Talk:Schlieffen Plan

Untitled

I didn't realize there's much dispute. Strachan and Keegan (separately) write explicitly that the Plan was totally detached from the realities of logistics and combat; the right wing could not have been any stronger than it was and could not have had the mobility and strength needed to encircle Paris. I agree that this article seems like tired conventional wisdom rather than a reflection of modern scholarship. I'll see what I can do.--ArminTamzarian 09:20, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps a seperate section would be useful outlining the current disputes, most notably those raised by Terence Zuber (as covered in Mackensen's Moltke article). Even if this interpretation proves to become prominent, a piece on the 'traditional' view of the Schlieffen Plan is still relevant, as it remains the basis for the majority of work on the German contribution to the outbreak of the First World War. --Alilaw 22:53, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've made an effort to clarify some of the key highlights of the Plan in the section titled "Schlieffen Plan in Action." I added the section titled "Additional Facts," and brought up the debate on whether the Plan was Clausewitzian or not (i.e., did it allow for the commander's genius to deal with the "fog of war"?). To my knowledge, the central debate among scholars is not "Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?" but rather "Could the Schlieffen Plan have been made to work?" This debate, no doubt, focuses on the myriad revisions to the Plan made by Moltke, and whether these changes doomed the Schlieffen Plan. Some scholars (most notably David Stevenson) refer to the "Schlieffen-Moltke Plan" to reflect the significance of these changes. -- Af35 10:28, 10 Sept 2005 (UTC)

I'm slowly writing a new version of this article over at User:Mackensen/Schlieffen Plan, where I hope that all these issues can be addressed. Mackensen (talk) 16:35, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Mackensen: Nice article. Let me know if you need any help with anything. Most of my research is/was on WWI submarine warfare, but I've done small research projects on the opening offensives. I see you've located the two best articles on the SP: Ritter and Zuber. You may also find the following books to be useful (sometimes overlooked by historians as they are more often considered "Military Security" works: Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decisionmaking and the Disasters of 1914; Martin van Creveld, Supplying War. Also good is Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War, eds. As an aside, an interesting issue is why Germany's opening offensive was unsuccessful in the West, but successful in the East (i.e., Tannenberg/Masurian Lakes -- the Battle of Gumbinnen is usually skipped with good reason). Debate typically focuses on (a) the force-to-space ratio; (b) quality of generalship (Moltke vs. Ludendorff/Hindenburg vs. Prittwitz vs. Samsonov), and (c) the use/misuse of lateral railways, etc. -- Af35 19:32, 11 Sept 2005 (UTC).

Kudos on the summary of the Plan. It's nice to come across a straight forward, accessible description of it. I'm amazed how frequently I see discussion of the Plan that contains no reference to the theme of it: defense as offense, aggressive annihilation as the only possible path to victory, etc. Dxco 05:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

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"described the plan as a blueprint for victory, that was fatally flawed in its implementation by the successor of Schlieffen," is unclear English. was the blueprint or the implementation flawed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.49.142.111 (talk) 05:44, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Netherlands

I read some where else on wikipedia I think, that the army mobilized by the Dutch was 500.000 men strong instead of the 90,000 mentioned in the article.??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NH-obi (talk • contribs) 17:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

90,000 is about right. 72.173.169.25 (talk) 01:35, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Dates

Surely if the Schlieffen Plan was made in 1905 it couldn't have been drawn up in response to the Triple Entente which was signed in 1907?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.245.28.240 (talk • contribs) 15:53, 10 January 2006.

You're right, I've edited it.--Johnbull 22:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

vonMoltke was a traitor to his Fatherlands. He sent troops East "believing France was defeated"?? The reader is asked to understand that that quotation is an inference. Moltke's true inner thoughts not having been recorded, that is all one can do. Nevertheless, the only fact that can be observed is that Moltke pulled troops from the Western Front prematurely. As it would happen, that fact is also consistent with intentional sabotage. Again, that too is an inference. Again, Moltke's physical brainwaves were not recorded for posterity. All we know is he prematurely pulled troops East. Perhaps, yes, he truly "believed France was defeated". Perhaps also, however, he was willfully sabotaging the German war effort. And his desire to preserve the territorial integrity of the Netherlands makes little sense. With a 1 on 2 war versus 2 major powers, Germany needed every advantage it could manufacture. So keeping Netherlands friendly is a Red Herring, because Victory trumps all other concerns -- you can cope with supply difficulties more easily than armies, especially because fighting those armies demands additional supplies! Moreover, let's say Netherlands stays friendly. Great. Now England blockades the port. It's worthless, and you just wasted a battle advantage for squat. von Moltke = traitor (and certain people know it)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.235.44.73 (talk • contribs) 04:23, 17 February 2006.

This is ridiculous and absurd. The Russian 1st Army won the Battle of Gumbinnen and were only 60 miles from Konigsberg the capital of East Prussia! It was really easy for von Schlieffen, a West Prussian, to offer up East Prussia to the Russians in theory, but when faced with the reality of the situation von Moltke and the rest of the German ruling elite realized that they couldn't give up the ancient capital of their kingdom and all their extensive estates. If anyone is a traitor it is Schlieffen: The Russians were beaten back in 1914 but 30 years later they conquered East Prussia and still hold it, most of it in Poland now. 72.173.169.25 (talk) 01:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC) 72.173.169.25 (talk) 01:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC) 02:19, 16 August 2011

That's lible, calling von Moltke a "traitor to the fatherland"! Although the troops he transferred got to East Prussia AFTER the Germans won the Battle of Tannenburg, they certainly left before then. The concept of the Schlieffen plan was to defeat France BEFORE the Russians could rouse themselves to attack Germany's exposed Eastern Frontier. You also need to remember that the roads limited the number of German Troops that would have been available for the Battle of the Marne anyway. As it was, the main reason why the Schlieffen Plan came as close to success as it did was because the French did what von Schlieffen himself didn't believe Germany could plan on, and attack German Territory! The French pushed the bulk of their army into the attack on Alsace-Lorraine, and suffered huge casulaties as a result! If von Moltke hadn't "broken the Plan" and put extra troops on that frontier, perhaps the French would have smashed their way through, and not sufferend the huge losses they did? Certainly he would have been under pressure to withdraw a lot more units to bolster the situation. As it was, the troops he had there were enough to contain the French. Does that make him a "hero of the Fatherland"? Surely it would! If you want to criticise von Moltke, surely the best criticism is that he only had ONE plan. The Kaiser had asked if he could mobalise against Russia alone, and von Moltke told him it was impossible as the paperwork would take a year! I would have thought it was a valid criticism to say he should have had a plan for war against Russia alone. It would have been like the Pentagon in the 1960's going to war with China by invading East Germany!

Modifications and failure

There was next to no info on Moltke's changes, and the main reasons for the plans failure. I added these, and removed a couple of bits where info was doubled-up. --- Guest User- 4th March 2006.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.7.176.133 (talk • contribs) 02:13, 4 March 2006.

Historical importance

It seems that the article fails to convey the full historical significance of the Schlieffen Plan. The eminent war historian John Keegan referred to it in his The First World War as arguably the most important document of the 20th Century in terms of global impact, yet there is no such discussion in the article. I am not an expert on the subject, so if someone more knowledgeable might add something to this effect, I'm sure the article would be improved. A.G. Pinkwater 01:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Why no discussion of the impact of this plan and its relative failure on subsequent German and European military thinking. Think about it - Put this plan upside down and backwards, i.e., clockwise instead of counter-clockwise and you have US general H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.'s plan to oust Iraq from Kuwait, with the lighter airborn units, helo-airborn units and light armor swinging to the northwest to descend upon Iraqi forces from the unsuspected northwest! SimonATL 04:59, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Rotate anything, and it can look like everything else :) Particularly when discussing this kind of topic, we should be wary of seeing too many similarities between things: a lot of stuff ends up looking smilar, at first glance, to other things. However, I agree with the commenters that the significance of the Plan is a topic truly worth delving into. While it can (and has) been argued that the Plan got morphed beyond recognition, it is the philosophy of the Plan that was both oddly persistent over time, and fascinatingly part of a long-term modification in thinking (which started far before it, and continued well beyond the Plan). Dxco 04:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Barbara Tuchman also goes in depth into the Schlieffen Plan in her book The Guns of August. She spends a great deal of time discussing the slow conversion of the plan from a single envelopment to the grander double envelopment used by Hannibal. I am surprised that her book is not cited in this article, as the various history professors I had in college all considered her an authority on the subject. My honors history prof went as far as to say that if Germany had followed Schlieffen's Plan, we would all be speaking German instead of English! - Bonnie 23:04, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Was your Honors history prof a Military Historian? Otherwise it sounds like someone simply repeating long held myths. The Plan was a response to the problem of Germany being faced with a Franco-Russian alliance, and the belief that this would give them the best chance of victory. The "Plan" wasn't "brilliant" or "foolproof" and wrecked by von Moltke's "incompetence". It came close to success because the French attacked the German frontier, and suffered huge losses for next to no gain, something which von Schlieffen believed Germany could not count on. It failed because the French in 1914, unlike 1940, reacted fast enough to the German attack to be able to counter it in time. German won the Franco-Prussian War when the French invaded Germany, and were surrounded and cut off, and forced to surrender at Sedan. To cut off the main French forces retreating from the Alsace-Lorraine frontier would be if all the effort went into the LEFT FLANK. Von Schlieffen, as I understand it, expected the main clash of arms to be deep in French territory, and no fighting on the border at all. The Plan HAD to be different to the one he put up.

