What was the outcome to the Schlieffen Plan?

Answer 1

If the Germans had stuck to the Schlieffen Plan they might have won the war in those first six weeks. The Germans had worked on the plan for twenty years, and had it down to fine details. At the start of the war the Germans had eight field armies. The plan called for using one to stall any Russian moves, and the other seven to rapidly overwhelm France. The seven armies in the west were to pivot, like a gate swinging, with the last man on the end of the line with "one foot in the sea". This was very hard on those men at the far end of the line, as they had to travel much farther than those nearer the pivot point. The Germans were counting on the slow pace of Russian mobilization. Russia had a huge army, but few railroads and poor surface roads, It would take weeks to call up their reserves and get organized and get all their men where they needed to be to begin operations. Except that the French, near to being annihilated, sent anguished pleas to their Russian ally, to make some move, any move, even if they were not completely ready, to draw off some of the pressure. The Russians obliged and moved forward before being fully ready, and were defeated in the Battle of Tannenburg. But this unexpected Russian lunge so unsettled the German High Command that they departed from the Schlieffen Plan. They ordered three army corps, about a field army or an army and a half, to move by train from France to the eastern front. These reinforcements got to the east too late to take any part in the Battle of Tannenburg, but were sorely missed in the west. With fewer men to work with, and exhaustion leaving the men at the end of their pivoting line sleepwalking, the Germans shortened the extent of their great swing through France, to the point where they no longer envisioned capturing Paris in this first onslaught. The Germans would now pass to the east of Paris. Capturing Pairs would probably have caused the French to give in, so the Germans in abandoning the Plan also abandoned the hope of a rapid, complete victory over the French.