The Schlieffen Plan was devised by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the Chief of the General Staff in the German army in 1905. There were a number of different aspects to the Schlieffen Plan, and all were aimed at defeating France as quickly as possible, preferably in under 6 weeks. The Germans believed this was possible because they had defeated France in Alsace and Lorraine in the 1871. The main aim of the Schlieffen Plan was to knock out and capture France and then attack Russia in order to avoid fighting a war on two fronts at the same time.
The second aspect to the Schlieffen Plan was to invade neutral Belgium as a means to get to France, because the German-Franco border was heavily fortified and would mean almost certain defeat for Germany. Even though the Germans knew about the Treaty of London signed between Britain and Belgium in 1839, Kaiser Wilhelm II did not believe that Britain would come to Belgium’s aid over “a scrappy bit of paper”.
The third aspect to the Plan was to use the 1st to 4th armies to go through Belgium and Holland to outflank the French and attack them from behind at Lorraine where the German 5th to 8th armies were holding, attack from the French forces and even give them a little ground to allow the Germans to get behind the French. In the process the Germans would be able to take Paris, the capital as they moved south to join the 5th to 8th armies in Lorraine.
The whole of the Schlieffen Plan depended on adhering to a strict timetable, which in theory was a good idea on behalf of the German staff, but in reality it did not take into consideration factors such as soldiers fatigue in marching long distances and unexpected resistance by the British Expeditionary Force at the and the Belgia...
... middle of paper ...
...e Germans arrived in France, the French were ready waiting to repel them.
In conclusion, the main aim of the Schlieffen Plan was for Germany to avoid fighting a war on two fronts at the same time. The Plan failed for a number of reasons, but the most important was the unexpected resistance put up by the brave Belgians at Mons and the support given by the BEF at the Battle of the Marne. This meant that von Moltke had to divert his armies from encircling Paris, dig trenches to protect his soldiers from the bombardment form the new artillery, and thereby negate the crux of the Schlieffen Plan, which had depended on speed, knocking out and capturing Paris in six weeks. The Germans found themselves stuck in France while the Russians had mobilized: The Germans then had to fight a war on two fronts - the very situation which the Schlieffen Plan had been devised to avoid.
Strategy depends on numerous analytical factors and some of these present challenges to planners. This essay will identify some of these challenges that strategists encountered during WWII. Moreover, it will present strategy as a fluid process requiring refinement throughout.
Planning is one of the, if not the most, important element of war. This is why the hard-work Canadian military forces put into planning for the attack on Vimy Ridge earned the nation much deserved respect in the eyes of other countries around the world. Germany captured Vimy Ridge early in the war and made it into a strong defensive position, consisting of a huge system of tunnels and trenches manned by soldiers with machine guns and artillery pieces. Previous Allied attacks on Vimy Ridge in 1914 and 1915 had cost the British and French hundreds of thousands of casualties and had been mostly unsuccessful.The planning and preparations for the attack were extensive, and time consuming. The Canadians were trained rigorously. Models of...
One of Currie’s most impressive and important achievements had come during the winter or 1919-17, while he was still a divisional commander. By analyzing the fighting he had witnessed on the Western Front, Currie had drawn up what proved to be a blueprint for tactical success. In a paper, Currie synthesized the best of British and French concepts, and with many of his own beliefs based on personal experience. Under Sir Arthur Currie, the Canadian Corps emerged as an outstanding formation on the ...
criticized for this, he stood by his decision stating that he knew the Russians would force the army into the cold harsh, Russian winter, such as the case of Napoleon. Even though Schlieffen came up with this wonderful and well thought out plan, his successor, General von Moltke, changed the plans entirely.
At daybreak, August 19th, 1942, the Allies began their raid on the French coastal city of Dieppe occupied by Germany. The raid has extreme Canadian significance, as it pertains to 5000 Canadians involved in the campaign, 3,350 of which became casualties and 916 died on the bloodstained beach at Dieppe. The Dieppe raid is widely considered a failure on every level and has left a dreadful mark in Canadian military history because of how poorly it panned out. Operation Jubilee remains one of the most hotly debated Allied aspects of the war. Tactically, it was a complete failure as little to no objectives were attained. This essay will explain that Dieppe failed because of the tactical errors on the part of the Allies, in conjunction with the fact the entire operation was very poorly planned out. It will do so by discussing 4 major points: poor allied planning, how Dieppe was a difficult place to attack, that the assault was launched for political rather than military reasons and finally, how it failed to upgrade morale.
