The Schliefen plan

The Schlieffen plan

The Schlieffen plan was an elaborate made by Germany to defeat its regional rival, France if a war broke out. This plan was devised by Germany because there were already tensions between the two colonialist giants (France and Germany) and Germany felt threatened by France.

The plan was first laid down in December 1905 by Count Alfred Von Schliffen. The idea of the Schlieffen plan was to quickly outflank (surround) the French through Belgium with optimum surprise. A major aim of the plan was to take Paris, the capital where the French army communications nerve centre is situated and if this nerve centre is taken the French armed forces would be in disrepute. This is also where the bulk of the French population reside.

The main idea of the Schlieffen plan was to was to quickly overwhelm the weaker northern French army and then to take the port of Calais, a major supply route for the French and where parts of its navy are stationed; and go on to take Paris. The Belgium route of attack was the only viable route of attack that could deal France a knock out blow, as the French possessed many impregnable forts along the Franco-German border and could sustain severe loss of life on an attacking German army. Such an attack would also bog them down thereby losing surprise, which is paramount with the Schliffen plan. Also attacking from the Franco-German border would result in lack of manpower to fight the Russians later on when the Russians have mobilised their massive army. The German planners taken this into account and predicted the Russian cumbersome army would take 6 weeks to mobilise this provided ample time for the Schliffen plan to be orchestrated and France dealt a knock out blow. The Schliffen battle plan after taking Paris would cut the forts around the Franco-German border (in the Alsace/Lorraine region) of supplies. This would result in the forts being easily taken by attacking the weak rear, eradicating this threat. This would be made easier because of the fact that the soldiers in the forts are deprived of rations and ammunition and as the great general Napoleon said “an army marches on its stomach”.

Another principle of the Schliffen plan was to finish off France before the Russian army mobilised and attacked it from the east resulting in the reinforcement of the eastern front at a cost, weakening the strength of the western front. Germany could not sustain a war on two fronts this would just lead to inevitable defeat. The German top brass knew this and exercised the Schliffen plan in the 6 weeks they thought the Russian army would need to mobilise. These 6 weeks would be used to orchestrate the Schliffen plan take France and then re-deploy the rest of the German army to the Russian front. While the Schliffen plan was being executed of the 40 German army divisions (to those not used to military terms a division is between 10,000-20,000 men) 8 divisions were on the Russian front while 32 divisions were on the French front. So large forces were concentrated in one large-scale attack.

In this regard the Schliffen plan is reminiscent to the 6 day war of 1967 if you ask me because forces are highly concentrated for one major attack for example Israel deployed the bulk of their defence forces on the Egyptian front and launched a massive air attack in which 300 EAF (Egyptian air force) aircraft were destroyed on 5 June 1967 during the EAF early morning tea break (08:45 Egyptian time). This concentration of forces dealing a cataclysmic blow soon befell the other Arab nations involved. Back to the Schliffen plan.
When the plan was executed a German southern army was sent to attack the forts, this was a feint by the Germans trying to deceive the French to think the attack was coming from the Franco-German border. This was done to try and lure the French into deploying Reserves there and re-deploying troops from the north to the south so it will be easier for the main German thrust from the north. In the north there was high ground in the Belgium area so once captured it would give Germany an advantage. In northern France however there were fields, flat ground.

Below is a diagram showing the schliffen plan courtesy of school history.


One must remember that the French also had a plan up there sleeve called plan seventeen this involved attacking the Germans along the Franco-German border, where there are French forts. This involved an all out attack on Germany in the Alsace/Lorraine region with soldiers trained to fight “hard and fast”.

As we all read in the history books the Schlieffen plan did not work. It failed for a variety of reasons the resistance of Belgium, the presence of the BEF (as a result of the violation of the 1837 treaty between Britain and Belgium placing Britain as the protector of Belgium, the Kaiser saw this treaty as outdated and thought Britain would not get involved) and its effectiveness in slowing down the Schliffen plan at the battle of the Marne and the battle of la Mons; at La mons German soldiers thought British rifle fire was machine gun fire and also the BEF was called the “contemptible little army” by the Germans, the faster than predicted speed of Russian mobilisation, logistical shortcomings, the changing alliances of central powers Italy and Romania remained neutral, Moltke’s changes to the plan, the 1st German army was east of Paris instead of west of it during the battle of the Marne so the British expeditionary force and the French army were less spread out, and many other factors.