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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.
Plan XVII (pronounced [plɑ̃ dis.sɛt]) was the name of a "scheme of mobilisation and concentration" which the French Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre (the peacetime title of the French Grand Quartier Général) developed from 1912 to 1914, to be put into effect by the French Army in the event of war between France and Germany.
Germany, facing a two-front war, enacted what was known as the Schlieffen Plan, which involved German armed forces needing to move through Belgium and swing south into France and towards the French capital of Paris. This plan aimed to gain a quick victory against the French and allow German forces to concentrate on the Eastern Front.
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 ...
He has advanced the controversial thesis that the Schlieffen Plan as generally understood was a post-World War I fabrication. [1] [2] He first described his views about the Schlieffen Plan in a 1999 article in War in History, and further developed them in his 2002 book Inventing the Schlieffen Plan.
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 battles at Mulhouse, Lorraine, the Ardennes, Charleroi, and Mons were launched more or less simultaneously, and marked the collision of the German and French war plans, the Schlieffen Plan and Plan XVII, respectively. [1] [3] Battle of Mülhausen; The Battle of Mülhausen was the opening attack by the French against the Germans.
The German Army was outraged at how Belgium had frustrated the Schlieffen Plan to capture Paris. From top to bottom, there was a firm belief that the Belgians had unleashed illegal saboteurs (called "francs-tireurs") and that civilians had tortured and maltreated German soldiers. The response was a series of multiple large-scale attacks on ...