As for comparing the plan to Schwarzkopf's offensive: a better comparison would be the attack on Pearl Harbor. In BOTH cases, the plan was a response to the strategic situation the planners were faced with. For the Germans it was the threat of a two front war spreading their army out too thinly. For the Japanese, it was a war with a superior enemy. In both cases, they wanted to attack, and take out a large compoent of the enemy at the start. For the Japanese it was to criple teh US Pacific Fleet, so teh new ships being built would replace losses rather than add strength, and give the Japanese time to conquor territories unhindered by the Pacific Fleet. After that their plan was to "wear down" the US in costly battles in the Central Pacific which the "soft Americans" would tire of, and accept a peace which would let the Japanese keep most of their conquests. Yamamoto was pessimistic about how such a war would end (he knew Japan was no match for the US), but he believed that the attack on Pearl Harbor was the best chance they had to win. For the Germans, they may, or may not, have really believed the Plan would work, but surely they must have believed it gave them the best chance of Winning! Germany had the strongest army in the world in 1914 (although it was smaller than the Russian Army, it was better trained, armed and equipped), but in a long War against France and Russia (much less Britain as well) they'd be faced with a position of being a war with a combination with a much bigger population base, and hence larger armies more capable of sustaining casulties. So they wanted to play to their strengths: stronger army at the start; internal lines of communication (so they could quickly transfer troops from one front to the other, and have better command and control than opponents whose coordination would be fairly poor), and use this to knock one enemy out of the war so they could then concentrate on the other. France, simply due to geography, was the easiest to knock out. Whether the German High Command really thought the Plan would work, or how confident they were is hard to say, but clearly they thought it was the best option.

The Schlieffen plan article is seriously out of date. 'The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered' in War in History in 1999 and 'Inventing the Schlieffen Plan'(OUP) in 2002 showed that the actual "Schlieffen Plan" was written in January 1906, after Schlieffen had retired. It required an army of 96 divisions and a one-front war against France alone. In 1906 the entire German army included only 72 divisions. Schlieffen was actually saying that a right-wing attack through Belgium would only work if the German army had 24 divisions that did not exist. The 'Schlieffen Plan' was an arguement for a vastly expanded German army. There is no evidence that it was ever the German war plan - where would the 24 non-existent divisions, more than two complete armies, come from? In 1914 the Germans were facing a two-front war and could initially deploy only 68 divisions in the west. The author discovered the war games that Schlieffen held while he was still Chief of the General Staff, which show that Schlieffen anticipated a coordinated Franco-Russian attack (which is what actually happened) and wanted to use German rail mobility to counterattack against these offensives. Therefore, Schlieffen never intended to plunge into either the interior of France or Russia, but to stay close to the German railheads. There is no evidence that in 1914 Moltke was attempting to employ the Schlieffen plan or anything like it. The "Schlieffen Plan" that everybody loves so well was a post-WWI fabrication, which the General Staff used as an excuse to explain why it lost the Battle of the Marne - Schlieffen had bequeathed an infallible plan to Moltke who never understood it and "watered it down". Ritter took the Schlieffen plan and used it as evidence for the evils of German militarism. Neither the General Staff nor Ritter had any interest in explaining the glaring inconsistencies in the plan. The "Schlieffen Plan" myth is satisfying because it is easy to understand: all you need are little maps with big arrows. Real strategy is much more complex and requires attention to detail, and neither 'The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered' nor 'Inventing the Schlieffen Plan' are light bedtime reading. Old Grunt 23:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC) Old Grunt

• I couldn't agree more. I've been working on a draft article (User:Mackensen/Schlieffen Plan) that incorporates Zuber's criticisms but I confess that I have not progressed very far. Mackensen (talk) 00:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"On the other hand, the Western Allies had equipment far superior to Central and East Allied weapons, and were better trained." This sentence is factually incorrect. A look at the casualty figures for each side makes it explicit: the German army was tremendously more effective than the Allies purely on kills to deaths ratio, but was forced to mobilize a much higher percentage of their population. They lost because they faced supremely more powerful enemies - the combined weight of the Allied forces, in terms of manpower, volume of equipment, etc, meant that their defeat would have come a LOT sooner had the Germans truly been less effective than the Allies. I believe that Niall Ferguson's 'The Pity Of War' elaborates on this theme. This and the above comments show that this article needs some serious revision. I'm surprised the apocryphal tale of Schlieffen's last words being "Make sure to keep the right flank nice and strong" was not included. 121.45.58.138 10:22, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

26 Years Later

The article states "While the German army of 1914 was not sufficiently mobile for the plan to succeed, only 26 years later the same concept executed with more mobile forces was extremely successful"

I think this is pretty misleading. To suggest the German invasion of France and the low countries in 1940 was anything like the same concept as the Schlieffen Plan (as the article seems to suggest) is a falsehood. In fact, the Germans relied on the Allies responding as if to a Schlieffen plan in 1940 thereby drawing Allied forces into the low countries and away from the Meuse and Sedan, the centre of gravity of the German advance..... Unless I have just gone totally mental or something, that is. Jonewer 16:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I wrote that part into the article, and here's how I saw the similarity: (1) avoid a southern advance, yet tie French forces by limited attacks, (2) void neutrality of the Low Countries, (3) maintain initiative, (4) envelop the enemy (though the decisive envelopment took place to the north, not south as envisioned by Schlieffen).

In practice the German attack was more successful than the planners had expected, and had Guderian and Rommel not taken advantage of battlefield opportunities in violation of their orders, the outcome might have been different. The Schwerpunkt through the Ardenne forest and the new techniques for dealing with fixed fortifications were effective at maintaining the initiative. But in the end, the fate of the Allied forces was sealed by the pivoting front that extended all the way to the Channel, and also represented the core of the Shlieffen plan. (In addition to incredibly poor French leadership, perhaps even worse than that of WWI.Aki Korhonen —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aki009 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC) Aki Korhonen 18:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Where is the beginning of the Meuse (Maas)? In "The low countries", of course. The part of the Meuse that was initially attacked is in Belgium. Even though the Germans used the plains of Brabant and Flanders as a feint for attacking France in 1940, Belgian neutrality was once again violated and the Belgian Ardennes were this time used as a conduit for attacking France. In both 1914 and 1940, the crucial part of the German plan to overwhelm France called for the violation of the neutrality of Belgium and Luxembourg.Laburke (talk) 02:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Schleiffen's last words

Does anyone still believe this? Can anyone find a reference to this from a witness of his death?Keith-264 (talk) 19:27, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Very believable. Schlieffen was obsessed with his war plan and unfortunately, that plan became a national obsession. If I were Schlieffen my last words would have been "Keep the right wing strong!" Missaeagle (talk) 04:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

Comments by 65.78.225.28

[The following comments were placed by 65.78.225.28 in the article page and subsequently reverted, as they discuss the article rather than directly improve it. I think, though, that they are worthy of attention by an expert. --Zvika (talk) 05:23, 13 September 2010 (UTC)]

