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The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen-Plan, pronounced [ʃliːfən plaːn]) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4
He has advanced the controversial thesis that the Schlieffen Plan as generally understood was a post-World War I fabrication. [1] [2] He first described his views about the Schlieffen Plan in a 1999 article in War in History, and further developed them in his 2002 book Inventing the Schlieffen Plan.
The Denkschrift was not a campaign plan, as Schlieffen had retired on 31 December 1905 and the 96 divisions needed to carry out this one-front war plan did not exist (in 1914 the German army had 79, of which 68 were deployed in the west). Rather, it was a demonstration of what Germany might accomplish if universal conscription was introduced.
The main war plan, the Schlieffen Plan, was drawn up by the Army headquarters. It called for a great infantry sweep through Belgium to encircle Paris and defeat France in a matter of weeks. Then the forces would be moved by rail to the Eastern Front, to defeat the Russians. The plan was not shared with the Navy, the Foreign Office, the ...
The Schlieffen Plan was scuttled when the shaken Moltke ordered the German right wing in France to retire during the First Battle of the Marne. [42] Soon Moltke was replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn who was already the Prussian war minister. After failing to dislodge the Entente in Flanders, he put the Western Front on the defensive.
Schlieffen's successor at the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, maintained the basic plan that Schlieffen put forward in 1905 of quickly knocking out France in the west before turning to focus on Russia, thereby avoiding a two-front war. This strategy was fully adopted by the German government in 1913.
On mobilisation, I Reserve Corps was assigned to the 8th Army on the Eastern Front, intended to defend East Prussia while the rest of the German Army executed the Schlieffen Plan offensive against France.
Germany, facing a two-front war, enacted what was known as the Schlieffen Plan, which involved German armed forces moving through Belgium and swinging south into France and towards the French capital of Paris. This plan was hoped to quickly gain victory against the French and allow German forces to concentrate on the Eastern Front.