General Count Alfred Von Shlieffen Plan Essay

In December of 1905 General Count Alfred von Schlieffen created a plan to attack France after Russia had declared their mobilization in response to the global tension. Due to the execution of the plan Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th, 1914. The Plan had taken nine years to finalize and it was created with the belief that Germany would be faced with war on two fronts.
By 1905 Europe had been split into two groups the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. General Schlieffen believed most of the action would be taking place on the western portion of Europe. He presumed that France was Germany’s most dangerous opponent and that Russia was not as much of a threat as France was. He knew it would take Russia up to six weeks to mobilize troops and that the bulk of the combat would be done on the Russian-German border, which could be held of until Germany had a victory over France. These six weeks would allow Germany time to rally troops and mobilize the troops from

They were defeated in the first Battle of the Marne. The poor communication on the frontline commanders and the Army headquarters in Berlin made it harder to pursue the Plan. Germany also withdrew a portion of their troops from France to help with the forces against Russia. This hindered Germany’s ability to defeat the French troops. The defeat of Germany lead to the era of trench warfare that became a huge part of World War I. After the defeat the Germans blamed the Plan for their defeat. The allies thought of the Plan as an example of the German aggression against neutral countries and it later became the basis of of war guilt and reparations. After the war both the Schlieffen Plan and the Moltke’s rewrite were locked away at the Reichsarchiv at Potsdam, and any access to the documents was prohibited with few exceptions. On April 14th, 1945 during a British bomber attack the documents were