There was a German war plan, which counted on defeating the French and Russians by conducting a strategy of warfare on “interior lines”, inflicting enough damage to the French to allow the Germans to shift some (but by no means all) German forces to the east. The real German war plan had nothing to do with the “Schlieffen plan”. The so-called “Schlieffen plan” was laid out in a memorandum written in 1906 by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1905. . The Wikipedia “Schlieffen Plan” article does not cite so much as one line from the actual “Schlieffen plan” memorandum, and there is no evidence in this article that its author has ever read the “Schlieffen plan” itself. Instead, the author of the Wikipedia article cites a “History of the World in the 20th Century”, which is so general that in this context it is worthless. The Wikipedia Schlieffen plan article says (p. 1-2) that “The plan called for sending 91% of the German troops to France and 9% to Russia…The idea of the plan was to win the two-front war by first quickly beating France…the plan scheduled 39 days for the fall of Paris and 42 for the capitulation of France – before the “Russian steamroller” would be able to mobilize and descend on East Prussia”. The real Schlieffen plan memorandum was for a one front war against France only, and not for a war against both France and Russia. The first three words in the actual Schlieffen plan, found alone at the top left hand side of the first page, are: “War against France”. The only mention that the actual Schlieffen plan makes of Russia is to say that the Russians would not support the French. There is no mention in the Schlieffen plan of sending 9% of the German force – or any German forces at all – against Russia, nor of the Germans transferring forces east to fight the Russians. There is no mention in the actual Schlieffen plan memorandum (nor, for that matter, in any other German war planning document) of the Germans capturing Paris at all, much less in exactly 39 days, nor of defeating the French in 42 days. None of this is a recent revelation. The inconsistencies in the “Schlieffen plan” have been well-known for decades, and all of these facts were presented in 1999 , 2002 and most forcefully by Terence Holmes in 2003. . The source of the “Schlieffen plan” myth is to be found in the German official history of the Great War, which maintained that the younger Moltke should have followed the “Schlieffen plan” concept, but did not. . The German official history also admitted that in 1914 Moltke did not have the number of divisions required to execute the “Schlieffen plan”. When Gerhard Ritter made the original Schlieffen plan documents public for the first time in 1956, for political and ideological reasons he disregarded both the clear meaning of the text and the German official history, and maintained that the Schlieffen plan was the actual German war plan in 1914. . Later commentators went Ritter one better and without any evidence whatsoever added the 42-day timetable to the “Schlieffen plan”. The only “proof” for the “Schlieffen plan” comes from a superficial analysis of the famous “Schlieffen plan” map, which will be the subject of my next correction.

The Wikipedia article says that the Schlieffen plan provided a strategy for a two-front war against France and Russia, which would have resulted in the occupation of Paris in 39 days and total victory over the French in 42 days. My rebuttal merely says that none of this is contained in the actual Schlieffen plan Memorandum. This is not new information: the Memorandum was published in 1958 (52 years ago). Verifying my argument does not require an “expert”: the Memorandum is only 18 pages long, easily comprehensible and is in any case listed in the Wikipedia article Bibliography. It would seem incumbent on the author of an article on the “Schlieffen plan” to have actually read and understood the Memorandum that the “Schlieffen plan” is based on. It is certainly necessary for the author of the “Schlieffen plan” article to show that his description of the plan corresponds to the Schlieffen plan Memorandum itself: since the author of the Wikipedia article cannot do so, intellectual honesty demands that at the very least he add a statement at the bottom of The Plan to the effect that: “This description of the ‘Schlieffen plan’ is not to be found in the actual Schlieffen plan Memorandum written by Schlieffen (see Ritter, “Schlieffen plan” in Bibliography). The real Schlieffen plan Memorandum was based on a one-front war against France alone, not a two-front war against France and Russia, and the Memorandum set neither a 39-day timetable for the capture of Paris nor 42-day timetable victory over France, indeed it included no timetable whatsoever.”

The Wikipedia article maintains that Belgian resistance delayed the Germans for “nearly a month”. In fact, the German Army began to mobilize on 2 August. By 12 August the German 1st Army, the northernmost Army in the German deployment, had assembled its active-army corps northeast of Aachen and began forward movement, a day ahead of schedule By 15 August 1st Army had crossed the Meuse, without any interference from the few remaining forts at Liege. On 18 August the German right wing, 1st though 5th Armies, began forward movement. The rightmost 1st Army marched 135 kilometers across Belgium to Mons in five days (18-22 August), or 27 kilometers a day. It is safe to say that the author of the Wikipedia article has never marched 135 kilometers carrying full pack in the August heat, but even so, it should be obvious that the Belgians were not delaying 1st Army. The Belgian army withdrew to Antwerp and did not budge until after the Battle of the Marne. The Germans detailed III Reserve Corps to watch the Belgians, in other words, two German reserve divisions against five Belgian divisions. None of the five German right-wing armies encountered more than token resistance from the Belgian army. This was no accident: it was in the Belgians interest for the Germans pass through Belgium as quickly as possible, and the Belgians had no desire to see World War I being fought on in central Belgium.

According to the Wikipeda article, the British army derailed the Schlieffen plan, first by delaying the German advance, then by forcing the German 1st Army to turn south instead of marching around the west side of Paris. In fact, it cannot be said that the British delayed the German 1st Army very much at all. At Mons, on 23 and 24 August, and Le Cateau 26 August the British did not delay the Germans any more than did the French 5th Army to its right. However, British II Corps had taken 11,000 casualties (more than one-third of its infantry) and lost about 50 guns and was no longer combat-capable. The BEF was in such bad shape that the commander, Sir John French, considered withdrawing from France altogether. After 26 August the British were retreating south as fast as their legs would carry them, and would not stop until 5 September. Joffre had to order the French 5th Army to attack the German 2nd Army on 30 August to cover the British withdrawal. The French 5th Army was forced to retreat, at which point the German 1st Army turned south to try to turn the French 5th Army left flank.

The Wikipedia article contends that the Russians attacked earlier than the Germans expected, creating a crisis that required the Germans to shift forces to East Prussia from the west. In fact, the Russian 1st Army crossed the border on the 18th day of Russian mobilization, the 2nd Army on the 21st day. This hardly surprised the Germans – it meant to the Germans only that the Russians were attacking as soon as possible, with only their active-army units, and were not waiting for their reserve units to arrive. The German crisis occurred because, having lost a corps-sized engagement, on 20 August the German commander in East Prussia panicked and reported that he was going to fall back to the Vistula River and abandon East Prussia. Moltke immediately replaced him with Hindenburg. On 24 August, after Moltke was sure that the Germans had defeated the French in the west, he decided to transfer six corps to the east. Such a maneuver had always been Schlieffen’s intent, which Schlieffen had practiced in all of his two-front wargames. However, Moltke then decided to reduce that force to two corps, while continuing the attack in the west. He thereby broke with Schlieffen’s planning and we can now speak of a Moltke operation.

According to the Wikipedia article, the French rail net allowed them to transfer troops “from the border to Alsace Lorraine.” All of Alsace, and almost all of Lorraine, were German territory. According to the Wikipedia author, the French were sending the bulk of their army by rail into Germany.

The Wikipedia article says that the Germans were “greatly amazed” when the British supported Belgian neutrality. In fact, Schlieffen played the arrival of a British army in northern Belgium in his 1905 wargame . More to the point, in February 1906 Schlieffen revised the Schlieffen plan Memorandum itself to provide for a British army landing on the Continent. In 1914 the Germans were practically certain the British would send an army to the Continent, the question was, where? IX Reserve Corps was kept in north Germany in case the British landed there. According to the German intelligence estimate, the British could also land at Antwerp or north France (as they actually did). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.225.168 (talk) 13:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Greatly Amazed is probably an exaggeration, but I do suspect that the Germans hoped that the Brits would hold aloof at least. Britain had been making some friendly overtures in 1914. I think we need to differentiate between the German General Staff, who had to plan for a British intervention, and the German Diplomatic Corps, which hoped the Brits would stay out. The British Army didn't play a large role in the events of 1914 (although I think some go too far in writing them off), but in the wider conflict, Britain's intervention was a disaster for Germany.

