re: The First World War began on this day 110 years ago...

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Yeah, that might have worked that one time, Germany, but you can bet that France will never let that happen again!

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France was, or better yet though they were, ready for round two. As soon as the Germans made their move, both the French and British immediately went into Belgium to hold them there. Little did they know what they were really doing was sticking their neck in the noose because the German were pushing an entire Panzer Group through the Ardennes to their south. By the time they figured out what was going on, it was too late. The entire BEF and an a French Army Group were now in the bag.

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Well, all I can say is - read the article when you get the chance.

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I've read 40+ books and hundreds of articles on WWI. I've taught it at a graduate level.

The starting point was "The Schlieffen Plan". Armies develop all kinds of plans for all kinds of contingencies. There is a plan for the U.S. to fight Canada. Jokingly, we could call it "The Schwarzkopf Plan" (assuming he could have worked on it in the 80s).

Clearly, they were committed to at least starting the war with his mature plan as a starting point/planning basis. There was this romantic notion of Schlieffen on his deathbed gasping, "Keep the right wing strong!", that has something to do with this.

I simply do not understand this effort to excuse Schlieffen (who was dead 8 years when the Germans foolishly kicked off that disastrous war) and heap all of the sins of Imperial Germany onto Wilhelm II (who really deserves a good bit of blame), Moltke (who was, fair to say, too passive and timid relative to his predecessors) and Falkynhayn.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff ultimately fared no better against the Entente (although this war was not really over until the last year, unlike WWII which was over, in Europe, after Stalingrad, with all that was left to pay was the butcher's bill).

So. It makes no difference if we call it "The Schlieffen Plan" or not. It makes no difference if they followed the plan or not. They started with that plan and then modified it. That's good.

"It is a poor plan that is not subject to modification." - Publilius Syrus

But, once modified, they convinced themselves the modified plan was not subject to further modification. Bringing Britain into the war on the side of France and Russia doomed imperial Germany. Had they found another way. Played defense in the West and fought Russia first and foremost? That wouldn't have been "The Schlieffen Plan", either, and had a better chance of strategic victory, particularly if they had kept Britain neutral.

Following The Schlieffen Plan, to the letter, likely would have resulted in similar results to the actual war.

The cause of that war is very complicated, far more than most folks appreciate in our modern, "black-and-white" world. But the reasons for Germany's defeat (largely self-inflicted) are not complicated. And it has nothing to do with Schlieffen, who died in 1906.

Did you read Zuber's essay?


PS I'm not the one who downvoted you.

Yes. And I'm familiar with his scholarship on the issue.

Almost every region of the world would be vastly different if the Great War had gone differently. WWI is a very good example of domino effect and butterfly effect and how quickly and drastically they can change things.

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A true "Plan", as I understand it from my military experience could not be called a "Plan" if the scenario involved military units that did not exist, because the current size of the Army was too small for them to exist.

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All plans (and operations orders for that matter) involve some degree of assumption. You don't make them unless you have to, but insofar as you can make assumptions and projections into the future, you can incorporate those assets into a plan as long as you have contingencies if they do not materialize or are diverted/neutralized in some way.

I have tried to understand Zuber's point, but it sounds too lawyerly:

1. There was no "Schlieffen Plan" (although he concedes that Schlieffen existed and may have conducted a study, but not a staff study, because even though he was the Chief of the German General Staff, he worked alone)

2. This "Schlieffen Plan" (which didn't exist) couldn't have been executed by Moltke the Younger, because he didn't have the resources called for by the "Schlieffen Plan" (which didn't exist)

3. Even Schlieffen himself, who wrote the plan (which didn't exist), couldn't have executed it, because he didn't have the resources in his time

4. Ergo, Moltke got the plan from his uncle Moltke.


Look, these people didn't exist in a vacuum. Moltke the Elder was much older, but he knew and mentored all these subsequent Chiefs all the way through Hindenburg, except Falkenhayn and Ludendorff who were too young. They were all Prussian. They were all distant relatives of each other and the Kaiser. There is overwhelming evidence of some framework that can be rightly called "The Schlieffen Plan". And without question, Younger Moltke modified it before execution in July/August 1914.

The Schlieffen Plan itself was high likely to have been influenced by Elder and Waldersee, the 2 most important military leaders in Schlieffen's life, coincidentally the 2 most important in Younger's life.

Arguing over what to call it "now", as some sort of gotcha or new revelation, is, IMHO, pendantry. It isn't exactly revolutionary to think that Younger, who almost without question used a framework of what Schlieffen intended to do if ordered by the Kaiser to fight a Russian/French alliance, modified it with what he learned from Elder, Waldersee and, yes, Schlieffen.

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WWI battleships were and are still fricking awesome.

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I prefer BB-64

The wrong side won this war. If the central powers had won we would not have:
- WW2, Nazis
- Communist Russia, rise and fall of the Soviet Union, Cold War
- Korean War
- Vietnam War
- the middle east as it exists today

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Zuber is the scholar who found the document in the archives because nobody before him dug it up.

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Incorrect.

Michael Epkenhans, Hans Ehlert and Gerhard P. Groß of Germany's Military History Research Office re-discovered this document that had been misfiled in the archives.