In order to receive a victory in the Battle of the Bulge, General Patton used Mission Command Analysis in order to understand how he can be successful for this mission. The first thing of understanding t...
war went on, was that of encouraging at least some degree L&LL. At the same time they stoically maintained a toecap-to-toecap confrontation with the German Army whilst periodically energetically pursuing the High Command’s policy of continuous offensive action. This meant that when the German High Command in 1918 finally felt obliged by external factors to take the great gamble of their last great offensive on the Western Front, the German Army suffered increasingly unsustainable levels of attrition to their armies. Secondly, by thus steadfastly holding the Germans and their allies at bay in the trenches, the trench fighters enabled the twin pressures of the Allied land and sea blockade, and the failure of German State’s domestic production, to squeeze the fighting heart out the German nation and its autocratic rulers.
Even after the conclusion on the Second World War, France refused to relinquish control over Indochina. Moreover, Fischer's timetable has also been criticized as inaccurate. Hollweg's Septemberprogramm, outlining German war aims, was not produced until after the war had begun and was still going well for Germany. At the same time, other powers had been harboring similarly grandiose plans for post-war territorial gains. Since its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870), France was committed to a path of revenge against Germany and the reacquisition of Alsace and Lorraine. In addition, Fischer neglects the fact that the great powers of Europe were divided into two hostile military alliances of mutual assistance that would invariably result in a general European war should hostilities break out between members of opposing alliances. Fischer further neglects to address the nationalist aspirations of the subject peoples of the multinational Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires. It was after all, the assassination of the heir-apparent of the Austrian empire by a Serbian nationalist that precipitated the
"War Memories: Plotting the Battle of Britain." Letter. 9 Dec. 2003. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. BBC WW2 People's War.
Field, Frank. British and French Operations of the First World War. Cambridge (England); New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
The Germans took an unrealistic approach in the decision making process for the battle. During the debate in the German High Command about what to do in the summer of 1943, two options were introduced. The realistic option, which was supported by the best German field commanders and many soldiers, was to compensate for the large Russian numerical advantage by fully utilizing the superiority of the German commander and soldiers in tactics, command and fighting, by a strategy of dynamic mobile defense that would cause great losses to the Russians in a series of local clashes. This would delay the Russians and was a realistic goal as it was easily achievable. However, Adolf Hitler wanted to follow the enthusiast-optimistic option of having a major decisive battle against a large portion of the Russian armour in order to destroy them. He thought that the best suited place for such a battle was the Kursk salient, where the Russians had already established battle grounds. In fact, aerial photos taken by German airplanes clearly revealed that the Russians had already built dense and deep fortifications at the Kursk salient in order to counter an attack. Also, it was evident that many Russian tanks were moved deeper behind the front line. Finally, the Blitzkrieg tactic that was often used by the Germans would have to be changed.
In the spring of 1940 Europe was enveloped in war. The German military machine had already conquered Poland, Denmark, and Norway. However, not content with northern and eastern expansion, Adolf Hitler wanted to control the western countries in Europe. Hitler had long been obsessed with attacking and controlling France. After their defeat in World War I, the German people, government, and military were humiliated by the enormous post war sanctions leveraged against them from the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler wanted to defeat and humiliate the French people in the same way that his country had to experience. For him, revenge was necessary. The German plan was to swing into France using a new tactic know as Blitzkrieg or “Lightning War”. Blitzkrieg used speed and surprise along with highly concentrated tank corps, supported by mechanized infantry and airplanes.
France’s main objective was to insure national security. France felt it had taken the worst of the war as it was at the forefront of Germany’s attacks. This led France to want security from the possibility of attacks in the future. In order...
During the fall of 1944, the “Atlantic Wall” had diminished after the invasion of Normandy and the American and allied forces were making their way towards Germany. One of the offensives directed to counteract this; Adolf Hitler focused in on and was attacking the inadequately defended Ardennes front. Had this plan succeeded, through the capture of Antwerp, the Germans would have divided the American and British forces in the area, depriving the American Soldiers and allies of a seaport for resupply.
No person worked harder at trying to cause war with France than German Chief of Staff Carl Moltke. He saw France as the “hereditary foe” (Hwd 41) and desired nothing more than to see her lose all of her ability to wage war on Germany. He begged often of Bismarck to go to war with their neighbor and drew up plans to do so.