The Wikipedia article says that Moltke “disagreed with at least some of the Schlieffen plan” but “having been devised in 1905, was now too much a part of German military thinking to be abandoned completely, so all Moltke could do is modify it”. In fact, the plan was dated December 1905. Schlieffen retired on 1 January 1906. At the very best, the plan had been “a part of German military thinking” for a month by the time Moltke became chief of the General Staff. However, Wolfgang Foerster, (who wrote the German official history in the early 1920s), told Gerhard Ritter (in the mid-1950s) that Schlieffen had actually written the plan in January and February 1906, which is to say, after Schlieffen had retired and while Moltke was already chief of the General Staff. The Wikipedia statement is completely wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.225.168 (talk) 13:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Zvika, it seems regrettable that 65.78.22.168's excellent comments have never been properly addressed. The article in its present form does not seem at all to reflect best scholarship of recent decades, but rather to perpetuate discredited, over-simplified myths about the events of August 1914. To note only the most obvious problem, a tremendous number of statements in the article are made without any citations at all. I could insert more "citation needed" indications at innumerable points in the article, but that would not really get us anywhere I suppose. Still, the article as it stands does not come close to meeting encyclopedic standards. And conceptually, it probably misses a core reality that German planning in 1911-14 involved more a belief that they must strike first to overcome their inherent geographic liability of facing major enemies on two fronts, rather than any belief -- with the heavier armaments and forces that would be deployed as compared with 1870 -- that they could thereby score a quick knockout of either France or Russia. --Pechmerle (talk) 05:21, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

References

Potential NPOV in sentence "... had Moltke not depleted..."

Hi Wikipedians, to me the sentence referred in this section's title (...had Moltke not depleted ...) seems non-neutral, hence I tagged asking for a citation (and probably a rewording might help too). In Schlieffen's biography wikiarticle is said that some sources support this position (that Moltke's changes to plan brought it to failure) while other sources do not. Shouldn't these different positions be explained further in the plan's wikiarticle?
Regards, DPdH (talk) 09:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The Plan

After the victory in the Franco-Prussian War, which was a cavalry and infantry war, the Germans must have planned for another war with and another attack on France. As the years passed and a new resurgant France rapidly paid off the massive German fine, the idea of such an attack must have receeded.

France was making massive investments in Russia which the Tsar was using to modernise his vast army. Increasingly the situation must have seemed to the Germans that an attack by Russia was by far the more likely and immediate threat. The Schlieffen plan must have been almost forgotten by 1900 and had the dust blown off it a few years later, for a brief period.

The war with France and Britain, rather than Russia, caught the German Army staff almost by surprise but all they had to counter this was an invasion plan initially drawn up a generation earlier. It had to be dusted down and used as it was all there was. But for the invention of heavy shell artillery, machine guns and accurate rifle fire since the days of massed cavalry actions, it might even have been successful.AT Kunene (talk) 10:27, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Some of those comments make no sense "After the victory in the Franco-Prussian War, which was a cavalry and infantry war, the Germans must have planned for another war with and another attack on France. As the years passed and a new resurgent France rapidly paid off the massive German fine, the idea of such an attack must have receded." The "fine" (indemnity really) was designed to impoverish France, and prevent her from building an Army sufficiently strong to challenge a newly united Germany. People were amazed that the French were able to pay it off so quickly. Why would the German General Staff have "a plan" for when the French were struggling to pay off the indemnity, and then discard it once they were free to put all that money into the French Army? Makes no sense. As it was the General Staff had prepared a plan in case of a war with France and Russia. The elder von Moltka planned to go on the defensive in the West, and to invade Russian territory. However it wasn't an "advance to Moscow", the idea was to advance into Poland and take up a defensive position. Schlieffen's plan was very different to that of his predecessors.

As for this one "war with France and Britain, rather than Russia, caught the German Army staff almost by surprise but all they had to counter this was an invasion plan initially drawn up a generation earlier", sorry but this simply isn't true. The crisis of 1914 was an EASTERN Crisis, it involved the "national interest" of Austria-Hungary and Russia, and it was the Tsar's decision to order mobilisation that caused Germany to declare war on Russia! The Kaiser actually asked von Moltka (the younger) if it was possible to simply mobilise against Russia, as the French were staying out of it at that point, and von Moltka replied it was impossible as all the orders were for the attack on France and it couldn't be changed as the paperwork would take a year! This doesn't sound like the Germans were "surprised" at all and had to "dust off an old plan". They were obsessed with the concept of a "two front war" and simply assumed that this is what they were facing, and hadn't planned for a war against Russia alone.

The concept of the plan (whether you call it the Schlieffen plan or the Moltka plan) is that because France was much smaller in area than Russia, it was possible for the mighty German army to deliver a killer blow in a relatively short time. It was NOT possible to do this against Russia. This is simply due to the enormous size of Russia. The Russians could trade space for time (as they ultimately did, and did again in WWII), and even if the Germans ultimately won, it would simply take months to advance all the way to a place like Moscow. We're talking 1914 here - no tanks and APCs. German planners fully recognised this. If they advanced like that and left the French at their back, there was a supreme risk the French would attack and occupy Germany's western territories. Simple geography therefore dictated that if the Germans were to knock one power out of the war, it would have to be the French. It would take Russia longer to mobilise (their men had further to travel, and the rail network wasn't as intensive as the French one), and the German's could march to Paris within 6 weeks. I've always seen the plan as the German response to the strategic dilemma the politicians (and Kaiser) had put them in. Also the Plan had nothing to do with Britain. It was all about France and Russia. Britain didn't have compulsory national service in 1914 the way France and Germany did, and so it's army was very small, even if it was fully professional.

The article also simply doesn't reflect well the obvious political-diplomatic realities that made planning for a two-front war an inevitable necessity for the German general staff. All sides knew of the Franco-Russian treaty of mutual support, and of the Anglo-French entente. As the previous commenter reminds us, it all began as an Eastern crisis, with the Austrian attack on Serbia. The German politicians may have hoped that Germany coming to the aid of Austro-Hungary after the Russian declaration of war was triggered by Austro-Hungary's attack on Serbia would not lead to the triggering of the full web of alliances and the war of all against all that resulted. But the German Army certainly did not share such an optimistic view of the scenarios for which they had to have strategies. --Pechmerle (talk) 05:31, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Political/diplomatic factors

Should be a little bit more about how the plan required Germany to launch a war of offensive aggression whenever the French and/or Russians just decided to start mobilizing their reserves. There are some obvious drawbacks to a plan that's guaranteed to translate increased tension into actual war... AnonMoos (talk) 00:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly right. But there have been a number of historical situations in which one side has treated the other's decision to mobilize its reserves as inherently an act of war in and of itself. --Pechmerle (talk) 05:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Additional

The additional section has been marked for clean up for over 2 years and doesn't contain a single reference . It needs to be referenced and integrated into the text or should go Gnevin (talk) 13:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The opinion of Terrence Zuber

I am currently doing some work reorganizing this article. Although I have some interest in WWI, I am not an expert on either WWI or the Schlieffen plan. That is why I am making minimal changes in the content of the article. After reading the comments posted above by 65.78.225.28, I think we need an expert on the topic of the Schlieffen plan to evaluate the current status of the debate regarding the opinion of Terrence Zuber, who argued in his book Inventing the Schlieffen plan that what came to be known as "the Schlieffen plan" was invented by the German General Staff after WWI in order to shift responsibility for Germany's defeat somewhere else. This opinion needs to be evaluated in light of Wikipedia:NPOV and specifically Wikipedia:DUE. If his theory is now a majority opinion among military historians, then this entire article needs serious revision. If his theory has gained wide acceptance (or widespread partial acceptance) and yet is still a minority opinion, then we at least need to add a paragraph or a section that summarizes his theory. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?JDefauw (talk) 00:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)JDefauw

We do need a revision of this article by someone who has reviewed carefully the extensive debate in scholarly history circles about the "plan." The problem is how time consuming that would be for anyone other than an historian specializing in the period. And access to all the -- now numerous -- books and journal articles in the debate would also be problematic for someone with only internet resources available. I'm afraid that we won't attract the desirable historian as an editor of this article, but I also think that as it stands -- per 65.78.225.28's comments -- it is a seriously misleading presentation, mired in a view that was "tradition" on the topic for a few decades but has since been superseded by more sophisticated analysis. The model of an article by dedicated amateurs is challenged on a topic like the "plan."

It is also worth noting how poorly sourced much of the article is. There are lengthy passages stating important conclusions that have no citations at all. This is very troubling on a subject of such importance in military history. The bibliography appended is of greater depth than the actual notes to the article; the article does not actually stand on the foundation of the works in the bibliography -- at least as far as citations show. --Pechmerle (talk) 06:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The alternatives are to place at the top of the page a clean-up rewrite tag or an expert-subject tag or a tag asking for additional citations. Even if we don't attract an expert on the topic, we can still bring the article a little closer to meeting encyclopedic standards. As the article stands now, the traditional view is challenged at least to some extent in the last section of the article by Fromkin and Stevenson. The problem is that most of the article simply assumes that the traditional view is true without alerting the reader that the traditional view has been challenged over the past decade.

