The Schlieffen Plan

International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I

Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, Gerhard P. Gross, David T. Zabecki, Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, Gerhard P. Gross, David T. Zabecki

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780813147468
• eBook ISBN: 9780813182605
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

With the creation of the Franco-Russian Alliance and the failure of the Reinsurance Treaty in the late nineteenth century, Germany needed a strategy for fighting a two-front war. In response, Field Marshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen produced a study that represented the apex of modern military planning. His Memorandum for a War against France, which incorporated a mechanized cavalry as well as new technologies in weaponry, advocated that Germany concentrate its field army to the west and annihilate the French army within a few weeks. For generations, historians have considered Schlieffen's writings to be the foundation of Germany's military strategy in World War I and have hotly debated the reasons why the plan, as executed, failed.

In this important volume, international scholars reassess Schlieffen's work for the first time in decades, offering new insights into the renowned general's impact not only on World War I but also on nearly a century of military historiography. The contributors draw on newly available source materials from European and Russian archives to demonstrate both the significance of the Schlieffen Plan and its deficiencies. They examine the operational planning of relevant European states and provide a broad, comparative historical context that other studies lack. Featuring fold-out maps and abstracts of the original German deployment plans as they evolved from 1893 to 1914, this rigorous reassessment vividly illustrates how failures in statecraft as well as military planning led to the tragedy of the First World War.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Map Key
• Introduction: The Historiography of Schlieffen and the Schlieffen Plan
• The Sword and the Scepter: The Powers and the European System before 1914
• The Moltke Plan: A Modified Schlieffen Plan with Identical Aims?
• The Schlieffen Plan—A War Plan
• There Was a Schlieffen Plan: New Sources on the History of German Military Planning
• “This Trench and Fortress Warfare Is Horrible!” The Battles in Lorraine and the Vosges in the Summer of 1914
• The Military Planning of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Army and the Schlieffen Plan
• French Plan XVII: The Interdependence between Foreign Policy and Military Planning during the Final Years before the Outbreak of the Great War
• Russian Forces and the German Buildup at the Outbreak of World War I
• The Southern Envelopment: Switzerland’s Role in the Schlieffen and Moltke Plans
• The British Army, Its General Staff, and the Continental Commitment, 1904–1914
• Belgium: Operational Plans and Tactics of a Neutral Country
• Appendix: Deployment Plans, 1893–1914
• Glossary of German Military Terms and Acronyms
• List of Contributors
• Index