The Failure Of The Schlieffen Plan
The Failure of The Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan was created by the Chief of Staff General Count, Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905, and then altered by General Helmuth von Moltke in 1914. And it was a plan to defeat France in no more than 6 weeks and therefore to avoid a long war which would protect Germany from fighting the war on two fronts at the same time, against France and Russia, as Alfred von Schlieffen calculated that Russia would take more than 6 weeks to organise it's army to fight.
To reach it's purpose, General Helmuth mobilised most of his troops to the west passing through Belgium, having Paris as it's objective and leaving a small number of his army, to be sent to the east, to deal with the Russians.
The reasons why the Schlieffen Plan failed, started when General Helmuth altered the Plan, he weakened it by reducing the force attacking from the North and he also discarded the possibility of an invasion through Holland, as Germany wanted to keep the neutrality of Holland as long as possible, which actually saved the Germans from fighting the war against the Dutch as well.
The Germans also had miscalculated the competence of the Belgium army, which not only prevented them to go forward and keep their time table as planed, but also allowed Britain to mobilise their troops quickly and stop the Germans from invading France and capturing Paris. In addition to this, General Helmuth without protecting his right wing, weakened it by sending some of his troops to the left wing to stop the advance from the French Army in Alsace-Lorraine and therefore, by sending an entire army to the eastern front to contain the Russia army. Furthermore, the lack of communication between German armies and the failure to keep up with supplies when needed, weakened the German troops and the fact that the Germans were so confidents that their plans were going to be successful, they did not have...
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