Topic: The inability of the German General Staff to see the inherent flaws in the Schlieffen Plan. Title: Lack of Flexibility and The Schlieffen Plan Thesis: A political solution should have been sought between Austria-Hungary and Serbia in order to keep the Russians from mobilizing against Germany, because Moltke’s alterations of the original plan doomed the German Army to defeat. Abstract: In the summer of 1914, the German General Staff executed the Schlieffen plan and ultimately had to revise it because of certain unforeseen moves by the French and Russians. This lack of flexibility led to a stalemate during The Great War, giving life to such phrases as “trench warfare,” and “war of attrition.” The German General Staff sold the idea of the Schlieffen Plan to their government as the strategy to prosecute a two-front, Franco-Russian war. The plan calls for the German Army to defeat the French in one felled swoop, and then quickly move to the East to defeat Russia.
The invasion of Belgium broke the treaty of London, meaning the European powers who had signed the treaty were immediately forced in to action. The invasion of Belgium also nullifies the argument that the plan was deployed for defensive purposes as it was the French who posed a threat while Belgium remained neutral. This point can be furthered as Taylor explains ‘the moment that the Germans decided on mobilisation, they decided for war’ which suggests that the Germans knew their deliberately aggressive actions, such as invading the protected Belgium, had the potential to initiate wide scale war amongst European powers but still invaded. Taylor also stresses ‘that there could be no delay between mobilisation and war’ and in general emphasises the rush that the Germans had to take to ensure they were not trapped in a two-front war with France and Russia that they could not afford over an extended period of time. Taylor’s argument, which heavily uses war by
Schlieffen’s plan aimed to counter a joint attack and then later in the Great War the Schlieffen Plan was used as a strategy to ensure a swift victory and avoid fighting two-fronted war. In 1914 as war broke out the Schlieffen Plan was put into action but the results were not as hoped, instead the plan failed miserably. Many questioned why Schlieffen had opted to attack a powerful France first instead of a weaker, less mobile Russia which could have been defeated quickly before turning on the more threatening French army. The
He knew that the number of soldiers he had were greatly outnumbered by all the country’s armies that wanted to end his rule, so he had to act fast. Napoleon’s grand strategy was to destroy the existing coalition forces just south of Brussels, then pushing the British back to the ocean and hopefully knock the Prussians out of the war completely. At this time, this was a far-fetched idea, however everyone actually considered Napoleon pulling it off. Napoleon cut off communication between Wellington and his country through false intelligence and this avoided an envelopment plan that Wellington at originally planned to use on Napoleon after they traveled through Mons. When Napoleon moved towards the army of Prussians, he defeated them at the Battle of Ligny, basically baffling the troops.
So for example if the allies in the west did not promise to rebuild Germany and try to stop every country from becoming communist when they threatened to even if it through fair vote (rare as it was). It can be argued that the cold war was an avoidable one. Firstly the Russians were very aggressive in creating a buffer zone and in fact created communist states practically all over Eastern Europe and made much more than a buffer zone and Stalin was at the heart of all these communist political movements and was trying to spread his influence to even Italy and France. This worried the west very much because they thought their very freedom was being threatened but more importantly the more states that became communist the less ttade there was. The west needed trade partners in the east and they couldn’t trade with communist states.
* Moltke changed ratio of number of troops in right wing to left wing from 7:1 to 3:1 as he thought the left wing were too small and might be over-run and forced back by French forces; weakened the main strike force by diverting more German troops reinforcing Eastern Front from right wing to support Austria-Hungary * Right wing (main attack force) of the German army would mobilise in massive strength (north) and invade France through neutral Belgium * Smaller left wing (decoy/diversion) would hold French army on Rhine border against unexpected attack through Alsace-Lorraine * French Plan 17 went to German hands. French would invade Germany through Alsace-Lorraine. Having faith in their own offensive, French failed protecting their border with Belgium (north) * Quick advance through Belgium (takeover of Belgian railways) German armies in north encircled Paris * France forced to surrender and German transferred to Eastern front dealing with Russia * German redirected away from invasion of France to Eastern front. Invading force weakened as Moltke transferred units from North to help defend against French invasion in South
Firstly, the most pivotal factor that led to the Provisional Government being ousted from power was the fact that, against the masses wishes, they did not withdraw from World War I. It was one of the main causes for their revolution against the Tsarist regime in February, yet the Provisional Government couldn’t withdraw due to the fact that they felt obliged to continue their war effort and help the Allied forces beat the likes of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Leaders such as Kerensky even assumed the masses shared their enthusiasm for a “vigorous, new war effort” against Germany, and so they organised the June Offensive. However, this battle proved to be a major disaster, leading to many soldiers deserting their posts, voicing their discontent with the government and some mutinying by firing upon their own officers. With the Army beginning to collapse, it was obvious that, unless the Provisional Government withdrew from the First World War immediately, a second revolution would occur and remove them from power.
In 1914 a mismanaged Balkan crisis caused the powers to stumble into a general European war, which would have been avoided in 1908 and 1912. HFDYA? There are a number of factors to consider and understand why the events of 1914 in the Balkans caused the powers to fall into a war, when it was earlier avoided in 1912. However the situation consisted of long-term factors aswel as short term factors. The long-term factors that would have built tension and rivalries throughout Europe are the alliance systems and the arms race, whereas the short term factors would be the mismanaged crisis, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, which was ultimately the trigger of total war.
As you can see there were also many other reasons for the war besides the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. After Serbia declined the ultimatum, the Austro-Hungarian Empire waged war on Serbia on 28th July 1914. Since Russia was allied to Serbia, they announced mobilization of troops in defense for Serbia on August 1st 1914. Germany was allied to the Austro-Hungarians and took the Russian mobilization as a threat and declared war on Russia on August 1st 1914. Since Russia and France were allies and France didn’t like Germany due to the lost war against them in 1870, they declared war on Germany on August 3rd 1914.
This stated that if a possibility of a two front war with France and Russia was ever to arise they would mobilise their troops quickly and beat the French within six weeks and then march back in time to meet the Russian army. They predicted it would take a while for Russia to mobilise due to its great size and limited travel