World War I: The Failure of The Schlieffen Plan Essays -- von Schlieff

In 1914, the war to end all wars began; it would later become known as World War 1. Every major power in Europe became involved in it at some point. What all these powers had were individual war plans which stated how they would rise above their enemies and claim victory. Unfortunately for some, not all of these plans were created equally. Unlike the other powers of Europe, Germany had created only one plan known as the Schlieffen Plan. The Schlieffen Plan had been created to be used as the perfect tool to winning a war, unfortunately the plan had been born from the arrogance of Alfred von Schlieffen and later altered by Helmuth von Moltke. Due to how the Schlieffen Plan was both created and altered, both von Schlieffen and von Moltke were doomed to bring Germany only failure in a multi-front war. In 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm II ascended to the throne of the German Empire and began a new era of foreign affair policies for Germany. Two years later, in 1890, Wilhelm dismissed the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck had united the various nineteenth century German Kingdoms and created the German Empire of the late nineteenth century. Bismarck had also helped to forge various alliances throughout Europe in order to maintain the German political and military position favorable with numbers. In less than two decades time, Wilhelm had essentially destroyed most of the alliance systems Bismarck had created and put Germany in a position where it was both allied with the weaker major powers of Europe and at a disadvantage when it came to numbers. Wilhelm went from having France, the enemy of Germany in the nineteenth century, isolated to having Germany nearly isolated politically and surrounded by enemies. In 1904, the altered d... ... attrition, 1870-1916. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, Paul M. 1979. The War plans of the great powers, 1880-1914. London: Allen & Unwin. Ritter, Gerhard. 1979. The Schlieffen plan: critique of a myth. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Bodleian Libray. â€Å"Entente Cordiale.† Last Accessed October 6. 2011. http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/projects/entente/entente.html Fawcett, Bill. 2006. How to lose a battle: foolish plans and great military blunders. New York: Harper. Mombauer, Annika. 2001. Helmuth von Moltke and the origins of the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ousby, Ian. 2002. The road to Verdun: World War I's most momentous battle and the folly of nationalism. New York: Doubleday. Shapiro, Seymour, and Gerhard Ritter. 1959. "The Schlieffen Plan". Military Affairs. 23 (2): 107-108.