Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen-Plan, pronounced [ʃliːfən plaːn]) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, that began on 7 August 1914. Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a decisive (war-winning) offensive against France. German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium rather than across the common border. After losing the First World War, the German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers, described the plan as a blueprint for victory. Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger had succeeded Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff in 1906 and was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914). German historians claimed that Moltke had ruined the plan by tampering with it, out of timidity. They managed to establish a narrative that Moltke failed to follow the blueprint devised by Schlieffen, condemning the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare. In 1956, Gerhard Ritter published Der Schlieffenplan: Kritik eines Mythos (The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth), which began a period of revision, when the details of the supposed Schlieffen Plan were subjected to scrutiny. Treating the plan as a blueprint was rejected because this was contrary to the tradition of Prussian war planning established by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, in which military operations were considered to be inherently unpredictable. Mobilisation and deployment plans were essential but campaign plans were pointless; rather than attempting to dictate to subordinate commanders, the commander gave his intent and subordinates achieved it through Auftragstaktik (mission tactics). In writings from...