The Schlieffen Plan :: European Europe History

The Schlieffen Plan The aim of the plan The aim of the plan was to avoid fighting two wars at once (France and Russia) The Plan The plan was to attack France, not on the main border, which was fortified, but to attack through Belgium and circle the capital Paris. This is all supposed to happen before the predicted 6 weeks it would take for the Russians to get their army ready for action. This would mean Paris would be taken by Germany, therefore capturing France, then the troops could go across the country and attack Russia. What actually happened: * Germans went into Belgium * Belgians blew up railways which stopped Germans * Belgians stopped supplies and reinforcements getting to the Germans * Britain wanted to join war because Germany was attacking France and Belgium * Sir Edward Grey made parliament fight, he said 'if we don't fight Germany will dominate Europe and trade will suffer' * British government sent a telegram to tell Germans to leave Belgium * No reply to the telegram * Britain was at war with Germany * Everyone in all the countries were rushing to join the army, they thought their country was right and they would win * 100,000 soldiers from the BEFC (British Expeditionary Force) landed in France * over 1,000,000 French soldier were ready to use plan seventeen to attack Alasce and Lorraine * after 3 weeks it all went wrong * German troops pushed into France * Russians mobilised more quickly than expected, and invaded * troops were taken from France to defend on the eastern front * French and German soldier met at the river Marne * All the French and English troops went to defend on the river Marne, the battle of the Marne began Why did it fail? The Schlieffen plan failed for many reasons. The trip though Belgium did not go as the Germans wanted. They got slowed down because the Belgian army put up a fight. This meant that the German troops were 10 days late. The Germans wanted to get the war over with France so that they didn't have to fight Russia at the same time, so when they got delayed, they were in trouble. On the 29th august, Von Cluck (German general) changed the plan, so that they didn't attack Paris as planned, instead they went east and sent more troops to attack the forts.