We could also divide the heading "The Schlieffen Plan" into two subheadings--"The traditional view" and "Challenges to the traditional view". We would then place the paragraphs on the opinions of Fromkin and Stevensen under the 2nd subheading, (and also summarize the opinion of Terrence Zuber once we gain access one of his books or his 1999 journal article). Over time we could add new material to the 2nd subheading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JDefauw (talk • contribs) 19:34, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Those are all good points. If you know how (I'm technically challenged with templates), I suggest you do add the expert-subject tag. I think the division into two subheadings would also be helpful in better focusing where the problems are. I may, through a combination of my local library's online services and JSTOR be able to see a copy of Zuber's 1999 article. I'll look into that. --Pechmerle (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I am starting separate bibliography specifically on the debates over the last 13 years at User:JDefauw/Bibliography of Schlieffen plan. There is also a helpful overview and bibliography at User:Mackensen/Schlieffen Plan. This page was completed in 2007. The creator of that page says that his overview needs to be updated, and he is unable to do any work on this at this time. —Preceding undated comment added 18:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

JDefauw, I went back and re-read the comments of 65.78.22.168 above. Considering the phraseology and points made, and recalling the comments at that military blog thread that we both took a look at, I see a possibility that 65.78.22.168 was none other than Zuber himself. Nothing wrong with that, but it is interesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pechmerle (talk • contribs) 07:16, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

You may be right. Whoever he is, we know he made some valid points that need to be addressed.

You were right when you said this is not a research project for amateur historians. Our local library does not subscribe to any of the services that would give them access to the Journal of Military History. I could not locate "The Schlieffen Plan reconsidered" by Terence Zuber on JSTOR. "One Throw of the Gambler's Dice, etc." by Terence Holmes is on JSTOR, with no purchase options for those of us who are not affiliated with an institution that has access to JSTOR. If you have access to JSTOR by means of an institution, it will help a lot. My next step is to try WikiProject Resource Exchange. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JDefauw (talk • contribs) 02:05, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

My city library gives me some access to JSTOR. When I get a chance (not very soon), I'll see if I can get access to the Terence Holmes article that way. --Pechmerle (talk) 05:43, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Clarity surrounding German troop deployments

I've just read through this article for the first time and there is a sentence in the section 'Moltke's changes to the plan' that may cause some confusion when it comes to understanding the strategic deployment of German troops prior to the invasion. Unless of course I am guilty of misinterpreting it.

The section states; "Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke made several changes to the Schlieffen Plan. Most importantly, he initially reinforced the east with 180,000 men from the right-wing armies, weakening the invasion force in favor of defense. Moltke balked at the weakness of the Alsatian "hinge" region, fearing that the massive strength of the right wing's hammer would allow the French to break through the relatively sparsely manned left-wing "anvil". This had been part of Schlieffen's design: his plan called for the invading French forces to be enveloped. Schlieffen had been willing to sacrifice some German territory in the short run to decisively destroy the French Army. Moltke refused to run the same risk and shifted some divisions from the right flank to the left flank in Alsace-Lorraine."

To me, the bolded part paints the picture that troops were moved to the East, as in to the Eastern Front to face Russia, but further on it then becomes clear that "east" pertains to the deployment of troops to the Anglo-German border. This is exasperated by the fact that the entire article frequently mentions the shifting of troops between the Western (Anglo-French) and Eastern (Russian) Fronts. Shouldn't the part ". . .he initially reinforced the east with 180,000 men. . ." read something on the lines of ". . .he initially reinforced the Anglo-German border with 180,000 men. . ." or "he initially reinforced the Alsatian region with 180,000 men. . ." or some other variation that helps to clarify the strategic deployment of troops? Thesmartstag (talk) 09:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

This does need to be addressed. When I recently reorganized the article, I think I misinterpreted the material at the beginning of this section. Having just now re-read an earlier version of the article (before I started to rearrange it), it appears that the 180,000 really were sent to the east to fight against the Russians, and then 80,000 more were sent to to fight the Russians immediately before the Battle of Tannenberg. In addition, troops were also taken away from the right wing invasion through Belgium and sent to Alsace-Lorraine. Tomorrow, I'll try to verify that a total of 260,000 troops were actually reassigned to fight against the Russians, and then make the change.JDefauw (talk) 04:32, 5 September 2012 (UTC)JDefauw

I made the necessary changes. Thank you for catching my mistake. A source is provided in the Wikipedia article on von Moltke the younger for the statement that he moved 180,000 troops east before the war. Even though I have not seen the source, I will assume that it is right. The source is: Robert Crowley, What if?. "The What Ifs of 1914" (Penguin Group, New York, 2001), 275. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JDefauw (talk • contribs) 19:28, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Fantastic! Much clearer picture of the troop movements/deployments. I'm not familiar with that source either but it should do. Thesmartstag (talk) 14:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I noticed one or two grammatical errors which I tidied up and if it is alright I added two article links; breakthrough and the near destruction of the Russian Second Army while more German troops were in transit to the east in support of Ludendorff's recommendation not to weaken the invading force. Thesmartstag (talk) 14:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. I also provided a related article link to Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, which is short and well worth reading.JDefauw (talk) 02:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)JDefauw

Belgian Resistance, etc.

Belgian Resistance: The claim that the Belgians delayed the Germans by a month is a myth, deriving from Allied propaganda about "Brave Little Belgium." After a handful of small engagements, the Belgian Army retreated to Antwerp, arriving on August 20th, and was besieged. Of the forts, Liege was bombarded into surrender by August 14th, followed by Namur by the 23rd. That is, indeed, 21 days. But the German Army was not held up; as per the Plan, it continued to march into France while units stayed behind to mop up the forts. The article itself says, "the timetable for the Schlieffen Plan was going according to schedule before it was halted in France." It cannot have been both delayed for nearly a month and on schedule.

The Plan allowed 39 days for the encirclement of Paris. The invasion was on August 2nd; Paris should, therefore, have been reached on September 10th. The Battle of the Marne began on the 5th, when German troops were 10 miles from their objective and almost exactly on schedule. Although German troops remained behind, to guard against armed sorties from Antwerp, the most that the Belgians did was inflict heavier casualties than the Germans had anticipated.

The Belgian king did not flood the country. An area of about ten miles by one mile, between the River Yser and the Nieuport-Dixmude railway embankment was flooded, to impede the German advance towards the Channel ports and protect the Allied flank. The area was less than 0.1%, or 1/1200th, of the land area of Belgium.

German Underestimation: Britain and Belgium did not have a treaty. Belgium was forbidden to form treaties. Britain was a guarantor, under the Treaty of London, of Belgian neutrality, along with the other Powers, including Germany. Another way of putting it is that Belgium had what amounted to a treaty with everybody, against whoever might invade her.

Battle of Liège and the other pages branching from German invasion of Belgium have a more realistic description, partly taken from the German OH. You're quit right that this page reflects an earlier stage of research and needs to be adapted to take Zuber et al. into account. I'm tempted but stretched a bit too thin at the moment. My view is that while the Germans would have accepted a French debacle and pretended that it was what they planned all along, they were privately of the view that the sequel to the Marne was about par and that much of the German strategy in the west 1915-1917, was to exploit the position it had gained in 1914 to fight a defensive attrition campaign, in which the opponents had to try to emulate the German invasion of 1914 in the other direction.Keith-264 (talk) 13:48, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

A major revision that's more-or-less replaced the entire article, removing all the incorrect material until we can decide what to do with it

I've removed all the material that doesn't make reference to RH61/v.96 or refer to works that does, so the article as it now stands (6/6/14) is much shorter and has been written largely with reference to Holmes and a little to Zuber. But what the heck do we do with all the other stuff - the outdated, incorrect stuff that nevertheless gives background to German War Planning? It'd be a shame to just destroy it all forever, because I'm sure a lot of people have put a lot of effort into it, but it'd be a bit of a chore to correct it all. Worth it, I'd say, but still a chore.

