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I also want to meet people who like to talk about things like... The Schlieffen Plan!
"Game Plans"
By: Bo Riley, Historian
29 June 2004
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, the major powers of Europe had already contemplated numerous military scenaria, were war to break out. Three such plans, the German Schlieffen and Moltke Plans, and the French Plan XVII bear such significance to the historical events of The Great War (indeed, two were implemented on the battlefield) that they deserve considerable examination for their weaknesses and merits.
The French war plan was, by far, the least effective. Plan XVII depended greatly on the success of the initial offensive (1). Perhaps drunk on the memory of the (early) successes of Napoleon, the French military thinkers in the years since 1871 had developed the so-called “Cult of the Offensive,” in which French courage, valor, and elan could be depended upon to win the day. It was believed that in the face of the courage and grace of a French army, no military force could manage a successful defense (2). In actuality, Plan XVII was a dismal failure. Even the weak German left under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria (3) was able not only to stop the (unstoppable) French offensive, but push them back into French territory. The most striking failure of the thinking behind Plan XVII was the fact that modern technology, most notably the machine gun, rendered negligible the effectiveness of the offensive. Suddenly, a small force with proper equipment could dig a trench and hold off an offensive by a far superior force. The nature of warfare was entering the 20th century. Plan XVII was mired in 19th century wishful thinking.
The Schlieffen Plan, the original German plan for a war against both France and Russia, aptly named after its designer, head of the German General Staff, Count von Schlieffen, was really a worst-case scenario. A two front war requires that a nation not only divide its military resources between two geographical regions - a logistical mess, to say the least - but to face two potentially full-strength armies with half-strength forces. The possibility of such a war, specifically between Germany and both France and Russia, was an increasingly realistic prospect after the Moroccan Crises. The Schlieffen Plan was designed, specifically, to minimize the effects of this dilemma. The audacity of the plan was that it called for a massive invasion of France through the Low Countries, thus bypassing the French defenses along the Franco-German frontier. The strong German right wing would fan out along the English Channel coast and capture Paris within a few weeks. The plan would then make use of the advantage of Germany’s railroad infrastructure in order to facilitate the speedy transport of troops from one front to another. Germany could use time in its favor by rapidly deploying against France: capturing Paris while encircling the French Army in Alsace-Lorraine (4), and then fighting a protracted war against the slow-to-mobilize Russian hordes.
Schlieffen’s successor, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (5) would significantly modify the war plan as to be far more cautious with respect to foreign invasion of German territory as well as diplomatic relationships. The Younger Moltke de-emphasized the German right wing (the overwhelming strength of which was crucial to Schlieffen’s vision) in favor of placing more troops along the left wing and the eastern frontier. The combination of these factors spelled disaster for the German war plan. The Schlieffen plan depended upon time and the strength of the German right. The decision to violate Belgian and Luxembourg neutrality while maintaining Dutch neutrality guaranteed the ire of much of the world (most notably that of Britain) without benefiting from the geographical advantage of allowing the right wing to advance through the Dutch lowland. Additionally, the fact that the entire German right was forced to pass through the fortress bottleneck of Liege reduced the effectiveness of the invasion through delay (6).
Moltke’s decision to reinforce the western left wing and the eastern frontier further limited the effectiveness of the plan. Schlieffen had wholeheartedly accepted brief French and Russian invasions of German territory. It was not considered a terrible loss if a few East Prussian farms were raided. They would soon be back in German hands. Furthermore, the Prussian position (dating to Bismarck) was that Alsace and Lorraine, whose loyalty was suspect to begin with, were simply a buffer zone between the Prussians and the French. A French invasion of the territory would be no huge German loss. Indeed, it was necessary to bottle the French forces in Alsace and Lorraine in order to prevent them from effectively relieving Paris in the event of a German delay.
By implementing the Schlieffen Plan with greater caution, Moltke provided the French (and British) with exactly what they needed to halt the German advance. The less imposing German right was unable to encircle Paris. This had been the key to a German quick victory under Schlieffen. The invigorated German left was able to push back the French forces to the west, where they could divert to aid in the defense against the German right. Whether or not Schlieffen’s plan could have spelled a German victory, Moltke's interpretation of Schlieffen’s worst case scenario spelled utter failure – a stalemate in the West.
Of the three war plans, the Schlieffen Plan was the most likely to succeed... had it actually been implemented. The most significant weakness of the Schlieffen Plan was its apparent disregard for a detailed reading of Clausewitz. In what the grandfather of Prussian military thinking dubbed “Friktion,” because of the nature of war, nothing occurs exactly as anticipated. The Schlieffen Plan depended greatly on the precise movement of troops over vast areas of conquered territory. Scorched earth, partisan resistance, extended lines, and limited communication would have, in all likelihood, resulted in tremendous amounts of campaign Friktion. Nonetheless, given the extent to which the Moltke Plan was successful (the Germans ALMOST got to Paris at ABOUT the right time), it is reasonable to conclude that with the greater freedom of movement that the German right could have enjoyed had it traversed The Netherlands, and the successful confining of the French Army in Alsace-Lorraine, the Schlieffen Plan gave the Germans a good chance of reaching Paris in the manner (and according to the timeframe) specified by Graf von Schlieffen, despite being susceptible to the effects of Friktion.
(1) Plan XVII was the 17th in a line of French war plans against Germany that called for a direct invasion of the Reich through Alsace and Lorraine. Plan XVII is not to be confused with “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” though such a mistake would be understandable.
(2) This would include, apparently, the very military force that had systematically mopped up the field with the French Army in 1870.
(3) albeit reinforced under the Moltke Plan.
(4) Mimicking the historical Battle of Cannae, a comparison to which Schlieffen objected.
(5) AKA Helmuth Quincy von Moltke or Helmuth W. von Moltke.
(6) L. C. F. Turner, quoting B. H. Liddell Hart, argues that the German right could not have been significantly stronger than it had been, given the limited number of troops who could have passed through the bottleneck of Liege.

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