34 Historia DER SCHLIEFFENPLAN: INTERPRETING THE SHADOWS ON how it was altered. One historian, Terence Zuber, went so far as THE CAVE WALL to question whether it even existed as a real war plan at all. The obstacle that faced western historians since the end of World Michael A. Kleen War II until the mid 1990s was that very few original documents regarding German war plans remained. Many had been I. Introduction (A Rope of Sand) destroyed by Allied bombing raids or carried off behind the Iron Field Marshal Graf Alfred von Schlieffen was Chief of the Curtain. Gerhard Ritter’s book, The Schlieffen Plan, contained one Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1905, and died of the few English translations of Schlieffen’s actual war plans. eighteen months before the outbreak of the First World War. In It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the the winter of 1905/06 Schlieffen drafted his final plan, reunification of Germany that some of those original documents Denkschrift, or memorandum as it has been varyingly referred to, were recovered, reigniting debate on the subject. and handed it to his successor Helmuth von Moltke the younger, Although I disagree with Terence Zuber’s main assertion, I son of the late Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke who led the will show that the Schlieffen Plan, along with how it was altered victorious Prussian armies against France in the Franco‐Prussian by von Moltke the younger, has always been a tenuous idea. war. However, past historians have felt that the plan was common Inspired by the Battle of Cannae, in which Hannibal knowledge even while they played freely with the facts, defeated a much larger Roman army using envelopment tactics bestowing on it a mythological quality. Even after the addition that resulted in the virtual destruction of the Roman army in 216 of primary sources in the 1990s, we are still unable to come to B.C., Schlieffen’s plan called for a right wing envelopment of the any kind of consensus on what the Schlieffen Plan was. The French army away from German soil, which would bypass the neutral countries Schlieffen planned to invade varies from strong French fortifications in Moselle, catch the French army in historian to historian. Belgium is almost always mentioned, but the open and destroy it. Holland and Luxemburg appear and disappear throughout When Helmuth von Moltke the younger assumed the various books and articles. Sometimes the planned use of Italian position of the Chief of Staff, he made adjustments to Schlieffen’s troops in Lorraine is attributed to von Moltke the younger, but plan according to the changing political and military situation. sometimes to Schlieffen. Some historians, like Terence Zuber, are He reduced the ratio of divisions between the German right and overly sympathetic to Imperial Germany. Some, like Annika left flank in the west and sent more divisions to eastern Mombauer, rail against German war guilt, forget what war they Germany to defend Prussia from possible Russian attack. It has are writing about, and call the Entente the Allies. The goals of been on these adjustments that von Moltke’s colleagues the plan, to march around Paris, encircle Paris, attack the French criticized him after the German attack into northern France fortresses from behind, or push the French army into fizzled in the opening months of the Great War. Switzerland, also cannot seem to be agreed upon. However, in the past fifty years historians have had a In one sense, the Schlieffen Plan that has been described by difficult time deciding exactly what the Schlieffen Plan was or historians for the past fifty years was a myth. What von Schlieffen and von Moltke the younger intended has been rewritten and mischaracterized many times. However, Terence Michael Kleen, a member of Phi Alpha Theta, is a graduate student in History from Des Zuber’s thesis that there never was a Schlieffen Plan is just one Plaines, Illinois. He wrote this paper for Dr. Sace Elder in History 5400, Modern Germany, during the Fall of 2006. more surreal portrait in a long line of paintings based upon DER SCHLIEFFENPLAN 35 36 Historia paintings, each one clouded by age and getting further from the was defeated, “the railroad cars were standing ready in actual subject. accordance with the Schlieffen Plan,” to transfer men to the This paper is divided into four parts: an introduction, a critical point in northern France, but von Moltke ordered a section on the plan as described by historians from the beginning counter attack against the French fortress line instead.4 The rest, of the Cold War to 1998, a section on the revision of the plan as they say, is history. based on rediscovered primary sources and the debate In 1956 Gerhard Ritter published Schlieffen’s deployment surrounding the Zuber thesis, and my conclusion. and operational plans