when Prussia was an ally of Britain - it seems it was a historical strategic lesson that the Prussian military planners did not learn...

...It seems that ****** has adequately dealt with your "past war lessons", but perhaps you should have cited the Franco Prussian War 1870-71, because it was this war that impelled a certain Ivan Bloch to study warfare, and its technological advances, before publishing his work, in 1898, entitled Is War Now Impossible? His work was eerily accurate in predicting how the next Great War would be fought, and Bloch embarked on a tour lecturing to those who would listen to him, including many Staff Officers in many countries. Here's a review of his work by Dr Michael Occleshaw (British Historian):

"Completed sixteen years before the Great War, Bloch, a Jewish banker from Warsaw, approached his task with an open mind unfettered by theory or by past and inapplicable experiences (he was completely non-military). It took years of solid, painstaking devotion to write and was based entirely upon independent research, receiving neither encouragement nor financial support from any official quarter. Of this monumental labour, only the sixth volume was ever translated into English.

Neither the full version nor the single-volume translation ever seems to have gained any currency amongst the British military hierarchy, although in Russia the Tsar went so far as to make it recommended (but not required) reading for his Staff officers. What the General Staffs would have found was hardly calculated to inspire acceptance, for Bloch's hypothesis was that the war of the future would not be a replay of the Napoleonic Wars or even of 1870-1, to be decided in a matter of hours or days in a single clash on some obscure field of which no one had ever heard. On the contrary, Bloch argued, the array of fearsome modern weapons and the nature of modern society made such an outcome wishful thinking, since the armies would be unable to press their attacks to a conclusion. Instead he foresaw, with an icy logic based on an intensive study of contemporary weaponry, industry and society, a prolonged and devastating struggle which would drag on through ponderous and pitiless years, years in which no ravishingly clever stratagem, or splendidly timed and executed manoeuvre, could ever yield the victory so earnestly sought. The next Great War, he predicted, would not be decided through the struggles of the fighting man, but its resolution would lie in the grim and indifferent hands of famine and social upheaval.

In Bloch's dire vision the soldiers in the line would be more preoccupied with survival than with victory, driven to seek shelter in the belly of the cold earth from the storm of metal which would fill the air and accordingly, 'Everybody will be entrenched in the next war. It will be a war of entrenchments. The spade will be as indispensable to a soldier as his rifle,' with the unlooked-for consequence that the act of fighting would have little in common with the traditional, straightfor-ward contest over open ground in which the soldiers would measure their skill, their physical and moral superiority against each other in the time-honoured way.

It appears extraordinary in its foresight. None of the General Staffs, for all their professional expertise and close concentration on the technical aspects of their profession, could discern the character of the coming cataclysm, with the exception of a few seers like Kitchener and Haig, crying in the wilderness.

Wars between great powers are only won quickly when there is a significant disparity between the opposing powers in society, weaponry, technique or, more rarely, commanding genius. In 1870-1 the decisive disparities lay in the facts that Prussia possessed a mass conscript army, a speedy mobilization and a modern General Staff, and Napoleon III did not. By 1914 everybody had taken urgent steps to ensure that they, too, possessed these attributes, and everybody was on a more or less equal footing."

Please take note of this sentence, "The next great war, he predicted, would not be decided through the struggles of the fighting man, but its resolution would lie in the grim and indifferent hands of famine and social upheaval." It is noteworthy because it was famine and social upheaval in Germany in 1918 which forced it into accepting the Armistice. Also note, the mention of Kitchener and Haig as seers - these two soldiers certainly believed it would not be a quick war, but a long, hard, desperate struggle from the very beginning (sources available if needed).

So, there were lessons to be learnt from previous conflicts but not in the way you meant, Geraint - these lessons did not come from military experience (as Crunchy pointed out) but from a non-military mind. And to add a little further flavouring, here's a brief summary of my take on things (one day I may get around to writing a proper essay).

My contention is that total-war only comes about when both sides are evenly matched in military power, in economic might, in social-cohesion and, not least, in having an ongoing supply of manpower. Therefore, in a total-war situation, the learning curves in tactics and in the development of new war-fighting inventions and the way these weapons are used is a two-way street - the two sides learn from each other at an equal rate; if you like, similar to Newton's third law i.e. action and re-action are equal and opposite. This military balance will obviously continue until outside factors exert an influence - until the re-action is no longer capable of matching the action, in Bloch's words "its resolution would lie in the grim and indifferent hands of famine and social upheaval."

In my opinion, victory in total-war requires maximum effort from the whole team i.e. in WW1, victory was brought about by a combination of highly aggressive ground forces, the naval blockade and the navy's ability to effectively defeat the U-boat threat, the efforts of British Military Intelligence in their superbly "fought" subversion/propaganda campaign, the wholesale reorganisation of the industrial home-front and the maximum use of the Empire's resources. And, dare I say it, the politicians who, despite the occasional serious internal strife and the delay in realising what was actually needed for victory, kept the whole show on the road, with their diplomatic skills with allies, with their skilful economic balancing act between competing resources, and with their solidity of purpose in pursuing their goal - it was no fluke that the allied "team" out-performed the Germans; effective management of all resources is vital for victory in total-war.

