What was General Schlieffen's plan for World War 1?

Answer 1

Alfred von Schlieffen was a German general around the turn of the century. He saw what was going on in Europe and correctly guessed that Germany would wind up fighting both Russia and France, at the same time.

So he came up with this plan. He would split the whole German army into two groups, with two very different roles:

1. The first group would be about 90% of all German soldiers. The plan was to invade France through Belgium (they had nice roads, and also France had defenses set up on their border with Germany, but not with Belgium).

2. The second group would be the remaining 10%. They would defend German territory until France was defeated.

By doing this, Germany would (hopefully) overwhelm the French army and capture Paris quickly, as they had done in 1870. Then France would be forced to make peace, after which point Germany could turn its attention to Russia. France was seen as a bigger threat to Germany because it was very close and just as modern as Germany. Russia, while very large and capable of raising massive armies, was also not modern. So it would take a long time to raise those large armies and get them over to fight Germany.