Schlieffen Plan: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:25, 23 March 2006

Revision as of 15:47, 24 March 2006

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== Modifications to the Plan, 1911 ==

Following the retirement of Schlieffen in 1906, [[Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke|Helmuth von Moltke]] became the German chief of staff. He disagreed with at least some of the Schlieffen Plan, thinking it to be too risky. The Plan, however, having been devised in 1905, was now too much a part of German military thinking to abandon it completely. All he could do was modify it. Von Moltke decided to pull significant amounts of troops away from the main force entering France from the north, in order to fortify the forces in Alsace-Lorraine, and the forces at the Russian border. The other significant change he made was to not enter through Holland[[the Netherlands]], instead sending troops through Belgium alone. These changes have been the subject of much debate. L.C.F Turner in 1970 described von Moltke's changes as "a substantial modification in the Schlieffen Plan and one which probably doomed the German campaign in the west before it was ever launched." Turner claims that by weakening the main German offensive, they didn't have a real chance of defeating the French army quickly enough, hence they became stranded in a two-front-war. He also says that not going through Holland not only created a bottleneck at the German-Belgian border, but also that not having the Dutch railways at their disposal created a huge supply problem, a problem which outweighed the benefits they gained by still having access to the Dutch ports.

A. Palmer, on the other hand, disagrees with this view. According to Palmer, closer inspection of documents regarding the German war plan reveal that Moltke's changes were not that great, and that the plan was basically flawed from the start. He claims that the Schlieffen plan does not deserve its high reputation, because it underestimated pretty much everyone- the Russians, French, British, and Belgians.