The Failure of the Schlieffen Plan and Germany’s Defeat on the Western Front

The Failure of the Schlieffen Plan and Germany’s Defeat on the Western Front

On November 11th, 1918, an armistice was signed declaring that the war

to end all wars was over and that Germany had been defeated by the

Allied powers. When the war began in the late months of 1914,

Germany’s plan to win the war (the Schlieffen plan) failed. To what

extent was the failure of this plan responsible for Germany’s defeat

in the war? The aim of this essay is to find out.

Count Alfred von Schlieffen drew up the Schlieffen plan during his

time as the German chief of staff. The plan basically called for quick

encircling movements, which would surround the opposition leaving them

defeated quickly and in simple terms; completely destroyed. In the

case of defeating France it would involve the German army encircling

Paris. They would enter through the neutral country of Belgium, who it

was assumed would be defeated quickly. Unfortunately for the Germans,

the Schlieffen Plan failed due to the quick mobilisation of the troops

in Russia and the resistance of the Belgians. These had such an effect

because the plan relied on rapid movement; this had been prevented.

The Russian troops mobilised within ten days and invaded Germany

without delay. The German’s had expected the Russians to take six

weeks to mobilise at the very least by which point they hoped they

would have destroyed the French army. This meant that the German’s had

to withdraw some of their troops from the Western Front and transfer

them to the Eastern Front. By attacking through Belgium, the Germans

had broken a promise on a document signed a hundred years previously,

which stated that if ...

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... been launched previously, Britain and her empire would not have been

brought into the war and in direct combat with France Germany would

have been victorious. However, even though the Schlieffen Plan had

failed there was a point when it looked like Germany had won the war

and had it not been for the dissolution of morale and the pace of the

army they could have still succeeded. So although I would put the

failure on the western front mainly down to the failure of the

Schlieffen Plan I would say that it was not completely due to this and

that there were other factors, even before the war had began, which

led to German defeat.

Josie Payne

Bibliography

www.firstworldwar.com

www.bbc.co.uk/history

www.pateshistory.co.uk

GCSE modern world history second edition by Ben Walsh

History Review 1998