Von+Schlieffin+Plan

In the words of Jamie Naragon, "Anybody who's anybody knows The Von Schlieffen Plan." In case you aren't that anybody, or if you are and you're just bored or something, let me give you the run down.

The Von Schlieffen Plan was created by the one and only Count Alfred von Schlieffen. He came up with the idea for it sometime in December of 1905. He was given instructions to created a plan that would be able to counter a joint attack. He started thinking and devised his plan. Schlieffen then argued that if a war broke out, France would need to be hastily defeated. He thought that if this happened, Russia and Britain would be unwilling to carry on fighting. His plan was a plan to attack France once Russia had mobilized it's forces near the German border. He calculated that Russia would take at least six weeks to organize it's army and move in to attack Germany. Thus leading to the thought that France must be taken before Russia was ready. Unfortunately for the Germans, parts of General Schlieffen's plan led to Britain declaring war upon them on August 4th, 1914. Before I get into that, let me tell you that Germany was part of the Triple Alliance with Austria and Italy. There was also the Triple Entente which was France, Britain and Russia. Due to these alliances, the German military began fearing the possibility of an attack from the Triple Entente. Germany began to believe that Russia would attack and if they did, France would join since the two were allies. If this were to happen, Germany would be caught in the middle and would face a war on two fronts. This was something they wanted to avoid, thus resulting in the Von Schlieffen plan.

Here is a photograph of Count Alfred von Schlieffen. Next to that is a picture of his plan.

Schlieffen believed that France was Germany's most dangerous opponent. He also believed that Russia would take roughly a month and a half to fully mobilize it's forces. If by chance they did mobilize, it was thought that they could be held off on the border for a few weeks by part of the German army while the rest of the army took France. He decided that a surprise attack upon France would be enough to keep Britain from the war. Boy was he wrong. He had concluded that if victorious, this would give Germany some time to move soldiers from France to Russia so that they could also conquer them. was worried about the French forts, and planned to attack France via the Benelux countries. If you don't know what those countries are, they're Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. The rest of Germany's army would be sent to the Russian/German border. Sometime during all this planning, Helmuth von Moltke replaced Alfred Von Schlieffen in 1906 and he tweaked up the plan as tensions in Europe rose. Regardless, the basics remained the same. In the updated plan, Moltke decided not to invade Holland. He also decided that the new route would be the flat plains of Flanders and argued that Belgium's small army wouldn't be able to stop them on their way to France. However, Belgium was neutral. This entire strategy depended upon Britain not supporting Belgium. This was a bad strategy considering that Britain had guaranteed Belgium's neutrality.

All in all, the plan was to attack France once Russia announced that there were intention to mobilize. If it came down to it, a holding operation would be carried out on the German/Russian border. It was estimated that Germany had roughly six short weeks to conquer and defeat France. From there, they would use a modernized rail system to transport troops to the Russian front. Russia would then be defeated. It was a long shot and had it's weaknesses. Some of them were the actions of Russia, the assumption of Russia needing six weeks or more to mobilize, and the assumption that France could be taken in that time. However, on August 2nd, 914, the von Schlieffen Plan was put into action. The Germans were held up by the Belgian's army. They were also shocked at how quickly the British Expeditionary Forces were able to reach and aid Belgium and France.

Before the plan was put into full effect, the German's had asked for permission to pass through Belgium to get into France. However, the Belgians denied them and the next day Germany invaded. Due to Germany's invasion and destruction of Belgium, Britain joined the war. Britain was obligated to help the Belgians by a treaty. Britain demanded that Germany withdraw from Belgium by midnight. The German's did not, and Britain declared war upon them on August 4th, 1914. Regardless, the surprise attack upon France had nearly been a success. But, the Germans were defeated in the first Battle of the Marne. This had halted them and German troops had to be withdrawn for the expected threat on the Russian front. The Russian's had managed to mobilize in a little over a week. The Germans did not that have time, or the amount of troops that they had expected to have. The von Schlieffen plan had failed completely. Britain was now involved and on their way to help Belgium and to stop France from being taken by the Germans. The Von Schlieffen plan had failed, and World War I was now beginning. ___

This is a video about the failure of the Schlieffen plan: media type="youtube" key="lJXAcl8D51Y" height="390" width="480"

Other photos: This is Helmuth von Moltke. Another map of the Von Schlieffen plan.

Sources: 1) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWschlieffenP.htm 2) http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/gcselinks/wars/firstwwlinks/schlieffen_summary.html 3) http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/schlieffen_plan.htm 4) http://www.johndclare.net/causes_WWI4.htm 5) http://www.google.com/images?q=the+von+schlieffen+plan&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=564 6) http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&biw=1366&bih=564&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=alfred+von+schlieffen&aq=f&aqi=g1g-m2&aql=&oq= 7) http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&biw=1366&bih=564&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=Helmuth+von+Moltke&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= 8) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXAcl8D51Y

Lilly Biglow/Peregrin Took