in their entirety in his book The Schlieffen Plan along with his own commentary. This book has been the II. The Plan, 1955—1998 mainstay of nearly all writings on Germany’s war plans leading In 1955 Ludwig Reiners, a German lawyer and economist, up to World War I because it contained most of the only primary characterized the Schlieffen Plan in his book The Lamps Went Out sources on Schlieffen’s military thinking from 1905 to 1912 in Europe as a military plan that took into consideration a two available to Western scholars until the 1990s. front war. According to Reiners, Schlieffen anticipated the Ritter characterized the Schlieffen Plan as “an offensive situation in which Germany found herself at the eve of the Great which would annihilate the entire French Army at a single blow War. “Chief of Staff Schlieffen,” he wrote, “had horrified his and achieve quick and total victory on the Western front,” associates by working out war games in which Russia, France, singularly in a war against France, but the author argued the England, Belgium, and Serbia were united against Germany and plan also fit into Schlieffen’s strategic thinking regarding a two‐ Austria.”1 In this scenario, Schlieffen decided that the only front war.5 In the event of a two‐front war, Germany should chance for German victory lay in defeating her enemies quickly, decisively defeat the most dangerous enemy first, France, then one at a time. France had to be defeated in eight weeks with a turn and defeat the other, Russia. Over the course of Schlieffen’s single bold stroke. The vast majority of the German army would tenure as Chief of Staff, “the ratio of strength between the strike through Belgium and, “with Metz as pivot they would German armies in the East and the West was reduced from 1:2 to complete a gigantic loop…encircle Paris from the rear and, 1:4, and later to 1:8.”6 advancing eastward, drive the enemy up against the Swiss Schlieffen’s war games, according to Ritter, “seem to have border and the Moselle fortifications.”2 been intended to prove that the left wing of the German army As for the fate of the Schlieffen Plan under his successor von could be much weakened in favor of the right.”7 Schlieffen Moltke the younger, Reiners argued that von Moltke watered wanted to emphasize that a French attack against German down the grand plan and wanted to incorporate Italian soldiers positions in Lorraine would fail and they would be forced to in the defense of Alsace‐Lorraine, but, “in strengthening the march north to seek decisive victory, making them vulnerable to Lorraine defensive front, von Moltke necessarily weakened the a massive German counterattack on their left flank. offensive army.”3 After the German grand offensive stalled in However, “before 1904‐5 Schlieffen had not decided to stake northern France, and the subsequent French attack in Lorraine everything on one card and rely on the great envelopment, 1Ludwig Reiners, The Lamps Went Out in Europe, trans. Richard and Clara 4Ibid., 169. Winston (Pantheon Books, Inc., 1955; reprint, Cleveland, Ohio: Meridian Books, 5Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen Plan, trans. Andrew and Eva Wilson (Munich: 1966): 165. Verlag R. Oldenbourg, 1956; reprint, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958): 17. 2Ibid., 166. 6Ibid., 30. 3Ibid., 167. 7Ibid., 40. DER SCHLIEFFENPLAN 37 38 Historia cutting across Belgium to Dunkirk. On the contrary, it (his In his 1966 book The German Army, Herbert Rosinski memorandum of 1899) even contains a caution against such provided a more detailed analysis of the Schlieffen Plan than boldness.”8 Schlieffen preferred to seek the decisive battle Ludwig Reiners had eleven years earlier. The Schlieffen Plan, he through Luxembourg and Belgium, close to the German argued, was born out of a desire to achieve absolute victory over deployment area, but in Schlieffen’s memorandum of 1905 the the enemy through the destruction of the enemy’s entire army― plan suddenly changed. He extended the German right flank, one of the goals of war laid out by the philosopher of war von siphoned more troops away from Lorraine, and included a strike Clauswitz. “By the Schlieffen plan’s encirclement,” Rosinski through the southern tip of Holland. That change did not occur explained, “he not only hoped to achieve that decisive blow in as a result of evolving French plans, Ritter argued. “Although flank and rear but to deprive his opponents in advance of any the French General Staff was continually discussing the power to develop their initiative.”14 possibility of a German offensive through Belgium, there were According to Rosinski’s characterization, Schlieffen’s plan of no such changes until 1906,” he wrote.9 The genesis of the plan’s 1905 fused “mobilization, operations, and tactical decisions into alterations was strictly within Schlieffen’s own thoughts.