If we don't manage to get a discussion going on this, I guess I'll just go ahead and edit it back in, with corrections where appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MAI 742 (talk • contribs) 11:42, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd keep a short version as a historiographical survey and a description of how wartime and post war claims by German Generals various were used as exculpations. The Battle of Liège and the other pages branching from German invasion of Belgium have a more realistic description of the fortress battles in Belgium, partly taken from the German OH. You're quite right that this page reflects an earlier stage of research and needs to be adapted to take Zuber et al. into account. I'm tempted but stretched a bit too thin at the moment. My view is that while the Germans would have accepted a French debacle and pretended that it was what they planned all along, they privately expected something like the Marne and its sequels, which was about par and that much of the German strategy in the west 1915-1917, was to exploit the position it had gained in 1914 to fight a defensive attrition campaign, in which the opponents had to try to emulate the German invasion of 1914 in the other direction. I'm not sure that Terry Z goes that far though.Keith-264 (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

PS new discussions go at the bottom of the page. RegardsKeith-264 (talk) 13:55, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Wow! This is ever so much better than the article was 12-18 months ago. For the traditional (and incorrect) view that the "Schlieffen Plan" was THE operational plan for 1914, reference needs to be made to Gerhard Ritter's book, which reprints a version of Schlieffen's memo and then grossly over-interprets it. For example, Ritter comes up with the 42-day timetable, when it is not in the Schlieffen text that he purports to be interpreting at all. I have a downloaded copy of the Ritter book. I need to get some references to it in here, as representing the traditional view and the source for many of those who followed that view from the '50's to the '90's. Don't know if Holmes, whose work I haven't seen, mentions this issue, though I rather assume that he does. But I have been swamped with my day job since the last time I did some input here. Kudos to all to have made these enormous improvements. Pechmerle (talk) 07:26, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Quite agree, MAI has brought the page into the C21st. I've got a copy of the Zuber book so I can remedy a few missing citations and page numbers. The history of Ze Plan! can go back in once the details of the real thing are sorted out. I got the pdf of Ritter too but haven't looked at it for a while. The quantity of apologist post war writing and pop-history farrago is quite daunting though.Keith-264 (talk) 07:35, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I'll echo the remarks of the others - looks like really nice work, well done! Hchc2009 (talk) 14:32, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

CE

Shifted references to bottom of page and changed to sfns. Several new citations need page numbers.Keith-264 (talk) 09:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Operationsentwurf vs Denkschrift The ongoing controversy of the whether or not there was a Schlieffen plan, and if so, what did it really say seems to me to be missing something. Rather than analyze the denkschrift my personal belief is to analyze the doctrinal orders production process to see if Schlieffen’s Denkschrift even qualifies as a formal plan at all. According to FELDDIENST ORDNUNG (1908), Schlieffens Denkschrift does not qualify as an operations order or formal plan. This led me to look at what a ‘denkschrift’ is actually considered and what I found is that it is a well developed concept paper in essence (general definition of a common term). This is not to be confused with an Operationsentwurf, which is a detailed analysis of a proposed operation created by a specific military staff. I believe Terrence Zuber is on the right path but perhaps has expressed his views in a way that has taken too much liberty with his interpretation of von Moltke’s thought process. Based upon the elder von Moltke’s accepted concept of the Aufmarsch (initial deployment) and the actual mobilization/deployment schedule of July/August 1914; clearly there was a plan in place to deal with France first. The pre-war development of heavy siege artillery as offensive instruments to break the latest fortresses in the West suggests that the favored plan would be very similar to the concept laid out by Schlieffen. Another explanation for the heavy siege artillery was to maintain the possibility of the Schlieffen concept by having the capability on hand to compromise the defensive fortress complexes should the need for an invasion of France arise. Personally I do believe that the ‘plan’ was a double envelopment and that the mobilization and deployments of 1914 are forensic evidence to that effect. However, I do not believe it was Schlieffen’s plan per se but more or less the accepted solution to the general problem of how Germany was to solve a two front war against a stronger coalition. I also believe that was the German plan for 1914, but not necessarily in every year prior (or after assuming war didn’t break out in 1914). The elder von Moltke shaped German military thought and subsequently codified it in doctrine which produced leadership that applied his basic principles. Looking at the Schlieffen Plan debate through that lens reveals that according to German doctrine there could only be an Aufmarsch backed by the Commander’s Intent and certainly not an inflexible dogmatic plan as has been suggested for decades. This single quote from von Moltke would invalidate that idea; “strategy is a system of expedients” and “no plan survives contact with the enemy’s main body”. Schlieffen’s Staff Rides support this as he sought to train creative and flexible thinking in the German officer corps. Taken in sum, I believe that the plan in 1914 was an Aufmarsch West and Moltke’s intent was a double envelopment. At no point do I find anything involving Schlieffen aside from post campaign criticism aimed at von Moltke by those that believe his concept was so different than Schlieffen’s as to be the cause of failure. The fortress systems and terrain of Eastern France and Belgium dictated the strong right wing envelopment and any Chief of the German General Staff would have acknowledged that. CTillman16 (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that's a pretty fair summary, particulary the context in which Ze Plan! existed; what would you alter in the text to incorporate it?Keith-264 (talk) 15:01, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I would say that the opening paragraphs could describe the overall framework of the doctrinal process and create a context for demonstrating what a campaign plan looks like from mobilization to initiation of operations and how operations are controlled (command and control mechanisms and functions). For example, points 49-50 from the 1908 Field Regulations state:

49. An order should contain, and only contain, everything which the recipient requires to know to enable him to carry out independently the task assigned to him. The order must, therefore, be clear and concise, definite and complete ; it must also be suited to the intellectual capacity of the recipient, and even, under certain circumstances, to his personal characteristics. When orders are sent by telegraph, lucidity must not be sacrificed to brevity.

50. In issuing orders, detailed instructions should be especially avoided in cases where circumstances may have changed before the order can be carried out. This point is especially important in field operations on a large scale, when orders may have to be issued extending over a period of several days. In such a case a commander's general intention should be emphasized, and special stress must be laid upon the object which he desires to attain. The general views of the commander for the conduct of the intended operations should be given, but the method of execution must be left open. An order thus issued assumes the nature of a directive'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CTillman16 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC) I think point 50 makes it clear that it was von Moltke's plan, especially this piece -a commander's general intention should be emphasized, and special stress must be laid upon the object which he desires to attain. The general views of the commander for the conduct of the intended operations should be given, but the method of execution must be left open.- It also lends itself as an analytical tool to highlight where von Moltke failed in the leadership aspect of the doctrinal design he was trained to execute.CTillman16 (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Yet in the course of the war there was considerable centralisation of some aspects of battle (Artillery, corps command, air power) and a lot of tactical decentralisation (small infantry units). Did Moltke fall between two stools? Do you have any sources to cite?Keith-264 (talk) 21:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

The points I quoted above are from Felddienst Ordnung 1908: https://archive.org/details/fieldserviceregu00prusrich 24.39.163.118 (talk) 12:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

[1] thanks, do you know of any writing which refers to it? We need to avoid original research WP:OR.Keith-264 (talk) 13:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't, at least not in English. I'll dig deeper when time permits. 24.39.163.118 (talk) 15:19, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be in English, although it helps.Keith-264 (talk) 15:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Citations

Managed to get a copy of Zuber and have added pages but in some cases only the chapter ranges. There are a couple of Holmes citations outstanding. Took the banner down.Keith-264 (talk) 08:46, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Arms race pre-1914

[Aufmarsch II West] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) became the main German deployment plan, as the Franco-Russian Entente expanded their armies and the German strategic situation deteriorated before 1914, Germany and Austria-Hungary being unable to increase their military spending to match them due to legislative deadlock.

What about the big German spending increase in 1913. Is the passage referring to the earlier 1900s-1910s?Keith-264 (talk) 06:06, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Yup. Holmes has no comment upon it (yet), but Zuber thought that the 1913 increase was too little and too late. Did Austria-Hungary totally fail to increase military spending, or did they just make a token effort?

Much of the Franco-Russian money went towards improving mobilisation times, IIRC? But that still left plenty for bigger armies... — Preceding unsigned comment added by MAI 742 (talk • contribs) 23:59, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

I have Wawro's recent book on Austria-Hungary before and during the war - I'm only part-way through it but it sounds as though the Hungarians repeatedly blocked attempts to strengthen the army, since they feared it would be used to against them. I can get page numbers if you like. Parsecboy (talk) 20:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Obsolete analyses

I'm having trouble finding citations because I'm guessing the sources. Does anyone know which books are being referred to please? RegardsKeith-264 (talk) 06:17, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Citation search

Found a couple to replace citation needed tags but that's it. Not sure which Palmer and which Cohn are being mentioned in the text. Anyone know? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 12:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Intro passage

I would like to suggest a rewrite/simplification of the intro section: it contains plenty of information from a passage about von Moltke's plans to details in the plan, but doesn't have a good thesis sentence explaining what the plan is. As someone with little historical knowledge, this article isn't very helpful: the first sentence is "The Schlieffen Plan was adopted as Aufmarsch I in 1905 and modelled a Franco-German war, which would not involve Russia but was expected to include Italy and Austria-Hungary as German allies." May I suggest something more direct, like "The Schlieffen Plan was a 1905 German military deployment plan for a two-front war against both France and Russia".

