Back to the sources: an attempt to resolve the Schlieffen Plan controversy

• Autores: Terence M. Holmes
• Localización: War in history, ISSN-e 1477-0385, ISSN 0968-3445, Vol. 28, Nº. 3 (julio), 2021, págs. 525-543
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The widely held belief that the Schlieffen Plan was the basis of German strategy in 1914 stems from the historical misrepresentation of that plan as a design for the conduct of a two-front war. Schlieffen’s famous memorandum of December 1905, generally known as the Schlieffen Plan, proposed a massive right-wing attack on France but only in the case of a one-front war. His basic principle for the conduct of a two-front war, spelled out in another document of December 1905, was to counter-attack on both fronts in quick succession. The younger Moltke’s decision for a massive right-wing attack on France in 1914 signified a rupture with Schlieffen’s strategic thinking, not a continuation of it. The First World War would have started very differently – with a great battle in Lorraine, not on the Marne – if the Germans had acted in accordance with Schlieffen’s real intentions for a war on two fronts.