Position:Home>History> History: WW1: How was the Schlieffen Plan supposed to help Germany win a future?

The Schlieffen plan was Germanys response to a seemingly inevitable war in Europe with every country wanting overseas empires and the amount of remaining land was becoming less and less!. Countries therefore where starting to turn to others empire in order to get land!. This then formed a gang system of protection for all of the countries, because of this the most trivial arguments could cause a world war!.

The Schlieffen plan was Germanys master plan to fight the triple Entente “the gang that was Great Britain, France and Russia” that surrounded Germany!. The Schlieffen plan was devised in order to stop Germany having to fight the war on two fronts this was so that they could use the full force of the armies on each country individually rather than splitting there forces!.
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Actually, the Schlieffen PLan was based on the fact that it would take the Russian army 4 weeks to mobilise, plenty of time to knock out the French!. There were eight rail tracks going across Germany to switch the troops over to the Eastern Front!. One reason for it failing was the fact that the BEF put up enough of a fight to make the armies close up, so when they wheeled the Northern army missed Paris by about 15 miles!. Liege had put up too long a defence and special siege guns had to be brought up, so the German troops Had to forage!. The French army was moved in Paris taxis, and the French won the Battle of the Marne!. At this point, Samsonov's troops began their march into East Prussia, where Ludendorff thrashed them at the BAttle of the Masurian Lakes!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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The Schlieffen Plan was drawn up, long before war in Europe was on the horizon!. The general idea was based on several things!.
1 On the declartion of war, France would make every effort to regain the territories of Alsace and Lorraine, that were lost to Germany in an earlier war!.
2 M-Tag Mobilisation Day!. The whole of the German army was to be mobilised on the same day, using the rail networks!.
3 As France moved into Alsace-Lorraine, German troops would enter France via neutral Belgium and take Paris in a matter of days!.

However, the French border with Germany was heavily forified and would prove a very difficult if not impossible target to overcome!.
2 The rail networks were incapable of handling such a massive military manouvre!.
3 Belgiums neutrality was guaranteed by Britain by a treaty signed in the late 1890's!. If Germany invaded Belgium, it would instantly drag Great Britain into the war along with her allies!.
As a consequence, the Schlieffen plan was never implemented!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

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The plan was based on the ancient of concept of "Divi et Imperi", divide and rule!.

Germany had three certain enemies to deal with: France, Britain, and Russia!. The idea was to set the situation to destroy each one at a time instead of take on all three at once!.

France had the second largest army, but it was the most modern!. The Germans calculated that it would be ready for battle first!. They would deliver a massive blow by almost their entire army on France to knock it out quickly!.

Britain would be next up, but they calculated that it could not get significant forces to France very quickly!. With France out, the British would have no land base!. It would then turn into a naval war between Germany and Britain!.

Russia had the largest army, but it was the lowest quality in men and material!. The Germans calculated that Russia could not get sufficient forces in the field until after they had dealt with France!. Then, they could shift their armies from France to Russia who would be all alone!.

The plan failed for a couple of reasons!. First, in the years since the plan was created, the Russians and British had made great improvements to their organization!. They both got going a lot faster than the Germans had planed!. It was the British Army blundering between the two main German armies that wrecked their assault on France!.

Second, Schlieffen's successors fidgeted with the plan!. They didn't use the number of troops he had suggested!. They got worried about the Russians and sent more troops to the East!. This was exasperated by the fact that the Russians mobilized faster than planned and attacked Germany's rear!. They had to quickly shift more troops East even as they were invading France!.

Third, they assumed that the British would automatically go to war!. The British government had no legitimate reason to join in!. The "Tripple Entente" means what it sounds like, Tripple Intent!. It was just an informal agreement to coordinate defense and not a formal alliance!. Britain only had three formal alliances: Portugal, Japan, and Belgium!.

The Franco-German border was heavily fortified so the quickest way to hit France was through Belgium and The Netherlands!. The Germans decided not to hit The Netherlands as Schlieffen wanted, but they did go through Belgium!. By treaty, the British promised to protect Belgian neutrality!. This was their reason for war!. The Germans could have avoided going to war with Britain!.

One other thing, the German armies got lost!. Instead of their killing blow landing North of Paris, it landed to the South!.

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The Schlieffen Plan was developed long before the outbreak of the first world war and was a detailed plan for the invasion of France through the then neutral Belgium!. This was done to avoid the defensive forts along France's eastern border with Germany!.
The plan involved speedy mobilisation and the transport of huge numbers of troops guns and supplies using the efficient German railway system!. The aim was to eliminate France from the war quickly so that Germany could then turn its attention fully on the Russians who would be slower to mobilise!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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The schlieffen plan was a text book example of what is called manouvre warfare theory!. It was also supoosed to result in a victory but as our learned associates here have already mentioned is that Schlieffen's successors interfered with it and it resulted in attritional warfare!. Which is the opposite side of the coin from manouvre!Www@QuestionHome@Com

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well basically the plan was to attak quickly and if ir worked they would have used it to fight future wars

well basically a few troops go to france and take over and the rest quickly move up north to the russian troops before they can get to germany

unfortunately for kaiser it didnt work out
because his they were really tired and couldnt mobalise quickly

germany underestimated the ussr because they thought that they wouldnt be able to mobalise quickly and get to germany

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