Consequently, I believe that no purely military victory in the field is possible in total-war, no matter what tactics/operational initiatives are employed by any side, that only long-term strategic initiatives bring about victory by destroying one-side or the other's collective will and/or ability to wage war. And that this takes time - that the "military learning curve" in WW1 was not one-sided, that both sides learnt from each other equally and thus forced an inevitable four-year stalemate, which only ended when these other, strategic, forces eventually made their presence felt - that Germany collapsed politically, economically and socially in the summer of 1918 and, as both a cause and an effect, the morale/collective will-to-win of its people and army collapsed along with it.

In the case of WW1, it was almost inevitable that Germany would lose - the German Empire could never hope to match, in a protracted war, the power of the British Empire, with it's overall economic superiority and Britain's greater social-cohesion forged through centuries of unity not decades, and, of course, its Royal Navy's ability to totally blockade the continent. Germany could never really hope to win, but, of course, Britain could have lost - if it hadn't been willing to make the sacrifices it did...



Cheers-salesie.

Why the Schlieffenplan is not a (feasible) military plan.

Because it is an observation, a contemplation, a dissertation. Von Schlieffen weighs his words, formulate and reformulate into notes. There are hardly firm conclusions. Maybe it is not complete, surely not completed.
The text has never been published, nor distributed. The remarks of Moltke in the margins are known.
Von Schlieffen produced a Zusatzmemorandum in February 1906 (What if the English with more as 100.000 troops would land in Antwerp …).
We know the general comment of H. von Moltke about the Schlieffenplan, 1911.
Another Denkschrift of 28 December 1912 titles “About a war against France and Russia”.
Von Schlieffen was a introvert thinker, a player, a researcher for a limited number of variables, not a manager, not a technician, not a organizer.


Why the Schlieffenplan is a (political) military plan
I can go with Jack Sheldon Von Schlieffen has laid down some points of no return, “tenets”. The most important is the use of the concept of the pre-emptive strike. Thereafter it is a matter of geographic logic to strike first against France.
I doubt the emphasis on the speed of the action is a specific feature? In 1905, 1914 ?
But strange enough Von Schlieffen didn’t make hierarchical distinction between major ideas and minor details. It looks like he was more interested in the playable, testable and concretable, for all quantitative details: in manoevreing troops in stereotyped landschapes.

Von Moltke could not neglect the working influence of von Schlieffen. Therefore the Schlieffen ‘Plan’ keeps its relevance.

Salesie, please forgive my delayed reply; I've been tied up with other matters these past couple of days and have only just finished reading your long post.

I would not disagree with anything you say in respect of the the strategic forces involved in total war, and very briefly stated as much when agreeing with Mr Dunlop's 'inevitability of a prolonged conflict' (not a verbatim quote) in an earlier post.

I do however have 2 questions. The first is a purely factual one: when exactly did Haig first begin talking about the true nature of what was to become WW1 or the pattern it would ultimately take? As I indicated earlier, I am not a fan of Haig, and confess to having a degree of prejudice against him, possibly due to being brought up on a diet of lions and donkeys. Nonetheless, it would be most interesting to hear any chapter and verse that might improve Haig's standing. (Forgive me again, but I live a very very long way from any reference books).

Secondly, while it would be a waste of our time to argue a lot of silly what ifs, and I'm thinking principally of the Schlieffen Plan here; given the precepts laid down by Mr Bloch, with whom you so wholeheartedly agree; how was it that in 1940 the Germans, with arguably more strategic disadvantages than in 1914, inflicted such a crushing defeat on Britain and France? For whilst it has not escaped my notice that Germany also managed to lose WW2, it would hardly be convincing to claim that it was the result of their initial strategic deficit vis-a-vis the British and French, but had rather more to do with the USSR and the Americans.

Even before the BEF had left England, Haig commented that the war would be prolonged for years. There is further information about this here.

With respect to 1940, the situation was not fundamentally different. There was a significant victory inflicted on the British and French forces, but they were not crushed, at least not totally. From the British perspective, the resolve to continue was maintained. As with WW1, it then took time for the military effectiveness to be increased and for the Britain as a whole, not just the military, to mobilize for total war. As with WW1, Axis aggression galvanised attitudes of other countries in support of the Allied cause.

