Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Schlieffen Plan (German: Schlieffen-Plan, pronounced [ʃliːfən plaːn]) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914.
Anticipating a retaliatory declaration of war from Russia's closest western ally, France, Germany put into action the Schlieffen Plan. Under this military strategy, formulated by Count Schlieffen in 1905, Germany would launch a lightning attack on France through the poorly defended Low Countries. This would bypass France's main defences ...
Bulgaria was the last country to join the Central Powers, which it did in October 1915 by declaring war on Serbia. [30] It invaded Serbia in conjunction with German and Austro-Hungarian forces. [45] Bulgaria held claims on the region of Vardar Macedonia then held by Serbia following the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 and the Treaty of Bucharest ...
Germany's Schlieffen Plan was the most elaborate; the German Army was so confident that it would succeed that they made no alternative plans. It was kept secret from Austria, as well as from the German Navy, the chancellor and the foreign ministry, so there was no coordination–and in the end the plan failed. [6]
The Denkschrift was not a campaign plan, as Schlieffen had retired on 31 December 1905 and the 96 divisions needed to carry out this one-front war plan did not exist (in 1914 the German army had 79, of which 68 were deployed in the west). Rather, it was a demonstration of what Germany might accomplish if universal conscription was introduced.
The Schlieffen plan [sic] amounts to a critique of German strategy in 1914 since it clearly predicted the failure of Moltke’s underpowered invasion of France. Moltke followed the trajectory of the Schlieffen plan, but only up to the point where it was painfully obvious that he would have needed the army of the Schlieffen plan to proceed any ...
Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of the Imperial German General Staff (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL, the German army high command) from 1891 to 1906, devised a plan to evade the French frontier fortifications with an offensive on the northern flank, which would have a local numerical superiority and obtain rapidly a decisive victory. By 1898–1899 ...
Brooks claimed that, "By frustrating the Schlieffen Plan, Joffre had won the decisive battle of the war, and perhaps of the century". [86] The Battle of the Marne was also one of the first battles in which reconnaissance aircraft played a decisive role, by discovering weak points in the German lines, which the Entente armies were able to ...