Schlieffen plan
| Schlieffen Plan | |
|---|---|
| Operational scope | Offensive strategy |
| Planned | 1905-06–1906-14 |
| Planned by | Schlieffen, Moltke (the Younger) |
| Objective | disputed |
| Date | 7 August 1914 |
| Executed by | Moltke |
| Outcome | disputed |
| Casualties | c. 305,000 |
The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen-Plan, pronounced [ʃliːfən plaːn]) was the name given after World War I to the thinking behind the German invasion of France and Belgium on 4 August 1914. Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen was the Chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906 and in 1905–06 devised a deployment plan for a war-winning offensive, in a one-front war against the French Third Republic. After the war, the German official historians of the Reichsarchiv and other writers, described the plan as a blueprint for victory. German historians claimed that the plan had been ruined by Generaloberst (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, the Commander-in-Chief of the German army since Schlieffen retired in 1906 and who was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914).
Post-war writing by senior German officers like Hermann von Kuhl, Gerhard Tappen, Wilhelm Groener and the Reichsarchiv historians led by the former Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant-Colonel) Wolfgang Förster, managed to establish a commonly accepted narrative, that it was Moltke (the Younger)'s failure to follow the blueprint, rather than German strategic miscalculation that condemned the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare, instead of the quick, decisive conflict it should have been. 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 and contextualisation. The view that the plan had been a blueprint was rejected, because this was contrary to the tradition of Prussian war planning established by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, which treated military operations as inherently unpredictable. Mobilisation and deployment plans could be drawn up but campaign plans were pointless; rather than attempting to dictate to subordinate commanders, the commander gave the intent of the operation and subordinates had discretion in achieving it through Auftragstaktik (mission-type tactics).
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