North German Realm wrote:Tombradyonia wrote:
There are myths and stories aplenty, often ending with the conclusion that if only Moltke had strengthened his right wing in the way that Schlieffen had conceived of it, the defeat of France would have been assured.
The reality, I believe, is far different. The Schlieffen plan in a sense doomed the Germans to a long drawn out war and a battle of attrition which they couldn't win (considering they were not up against France alone).
The key issue was that the plan was extremely rigid. Everything was planned to the last detail, so much so that one train being late could derail the entire schedule. Also, the plan contained no failsafe. Most countries had a mobilization plan which had them gather their strength and get troops to certain points and for them to wait there for a go/no go. The German mobilization plan (included as part of Schlieffen's plan) did not have such a go/no go mechanism. In the case of Imperial Germany, mobilization meant war.
Another issue is that the ideas that Schlieffen and his successor Moltke had were at best unrealistically optimistic and depended significantly on the enemy doing precisely what the plan required the enemy to do. In the end, even with an entire extra army on the right wing, the attack would have failed. Perhaps the battle of the Marne would have been drawn out longer than it was in reality, but by the end of 1914 there still would have been a race to the sea and the very same end that we got in the end. Germany simply did not have the forces to do what it wanted to do, and the lack of coordination between the commanders of First and Second armies doomed the plan and almost got First army destroyed.
The decision to abandon the Prussian general idea of "let the commanders do what they do best and improvise as long as it follows a general plan" in favor of "Every little detail must be meticulously planned 10 years in advance" was one of their biggest mistakes where the military is concerned imo.
TBH the Germans didn't really figure out a good system for that during the war. See the mistakes around Vimy ridge.