There is some more information about Bloch here. Delbrück appears to have been a much more influential proponent of the concept of prolonged total war. His work preceded Bloch's by some decades, and a small minority of German Staff Officers were impressed with Delbrück's conclusions. They argued against the strategy of annihilation, and helped Delbrück raise the spectre of attritional warfare in the pre-war German military literature. I don't know to what degree von Falkenhayn was influenced by Delbrück's work, but the concept of Ermattungsstrategie (literally 'exhaustion strategy' but usually translated as 'strategy of attrition') was not von Falkenhayn's. He did, however, make the important transition from Vernichtungsstrategie, but was unable to get buy in.

Robert

"...when exactly did Haig first begin talking about the true nature of what was to become WW1 or the pattern it would ultimately take?" As early as the day after war was declared, Clutterbuck:

From Charteris, Field-Marshall Earl Haig, page 110: "At the Council of War on August 5th [1914] he (Haig) had pointed out that since Great Britain and Germany were fighting for their existence the war would inevitably be a prolonged struggle, and would require the development of the full force of the British Empire to achieve success. The Battle of the Aisne, which enabled him to gauge the fighting qualities of the German troops, confirmed his belief that man-power would ultimately decide the war, and he directed his staff to begin the study of the man-power which the German nation could effectively employ in the field...these studies of German army man-power commenced during these early months at I Corps headquarters, and were developed at each successive stage of Haig's progress in the war, and he rarely allowed more than a day or two to pass without himself inquiring into the developments of this investigation."

As for my wholeheartedly agreeing with Bloch - agreement is not a word I would use i.e. to "disagree" with Bloch is to deny reality, and I included reference to his work simply to show that at least one in depth and detailed study had been made which accurately predicted the very nature of the "next great war".

You are correct to say that WW2 was somewhat different to WW1, and that the U.S. and U.S.S.R played a much more significant role - but if you look more closely at the overall geo-political situation as well as the military aspects, in my opinion you will find more similarities than appear to be the case. But WW2 is not a subject for this forum, so I will end it there.



Cheers-salesie.

Hello,

I hesitate to plunge into this thread again but nevertheless would like to air an opinion. There is no doubt that the German empire felt it was threatened from east and west and prepared detailed plans as have been referred to above. Although not covered above, the dispute between AustroHungary and the Serbs provided an oportunity to execute those plans. Whether or not Germany was justified in taking this opportunity is another question. However they did and they failed. That failure was due to many factors, AustroHungarian slow reaction, speed of Russian mobilization, the technology of the time and the intervention of the British empire come to my mind. Also, as my previous comment suggested the Great General Staff were not as clever as perhaps they thought when they persuded the Kaiser to go to war. That is unless there was a genuine threat that the French in league with the Russians were about to seek to reverse the outcome of the Franco-Prussian war. My reading has not encountered any indication that there was. Therefore I suggest, in perhaps inappropriate terminology, their appreciation of the situation was flawed.

Old Tom

Hello all

Most of the points for and against the existence and probable effectiveness of the "Schlieffen Plan" have already been eloquently made. I would simply add the following.

With respect to adriaanbos, the text of the plan has been published. It appears in Gerhard Ritter's book mentioned in a previous post, and also available in an English edition published around 1970.

The text used by Ritter is available in copies in the National Archives at Kew in class CAB20. It consists of over 30 typed pages and some 250 or so pages of manuscript. Ritter says that his text is from a carbon copy, "the original of which seems no longer to exist" (presumably the actual document handed to von Moltke) but I read somewhere recently that this has apparently turned up in a German archive.

Von Schlieffen was Chief of the Great General Staff for fifteen years, most of which were devoted to the study of a potential two-front war against France and Russia. One of the strengths of the GGS system was what has been called "institutionalised excellence", implying that planning was essentially a corporate and continuing process. It would be entirely consistent with this concept for von Schlieffen to hand over, not only his appointment but also a summary of "the story so far" to his successor at the end of 1905 and the so-called Memorandum or Denkschrift is, in my view, just that.

Its actual implementation would have required further work under Moltke, not least the increase in the number of (mainly Reserve) Corps available for its implementation. We can only deduce that the final version issued by vov Moltke between then and 1914, if it ever existed in printed form, would have differed in many ways from Schlieffen's final draft of 1905 and, indeed, the dilution of the right wing to strengthen both the left wing and the Eighth Army in East Prussia are well-known.

On the left wing, Moltke had to cope with the ambitions of two Crown Princes, not one, andv perhaps he would have been less than human if he had not followed the well-known maxim of reinforcing success, on the left after the Battles of the Frontiers.

As someone else has already pointed out, the Schlieffen Plan, in whatever form, was always a high-risk concept. So was the plan conceived by Ludendorff for the Kaiserschlacht of 1918. Both ultimately failed for similar reasons, which also beset the Allies on the Western Front: the inescapable fact that the front-line troops can advance quite fast, but their artillery and logistic support needs to keep up with them in order to maintain momentum. The German attack on France in 1940 succeeded mainly because the Franco-British front was cut, and both armies forced back in opposite directions, before the logistic "steam" ran out.

Ron