Who was General Schlieffen and what was his plan for World War 1 and what was his country trying to avoid by implementing this plan?

Answer 1

Schlieffen was a German general who wanted to avoid waging a war from two fronts (France to the west and Russia to the east) so because he believed that Russia would take a long time to prepare he went up north through Belgium to invade France. He wanted to quickly attack France -with the element of surprise- and then move his attention to Russia and overtake them and thus be able to deal with them individually. What ended up happening was that by going through Belgium it prompted Britain into the war on the side of the French and the Russians mobilized quicker then expected plus the Belgians put up a fight.

Part of the plan was to have the ability to shift troops via railways from the Eastern and Western fronts.

Answer 2

General Schlieffen was a German tactical commander that realized that Germany could not succeed in a two front war with France and Russia. He expected that Russian mobilization would be slow, so he drafted a plan for a scenario fo a war between Germany an alliance between France and Russia that kept token forces in the eastern front and launched a massive enveloping assault of the western front. the idea was that the enveloping movement would circle around Paris and surround the capital of France. the idea was to take out the French government in one blow, effectivelly ending the war in the western front, before the Russians were ready to attack on the eastern front.

Answer 3

Alfred Graf von Schlieffen (1833-1913), was a German Field Marshal & Strategist. From 1881 to 1906 he was Chief of Imperial German General Staff.

He set up the homonymous Schlieffen Plan to win a supposed two-front war against Russian to the east and France to the west.

The plan foresaw an invasion of northern France passing through Belgium an the Netherlands to be carried on by the bulk of the German Army, whilst a minimum force would have been employed to keep at bay the Russian on the eastern Germany.

The invading Army would use a giant flanking movement that would cut off northeastern France, forcing the French to retire southward and then eventually defeat them in a decisive envelopment battle for Paris, annihilating the French Army and making France sue for peace. Once reached that task the German forces would have been transferred to the Eastern Front to face the Russians

The plan was based upon following assumption:

1 - the well known slowness of Russian mobilization;

2 - the invasion of northeastern France and the decisive battle should have been carried out in six week, that is before the Russian Army could make its "weight" felt on the eastern front;

3 - Schlieffen was perfectly aware that the violation of neutrality of Belgium and Holland and their invasion would cause the Great Britain's intervention, but he calculated that a British strong expeditionary force would have been landed too late or not at all, because of the estimated speed of advance of the invading German army corps.