MiloMorai Posted December 17, 2017 Posted December 17, 2017 On another board a member is stating there was never a Schlieffen plan. "was not an plan but an 1904 academic study only and considered the scenario for a war with France only." What say you on this.
Stuart Galbraith Posted December 17, 2017 Posted December 17, 2017 Well there wasnt ONE plan. They changed it year on year.
Ken Estes Posted December 17, 2017 Posted December 17, 2017 On another board a member is stating there was never a Schlieffen plan. "was not an plan but an 1904 academic study only and considered the scenario for a war with France only." What say you on this. The Academy in 'academic study' was the Kriegsakademie general staff course which included the all-important annual general staff ride with the Chief himself. This was a massive terrain ride in which the Chief would point out critical movements required for the campaign in question. It is important to note that war planning of the period consisted of RR timetables which debouched the mobilized field armies on the frontier of the intended countries to be defeated, according to the preferences of the Chief of the General Staff, east or west, primarily and it was east for v.Waldersee (1888-91) and west for v,Schlieffen (1891-1906). The conduct of the actual campaign was left to be determined by the commanders and circumstances surrounded the mobilization and declaration of war. The war plans were well enough preserved that postwar, the 1914 GS chief of rail (Groener) could assert that Moltke could have cancelled the Schlieffen deployment in favor of a modified Waldersee Plan directing the German offensive against Russia, leaving sufficient corps in France to bleed the French dry against their forts and leaving the UK without a cause to enter the war [no violation of Belgium). William II actually asked if this could be done in the final hours of peace, only to be told by a very irritated Moltke that it was impossible. The rest is, well, history.
lastdingo Posted December 17, 2017 Posted December 17, 2017 Speaking of these things, does anyone have the original Schlieffen memorandum, Waldersee plan (as PDF) or knows where to find them short of diving into archives at Leavenworth, MGFA etc?
Ken Estes Posted December 18, 2017 Posted December 18, 2017 (edited) The Wiki article on Schlieffen Plan shows new material that I had not heard of in the 1990s, such as recovery of docs long thought lost in the Potsdam fires of 1945, but actually kept by the Russians. In 2002, RH 61/v.96, a summary of German war plans from 1893 to 1914 discovered in the records, that had been written in the late 1930s–early 1940s, for a revised edition of the volumes of Der Weltkrieg on the Marne campaign, was made available to the public.[54] Study of pre-war German General Staff war planning and the other records, made an outline of German war-planning possible for the first time, proving many guesses wrong. The German Wiki, as usual, contains more details including this citation, likely useful: Gerhard P. Groß, "There was a Schlieffen Plan" In: Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, Gerhard P. Groß, Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Hrsg.): Der Schlieffenplan. Analysen und Dokumente. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, S. 126. Amazon (D) indicates the book is out of print:Vor diesem Hintergrund beleuchten Historiker aus dem In- und Ausland die operativen und strategischen Planungen des Kaiserreichs und seiner späteren Gegner im Ersten Weltkrieg sowie das Verhältnis von Militär und Politik. Erstmals werden in diesem Band zudem die deutschen Aufmarschpläne von 1893/94 bis 1914/15 veröffentlicht, in deren Zentrum Schlieffens berühmte Denkschrift von 1905 steht. Good hunting! Edited December 18, 2017 by Ken Estes
lastdingo Posted December 18, 2017 Posted December 18, 2017 Eight copies of 2007 edition in German libraries. Interlibrary lending is 2.50 € for six weeks. Makes little sense to order a few days before Christmas vacation, but by January it should be in my hands.
Yama Posted February 13, 2021 Posted February 13, 2021 On 12/17/2017 at 4:27 PM, MiloMorai said: On another board a member is stating there was never a Schlieffen plan. "was not an plan but an 1904 academic study only and considered the scenario for a war with France only." What say you on this. 'No Schlieffen plan' argument basically is that there is no evidence Schlieffen ever planned a huge outflanking of French army through Belgium in a two-front war. Infamous 'Schlieffen memorandum' was only for war against France. Attacking France through Belgium, bypassing French border fortifications, was not Schlieffen invention or a novel idea in general. Anyone can come up with it by just looking at the map, and many did. Indeed, French studied the reverse possibility. French were well aware of German designs here, as they had bought German plans from disgruntled German General staff officer and Schlieffen even talked about this scenario in public. What was novel in Schlieffen memorandum was that Germans would cross Seine west of Paris, thus trying to achieve massive outflanking of French army and dislodging them from their fortified areas. This also called for massively larger army than Germans actually had. In reality this maneuver was not attempted. In two-front war, Schlieffen seems to have advocated defeating French army via counterattack inside Germany and that has been sometimes talked as 'the real Schlieffen plan'. Interesting question is why Moltke et al. went for this extremely risky approach which was vaguely based on Schlieffen's ideas but with much less force available than Schlieffen thought necessary. Much of the paper trail documenting who and why have been lost, or deliberately destroyed. It is said Moltke's widow planned to publish his husband's diaries which would have answered many mysteries, but she was talked out of it. Probably it would have been very damaging to reputation of many important General Staff officers. As Moltke was conveniently dead, it was easier to pin it all on him.
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