Elude107 (talk) 07:41, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Owzat?Keith-264 (talk) 09:03, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Recent additions

Added passages from Humphries and Maker on Der Weltkrieg, its view of Schlieffen and Moltke and their view of the debate.Keith-264 (talk) 22:47, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Additions

Most of the material I think the article needs has been added but the History of the Schlieffen Plan section needs re-doing because of overlaps and omissions such as Creveld and Foley; the Zuber thesis needs a clearer exposition.Keith-264 (talk) 13:50, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Moltke ruin the plan?

"The plan was ruined by its flawed implementation in 1914 by [Moltke]", or so says our lead. I rather doubt that this is the case. If Moltke had sent additional troops into France, as Schlieffen originally planned, then German supply problems would have been even more serious. The Germans advanced until they ran out of supplies, so I don't think more soldiers would have helped. The Belgians blew up several railway bridges, which limited Germany's ability to send supplies to the front. H. Humbert (talk) 08:44, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I think I put a full stop in the wrong place, does it read any better now?Keith-264 (talk) 12:16, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Chronology?

Why does this article have to log everyone’s dates of birth and death? I edited these out, but got reverted by Keith-264 in the interests of ‘chronology’. In the unlikely event that someone wants to know whether Clausewitz was born on 1 June 1780, they can easily click the link. What is the relevance of these vital statistics? Valetude (talk) 10:37, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for asking why, I added the dates to show that the origins of the "Schlieffen Plan" lay in one of the traditions of Prussian war planning that went back to the Napoleonic Wars, it wasn't something that popped into Schlieffen's head in 1905. It's a short cut and is also why the article contains a history of the plan since 1918. The plan has been used as a polemical tool ever since and it's a balancing act, since going as far as the sources allow without crossing into OR isn't easy with the sources available. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 11:09, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn’t edit-out the years, only the irrelevant birthdays and deathdays, which seemed to me to clog-up the text. Valetude (talk) 11:21, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think they're irrelevant, they give a chronology showing how long a span the article covers. Keith-264 (talk) 11:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

But the years do that anyway. Who needs the months and days? Valetude (talk) 12:59, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Map

At the moment (Special:PermanentLink/869840586), there is a map with a caption "Example of an erroneous and misleading map, purported to represent a "Schlieffen Plan" by post-war writers." in section "John Keegan". At least at the first sight the caption seems to be non-neutral, rather excessively emotional ("erroneous", "misleading", "purported", quotes around "Schlieffen Plan")... Also, one would expect to find an explanation what exactly is supposed to be wrong with that map, if not in the caption itself, then at least in the section in which it is given. But it doesn't look like this section says anything about this, or any other map...

Perhaps whatever problem is supposed to be in the map could be at least somewhat mitigated by explicitly attributing it to United States Military Academy ("Map intended to compare Schlieffen Plan and Plan XVII by United States Military Academy") instead? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 01:52, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

The caption is not emotional at all but if you find it insufficiently cited you can change the caption according to your suggestion but the map is not the Schlieffen Plan. I'll look for some sources and citations in the meantime but if you read the Keegan section, it refutes the impression given in the map. Keith-264 (talk) 17:24, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Found something in Zuber and Schuette so moved the map to Zuber and added cites and footnote.Keith-264 (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the caption is emotional. It is very uninformative, it only says that there is something wrong with that map, not saying what the problem is supposed to be, yet using many words. For example, is it really necessary to say that the map is both "erroneous" and "misleading"? In what way is it "erroneous", and in what different way is it "misleading"?

So, the caption does not need citations right now. It needs a clear explanation what exactly is supposed to be wrong with the map. Is the direction of the arrows wrong? Are the arrows in the wrong places? Is the area wrong? Is some important terrain feature missing? The caption does not say and neither does the article. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:02, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

That's just like your opinion man and since I wrote it, I know more than you, although you are free to infer what you please. The alterations I made yesterday are cited to a reliable source. If you don't know the difference between erroneous and misleading, I suggest you look them up. The article isn't about the map but if you look at the citation to Zuber it is to a page range, he goes into quite some detail why the map is wrong. I would not want to blunder into undue weight, especially as someone else added the map and I wouldn't have bothered. Please note that the article is B class and that implies some deficiencies and that shouldn't be surprising. Keith-264 (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Did you read the note? Keith-264 (talk) 00:12, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

"That's just like your opinion man and since I wrote it, I know more than you, although you are free to infer what you please." - seriously?

So, assuming that was serious (hopefully, it was meant to be a joke), we have an admission that you have no counterarguments ("That's just like your opinion man") and, um, some silly non sequitur...

But, again, I hope it was meant to be a joke.

Yet, one way or another, you still haven't given a good answer to my argument that the current caption is not neutral.

"The article isn't about the map but if you look at the citation to Zuber it is to a page range, he goes into quite some detail why the map is wrong." - OK, if you have a source actually saying what is wrong with this specific map (for that is obviously the same "Map 2 "Western Front 1914. Schlieffen Plan of 1905.French Plan XVII" in The West Point Atlas of American Wars 1900–1953 (volume II, 1959)" mentioned in the note), give at least a summary in the caption. The text of the note should go to the caption (yes, with some adaptations).

Also, is that the same Zuber about whom the article Terence Zuber (Special:PermanentLink/868348265) is written? In such case it looks like his thesis was not met with overwhelming agreement, and thus we have dispute among historians. And that gives us an additional reason to avoid saying anything about the map in Wikipedia's voice. Cite the author explicitly, give his own words, and all will be fine! --Martynas Patasius (talk) 02:53, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

The summary in the caption is the thing you're doubtful about but now I've cited two sources for it and used a note for the details. I'll expand the quote from Zuber, see what you make of it but I don't want to base it solely on Zub. I think it might help if you reflect on your approach; I quoted The Dude in The Big Lebowski which is obviously a joke but I can explain it if you like. I wrote the caption so I know if it was "emotional", you can only infer it because you can't know my mind. This isn't a non sequitur, it's a description of the bleeding obvious. I'm not arguing with you because this isn't a competition and you aren't a judge, you're an equal so I'd be grateful if you got down off your high horse. There isn't much of a scholarly consensus about the S Plan as the commentary in this section makes clear; his views in general are as disputed as those of the others in the section. I've asked for more sources about the map on AHF and Stoneman has been suggested (a PhD not an MA) but I'm having to plough through verbiage. Have you found anything? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:24, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

"I quoted The Dude in The Big Lebowski which is obviously a joke but I can explain it if you like." - OK, so one misunderstanding has been solved.

"I wrote the caption so I know if it was "emotional", you can only infer it because you can't know my mind." - OK, we have a second misunderstanding here. When I said that the caption looks emotional, I did not claim that you wrote it while angry. Yes, it would have been silly and irrelevant. I meant that the caption did not provide much information and it ended up only creating emotions instead. It could be reworded into "There is something wrong with this map" without losing any information. It would fit just as fine if the problem with the map was that it used the terrain of the Moon and not the terrain of Europe - that would still be "erroneous and misleading map".

"The summary in the caption is the thing you're doubtful about but now I've cited two sources for it and used a note for the details." - and here we have a third misunderstanding. No, my problem with the caption is not that I think it is wrong, or that I think it might be wrong. My problem with it is that I find it 1) non-neutral and 2) uninformative. And I find it non-neutral, because I find it uninformative.

Thus it is not a problem that can be solved by adding a reference. It is a problem that can be solved by adding more information to the caption. WP:NPOV#Attributing and specifying biased statements (Special:PermanentLink/868774924#Attributing and specifying biased statements) tells us what to do: "Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with in-text attribution." and "Another approach is to specify or substantiate the statement, by giving those details that actually are factual.".

And the actual information that should go into caption was already in the article, namely, the note. For the note does explain what is supposed to be wrong with this map. Furthermore, as I have noted, it sure looks like this note talks about this specific map!

