The Schlieffen Plan

Probably the most famous attempt to wage war by timetable, the plan assumed Germany would be fighting a war on two fronts- France in the West, Russia in the East- and planned to knock France out in the estimated six weeks it would take the Russian Army to fully mobilise.
And it very nearly succeeded. However, the Allies were able to resupply their frontline troops by train faster than the Germans could maintain their own lines of communication, and the momentum was lost. The result was trench warfare.

"Evolved in 1905 by General Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the German General Staff, to deal with a potential two front war against France and Russia. The plan took advantage of their main weaknesses - the slow mobilisation of the Russian army, and the determination to attack at all cost in the French army. Thus the initial effort was to be made in the west, while small holding forces gave way slowly against the Russians. It was confidently expected that on the outbreak of any war with Germany, the French would almost instantly launch an invasion of Germany through Alsace-Lorraine, the best invasion route on the Franco-German border. When was came, both expectations were proved to be true. The German plan was simply to mass 90% of their troops - some 35 corps - to the north, and when war came marching them through neutral Belgium and Holland, and sweeping round to the west of Paris, enveloping the French army, who would have been allowed to make some progress into Germany. The French army would then find itself attacked from the rear, and with Paris threatened or lost."
Schlieffen Plan (1905)

"In a famous dictum, Clausewitz observed that 'War is a continuation of policy by other means'. Amplifying this, he said that 'policy' --- ie, political consideratioms --- must govern military strategy and operations throughout a war. He averred that it would be a capital error simply to leave it to the generals to decide and act according to purely military factors. Well, the basic thing about 'the Schlieffen Plan' is that it was NOT 'a continuation of policy by other means', but a military substitute for policy. Or, to put it another way, it was an attempt to remedy by military means the bankruptcy of an inept German foreign policy."
The Schlieffen 'Plan' --- Genesis of the Western Front

"Germany's Schlieffen Plan, named after its chief architect, Count Alfred von Schlieffen, was both offensive and defensive in nature.
Schlieffen - and the men who subsequently enhanced and modified his strategy, including Helmuth von Moltke, German Chief of Staff in 1914 - took as his starting assumption a war on two fronts, against France in the west and Russia in the east. The nature of the alliance system ensured that Russia was allied with France (and latterly Britain), set against Germany's alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy.
Notwithstanding the potentially enormous size of the Russian army, with its never-ending supply of men, Schlieffen assumed - largely correctly, as it turned out - that it would take six weeks or longer for the Russians to effectively mobilise their forces, poorly led and equipped as they were.
Banking on this assumption, Schlieffen devised a strategy for knocking France out of the war within those six weeks. In order to do so he would commit the vast majority of German forces in the west to form an overwhelming assault with Paris as its aim, leaving just sufficient forces in East Prussia to hold off the Russians during the latter's mobilisation process. Once France had been dealt with the armies in the west would be redeployed to the east to face the Russian menace."
First World War.com - Feature Articles - The Planning of the War

 

If it would take 6 weeks for Russia to mobilize what would happen had Germany concentrated in the east to gain an advantage over an unprepared Russia?

 

That would have left her western border more or less unprotected and vulnerable to French attack. The Germans expected the French to attack in revenge for the Franco-Prussian war, and hinged on the German army's supposed ability to constantly outflank the French and trap them well inside Germany. With the French defeated and her rear secure, the whole might of Germany could be turned on Russia.
Remember too that the Russian mobilisation was hindered by the vast distances covered by the railway network, which was only really designed to transfer the output of the industrial regions back East. That would also have hindered any German advance, as well as the ability to transfer troops to the western frontier against a French invasion.

 

If Imperial Germany had left enough troops to defend in the west and not invaded Belguim making England's entry into the war less sure could France breach German western defences before Russia suffered a worse defeat than Tannenburg?

 

It's possible, but the main French doctrine was the recapture of Alsace and Lorraine. Assuming Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland remained neutral, the French would have been forced to attack through a relatively narrow gap between Luxembourg and Switzeland. That would have favoured the defences, who in fact repelled the French attacks.

 

The Schieffen Plan was a very tall order to begin with. Everything depended on no disruption of the established time-table and events planned out in detail. There was just too much room for complications to cause problems.

