Would the German Schlieffen Plan have worked successfully against the French if there was no last minute change in force distribution?

Would the German Schlieffen Plan have worked successfully against the French if there was no last minute change in force distribution?

1)well the troops sent east weren't last minute, the schlieffen plans was for a western front war only. once the franco-russian alliance was signed everything changed.

2) germany did not actually have the number of divisions the plan called for raised and armed, the plan called for "projected # of troops".

3)the decesion to not invaded holland hurt more than the lost of manpower.

4)once german intelliagence found out the french plans to invade alsace, they had to send troops.

so i think not, the conditions of a 1905 plan were not the same as 1914--it was outdated.

1)well the troops sent east weren't last minute, the schlieffen plans was for a western front war only. once the franco-russian alliance was signed everything changed.

The Schlieffen plan was devised after teh Franco-Russian alliance was signed. French troops staged their defense along the French-German border. The Russians would take about a month to mobilize.

General Von Schlieffen's plan was to send a very small amount of troops to the Eastern Border to create a lot of commotion to make it seem like they have a lot of troops there. Then the rest of the German attack force would march through Belgium (crushing any Belgium resistance) in about 3 days time. They'll come down behind the French, beat the French and move the troops over to the Eastern border to fight the Russians when they come.

However, Von Schlieffen died before the plan has taken place. And his subordinate, fearing that the Russians might mobilize quicker, moved a larger division to the East. This made the Belgium invasion force smaller and it took them 7 days to get through. By that time, the French already found out about the plan, and got ready for reinforcement.

it was obsolete by 1914. Perhapes fatally flawed.

Not may know this but the Germans literally were trapped by the very creation of the plan, German mobiization is timetabled at 10 days. Russian mobilization was 50 days. Once Russia completed its mobilization Germany would have been caught it a two front war. This played a large part in triggering WW1 as if Germany delayed its military position would be put into jepody.

It might have succeeded, but not likely; the French simply had too many men, and then there was the problem of Paris. They had no real idea what to do by the time they got there; the plan called for encircling the entirety of the French armies, but they would've had to screen or attack the Paris garrison, buying valuable time for the French and losing men for the Germans.

They might still have lost the war anyway.

Interestingly, it worked fine except fo that annoyng thing called trench warfare (including machine guns).

In 1905, even with fewer troops I think it would have worked quite beautifully.


One interesting little tidbit I read somewhere: the French High Command was informed of the plan by spies somewhen in 1910. Can you guess what they did?










They almost laughed their butts of, thinking it would never work. History tells us that the German army got within sight of the Eiffel tower.....

John Keegan takes the Schlieffen Plan apart fairly well. It was a mechanical, rigid and inflexible plan based on a host of variables that required fairly precise environmental conditions to work. The Schlieffen Plan also broke lots of theoretical new ground, with little or no available resources or experiences to meet the plan's needs; von Schlieffen just assumed that by the time the war broke out - c. 10 years on - someone would have figured these little "details" out. For instance, he couldn't envision how Paris would be taken, so the plan simply leads the Reichswehr up to the gates of Paris and then says "Take it" without explaining how. Von Moltke found himself facing three unpleasant options: a head-on assault that his exhausted army might not be able to pull off and will definitely result in huge casualties, or a flanking attack to the north, or a flanking attack to the south. The last two were his only real options, and both left his army wide open for a counter-flanking attack - which is exactly what the French under Gallieni did to save Paris in 1914.

I don't think the Schlieffen Plan was capable of success; it was too theoretical and too bound to a rigid schedule that took a lot of decision-making power out of the hands of local commanders on the ground, crippling their ability to react to unfolding events.

Although artillery was used at the outset, the Schieffen plan
subsequently relied almost entirely upon infantry which would
out march its artillery support for the bulk of the needed distance.

Now it had become quite clear by the 18th century that infantry
unsupported by artillery and resupply trains could not make a
sustained deep penetration against any significant defence.

This was because even a weak defence would delay and disrupt
them and inflict casualties and because the attackers legs would tire.

If they travelled light, they could move faster, but would run
out of ammunition and food. If they were better equipped,
they could not move so fast. Nothing had changed by 1914.

If the Germans had been stronger, they might have got a little further.
But if the allies had believed what their reconnaisance pilots had
told them, and moved reserves to block accordingly the attack
would have been stopped without covering half the ground it did.

In 1940, the Germans had solved this problem in Poland and France
by mechanising the Panzer spearheads which contained tanks,
mobile troops and support artillery, also supported by air power.

However this relied upon a good road or captured rail system
for movement of non tracked units and supplies.

It failed in Russia because distances were much greater, there
were few roads and railways systems had incompatable guages
and tracked vehicles were immobile in spring thaw, autumn rain.

I think that if it had been developed better, it would have worked.

After all, when Hitler invaded France in World War II, he followed a broadly similar plan.