Finally, as I see, you did modify the caption (Special:Diff/870218551/870219694), and I'd say that is much better!

I would still recommend to replace the "erroneous and misleading" with the name of the map. Something like "Map "Western Front 1914. Schlieffen Plan of 1905.French Plan XVII" by United States Military Academy, criticised by Terence Zuber as "...a mishmash of the ... Schlieffen Plan map, the German ... plan and the ... campaign....An armchair strategist's dream"". But the matter is no longer quite as pressing. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:31, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm concerned about undue weight but perhaps we could make a section out of it? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

You might have notice how the Analysis tails off a bit at the end (almost as if it is unfinished....) Stoneman gives a good description of the Zuber challenge to the consensus so I might knock out a section on him and use the map as an illustration. Keith-264 (talk) 16:34, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Robert Foley section

Refers to a “Horst Bucholz” (Maltke too untrained.....).

I have searched Wikipedia for Horst Bucholz and can only find reference to the film star, most famed as Chico in The Magnificent Seven.

He seems a very unlikely source of knowledge on this subject, perhaps someone should verify this as real information and not a joke.

Horst bucholz (talk) 12:52, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Arden Bucholz Keith-264 (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits

@Red Solarflare: added detail from the English translation of Der Schlieffenplan: Analysen und Dokumente after you got me off my backside. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 09:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Reinstate [reverted mends]?

A couple of mends I made in the lede have been reverted, though without mentioning a reason. The point of them was mainly to introduce the new reader to the rather complicated story of debate, about the Plan's content, feasibility, significance and fate, by leading her/him through that debate in chronological sequence. Have I blundered? or would it make sense to reinstate the mends?

84.9.123.238 (talk) 22:06, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I removed them because they were unhelpful. Keith-264 (talk) 23:09, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone else have any comment on this?

K264, what you've now said is a bit vague! And . . unhelpful - who to?

It strikes me tht what isn't particularly helpful to you, with your longstanding familiarity with the matter, may work very differently for the article's intended readership - those who don't already know about it!

I came as a newcomer to the article - though well aware of the Schlieffen Plan. Some decades ago I had read elsewhere of the Plan and of Moltke's infamous alleged departure from it. Reading the article, I was astonished to learn there has been controversy, research and archive discoveries, in recent decades, about the Plan - and its content, feasibility, significance and fate. This controversy itself is an important story (a striking postwar almost-counterpart to the interwar Dolchstoßlegende?); and a lot of valuable and intricate work has been done on the article, including by yourself, to capture it all. The article as I found it was valuable, enlightening, detailed, intricate and unhelpfully confusing - baffling, even.

I am confident of the improved clarity of the changes I made, so reinstating them still looks to me like the right thing to do. 2A00:23C4:CE01:2601:F5CA:778D:7736:BBD7 (talk) 07:56, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Since we don't agree, why not put your first one here for discussion? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 12:26, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

You've still said nothing about any basis for disagreement?

Copying things from place to place seems diversionary while there's not yet any discussion? Simpler to simply reinstate the changes!

87.74.168.10 (talk) 87.74.168.10 (talk) 14:53, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

You've still said nothing about any basis for disagreement?

Copying things from place to place seems diversionary while there's not yet any discussion? Simpler to simply reinstate the changes!

87.74.168.10 (talk) 87.74.168.10 (talk) 15:29, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

What are you on about, read the discussion. Keith-264 (talk) 15:44, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Forgot to ask, do you speak British English? Keith-264 (talk) 15:54, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Brit: yep.

Discussion: can you provide a link?

( Sorry mine of 23-Apr showed up in stereo . . not sure what happened there! ) 87.74.168.10 (talk) 02:12, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

A couple of weekends have gone by, without any substantive comment on my changes, so I've put them back in .. with slightly revised phrasing, which I hope is clearer. 90.244.204.38 (talk)

You failed to respond to my suggestion which is why nothing has happened. Your edits are retrograde and change the meaning of the text where they don't introduce distinctions without a difference. If you want to improve the article, leave the lead alone, do some research and improve the main text and then reflect that in the lead, gaining consensus along the way; please note that the article is in BritEng nor AmEng. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 06:11, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for offering an idea of your thinking. Really, though, when I remarked tht time has gone by without comment I meant tht no-one else has agreed with you in doubting my contribution.

Awkwardly, I'm realising now tht by slightly rephrasing the earlier mend, when I reinstated it last night, I've tangled things a bit. I don't think any diff would now present the two mends separately! I have to apologise for that, because in light of what you've now said it probably would have been useful to look at the two separately.

Your request - demand? - is to do some research and then amend the main text and finally the lede, and you say I've introduced distinctions without a difference. We're on different wavelenths here!

You're probably familiar with the idea tht the introduction to a report is the last bit you write? That's the stage I'm hoping to help with. And my intention is to work with the existing meaning - not to change it - and so to make the article more accessible to the newcomer. Copy-editing, essentially. I wouldn't suggest I have any knowledge to contribute.

So where I have changed the text without a difference in meaning, that is success! (provided the new text is also clearer).

It's the newcomer's position tht's hard for you to imagine / remember, of course. For me (as I've said, 23-Apr above), it was a startling and unexpected discovery tht there has been so much rethinking and research over the recent decades. This casts a striking light on the German people's struggles to come to terms with the two Wars. (I remember a German acquaintance forty-odd years ago remarking tht "what did you do in the War Daddy?" was a rather different question for her to ask than for me! Different War, obviously . . but how different?!)

Coming to the article as it was, I found I could grasp the successive points successively, but sometimes the new point meant I had to rethink the significance of one made earlier. By the end of the article I struggled to form a confident and balanced critical view of the story as a whole. Of either story in fact: of Schlieffen being betrayed by a timid successor (or were the logistics prohibitive? and did Schlieffen even think he was writing a definitive Plan in the first place?); and of German and other historians rethinking and researching and meeting with surprises.

With all this in mind, what I'm trying to do is rework the lede a bit - for the newcomer, and with unchanged meaning - so the reader has the chronology, as a reliable framework and as a thread to follow in a straightforward way.

My description of the first mend, in the history, gives some detail.

Can you point out to me anywhere I've changed the meaning (in either mend)? - or of course anywhere tht clarity has suffered. (Would you still describe my work as "retrograde"? If so, may I ask you to say a bit about what you mean by that?) You've also remarked on the Brit ~ US Eng contrast .. any specifics?

If it helps, the second mend is still observable on its own. There's a link in the heading of this section.

As before, I'll leave some time for further comment from you, but if there's none in a week or two I'll reinstate. We're on a bit of a countdown here, of course. 90.244.204.38 (talk) 11:39, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll be blunt, your prose is sloppy, you alter direct prose to circumlocution. "and other writers described the plan as a blueprint for victory." (original) "and other German writers described Schlieffen's ideas as constituting a Plan which, if followed, would have been a blueprint for victory. " Not just German writers, the writers didn't discriminate between Schlieffen's thinking, they called it a plan and "if followed" makes nonsense of their views that Germany lost because Moltke didn't follow it. I think you're being a bit precious and need to WP:AGF. I think we can improve the original text but need to work together. Why don't you put the first edit here and take note of my reply? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 14:49, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks for getting back! I have a useful sense of your thinking now, and yes, we're on the same side + can do some developing together. Not right now alas; this weekend maybe (though don't hold your breath), anyway soon. Cheers. 90.244.204.38 (talk) 18:49, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits

@RadioactiveBoulevardier: I fear that there's a usage conflict over the meaning of the term historiography which is that in US usage it's a synonym of history and in English usage it isn't. Examples of historiography would be the great man theory of history or a class conflict model. The history of post-1918 analysis of the Schlieffen Plan is an example of changing views and schools of thought derived from them, rather than differences in philosophy. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 06:43, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

@Keith-264, I’m not sure where you got that idea. Our article’s lead actually puts it quite succinctly: […]and by extension, the term historiography is any body of historical work on a particular subject.

The section header “History” is reserved by convention for coverage of events and in this case is particularly confusing. Therefore “Historiography” is the natural and in my view most correct alternative.

Does that make sense to you?

Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Morning, no it doesn't. I think that perhaps there is a difference between English and US usage. That part of the article is about the history of academic and professional writing about the Schlieffen Plan not about the philosophy of history (historiography) which isn't an idea, I learnt it as an undergrad and read about it in text books, I suppose that I could dig a few out. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 06:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)