The Germans couldn't have held the French at the Rhine while consentrating on the Russians? In such a narrow front, a relatively small amount of troops dug in on the eastbank, supported by mobile cavalry reserves could hold the French in check for quite some time I believe. Without having to fight the British meant not as much as an unrestricted u-boat policy, which meant a far less chance of US involvement as well.

What a "what if"!

 

Italy might have stayed neutral as well.

 

I remember reading up a lot on this during dull school days

Time after time again, the biggest flaw to the plan was after the alterations. Way too many corps were spread across the border, meaning Germany just lacked the punch in the north. von Moltke completely misunderstood the idea of the need to allow French to advance into German soil, while the mass of his army in the north steam rolled into Paris. It was a rather modern and (At the time) clever deception tactic, which he failed too grasp.

Instead, the punch was pathetic. It was bogged down by a very small BEF and Belgian force that was far inferior to the well trained Germans, purely because of their lack of movement and ability to keep pushing.

Obviously there's plenty of other factors, by in my personal and researched opinion, the Schlieffen plan was pretty much doomed to fail after so many men (including the 190,000 that were sent to the east) were spread across the line.

I would go as far as saying that the plan's name should have been changed

The whole Idea was to quickly get France over and done with, seeing as Russia seemed to be the bigger threat. Saying that... it's what eventually Germany did, far too late, however.

 

It's definitely one that could run and run!

 

Too right. When the plan was conceived, Germany didn't actually have the required manpower. By the time they did, the plan had been altered to respect Dutch neutrality (the Germans saw them as a valuable imports source in the event of war), which forced the Germans into a self-imposed bottleneck, which only helped to further wreck the plan.

 

A British entry wasn't ensured previously either, I'm pretty sure the Britain/Belgium pact wasn't publicly known, just like every other deal countries had in place at the time. =/

 

Considering the Allied blockade, Dutch neutrality realy did not aid Germany much.

 

So, what was the French's plan for war? I know they stepped lively in force towards the Alsace-Lorraine at the commencement of hostilities, but was that it?

 

So, what was the French's plan for war? I know they stepped lively in force towards the Alsace-Lorraine at the commencement of hostilities, but was that it?

 

Basically, yes. Depending on how the Germans reacted, the French had plans either to advance straight into Germany through the Ardennes, or move into Belgium and Luxembourg-which would have breached their neutrality!
French doctrine didn't really amount to much more than 'our troops are the world's best, and if they're not, the Germans won't get past all our frontier forts anyway'. They had a low opinion of their reserve troops, assumed the Germans thought the same way, and didn't expect them to use their reserves as extensively as they did.
They only found out about German plans to move through Belgium at the last minute.

 

If things would have went that way, then that would have been one strange war.

 

It would certainly have been interesting!

 

Consider the possibilities, Germany fights defensively in the west, offensively in the east. No German invasion of Belgium prevents or slows British participation in the war. France attacks thru Belgium violating its neutrality. If Britain is neutral, a leaky blockade of central powers. Does the large German desent American's swing the US pro Imperial Germany? Can the Allies win without US resources? If the Allies prevail as they did, can they blame Germany for starting the War?

 

I think Britain would have been on a sticky wicket; she had the Entente Cordiale with France, but had also guaranteed to protect Belgian neutrality in the 1839 Treaty of London.

"Article 7
Belgium, within the limits specified in Articles 1, 2, and 4, shall form an Independent and perpetually Neutral State. It shall be bound to observe such Neutrality towards all other States."
First World War.com - Primary Documents - Treaty of London, 1839

It's worth noting that the Entente Cordiale didn't bind the French/British to helping each other militarily-
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/ententecordiale1904.htm

And here's a useful article on Belgian neutrality-
First World War.com - Feature Articles - Brave Little Belgium - Belgian Neutrality Before The War

 

Perception is everything. GB played the 'defending brave Belgium' card both domesticly and in the US to the hilt. Propaganda flourished in WWI and had a tremendous impact not seen in previous wars. I suspect Britain would have joined France at some point due to its long term strategic goal of preventing any European power from gaining control over the continent of Europe. But would allied morale crumble faster due to the heavy losses if they could not portray the Hun as the beast as they did historicly? If Imperial Germany perceived that they were holding their own in the propaganda war within the US, would they try something as hare brained as the Zimmerman Telegram?