What summarizes the Schlieffen Plan that Germany created to prepare for a two front war?

Answer 1

It is a plan that has been devised by Alfred von Schlieffen. He was ordered to devise this plan in order to break the stalemate that had been created between both the Allied and the German forces. It consisted of passing through Belgium and taking Paris. After that, Germany would have dealt with its Eastern flank, that is to say Russia. If this had succeeded, the war would have been won for Germany.

Unfortunately for the Germans it failed because: Firstly: the Belgians held the Germans back for longer than expected.

Secondly: The Russians mobilized faster than expected on Germany's eastern flank.

Answer 2

Hitler's declaration of War against the US on December 11, 1941 was in the hope that Japan would reciprocate his action by attacking the Soviet Union on it's eastern flank (Asia), while Germany continued battling the Soviets in the west (Europe).

Answer 3

The plan, called the Schlieffen Plan, was to occupy Western Europe, then defeat the Soviet Union.

During the early part of the war, Hitler hoped to sue Britain for peace following Dunkirk and the battle of Britain. German military planning was based on the idea of blitzkrieg, which meant a short war. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, he hoped to defeat the Russians within 3 months and before the onset of winter.

Following the failure of this, Germany was faced with a long war, and the entry of the US in December 1941 meant that Germany was faced with a true two-front war. Hitler and the German High Command's hopes of victory were now placed in the idea of crushing the Soviet Union's armies and reducing Britain into submission via a submarine blockade. This would leave the US confronted by a Fortress Europe impossible to assault. However, the tide of battle turned on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad in November 1942, and in the Atlantic in March 1943. Following the initiative being passed to the Allies, Hitler was thrown back on his belief in secret weapons that could swing the war back in Germany's favor. Despite the fact that Germany invented the first jet aircraft (the Messerschmitt Me262) and the V-1 and V-2 rockets (the first cruise missile and the first ballistic missile), these were created too late to affect the war's outcome, and defense of the German Reich became impossible.

Answer 4

It in itself is a major cause of ww1 because of it's inflexibility. When Russia mobilized against Austria-Hungary, Germany mobilized against Russia because A-H had and alliance with germany. In order to mobilize against Russia, the Germans had to also move through Belgium towards France. The principle of the plan was to mainly focus on France while using small forces to defend the eastern border from Russia.

Answer 5

The Schlieffen Plan was Germany's battle plan at the start of World War I. The plan called for Germany to attack France with the majority of its army in order to overwhelm it within six weeks. The rest of the German army would stand on the defensive in the east. The Germans believed that the Russian army would be slow to mobilize their troops and that a small force would be enough to protect their eastern borders. Once France had been defeated, the German army would be transported back to the east in order to defeat the Russian army.

Answer 6

It depends on who's answering the question.

Hitler gave the code name Operation Barbarossa to the invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. He seriously believed that it was possible to mop up Russia before the first snow flew but his operation was delayed by about six weeks because he had to send divisions to the Balkans to help the Italians (again). As we all know, those six weeks were extremely costly. Legend has it that, when he was confined to his Berlin bunker in the closing hours of his life, he raged that he wanted those six weeks back.

History calls the invasion utter stupidity. In 1812, Napoleon's took about 600,000 men into Russia and came out with about 50,000. The only thing he did that Hitler didn't do was burn Moscow, but the results were the same: defeat by winter and the determined resistance of Russians who don't take kindly to foreign invasions and are willing to scorch their own earth rather than let neighbors pillage and loot.

Of course, if you're referring to the German plans leading up to the Great War of 1914-1918, then you've got a slightly more intelligent strategy, although it's weird on paper. Wilhelm II knew that, as a result of the Triple Entente, any military action involving almost anyone in Europe would result in Germany having to take on Russia to the east and France to the west. The Schlieffen Plan was to mobilize most of the German divisions by train and send them against the French almost as soon as the whistles blew in August, 1914. The German High Command believed that it would be necessary to wipe the French out quickly before re-directing the strength of the German military against the much larger (and therefore, supposedly, more challenging) Russian divisions.

As it turns out, the Germans' decision to cross Belgium to the north brought the English (unwillingly) into the war, which eventually led to the stalemate on the Western Front, but at first the Germans were moving pretty quickly and looking to secure Paris on schedule. For some reason, one which history still doesn't have any conclusive accounting for, they stopped on the Marne, which gave the Allies time to set up the trenches from the Channel to Switzerland that created the bloody stalemate WW1 is remembered for.

Ironically, the Russians, who were supposed to be the greater challenge on the Eastern Front, were far easier to deal with, largely because of infighting between their two key generals, which led directly to the enormous German victory at Tannenburg. After that, the Russians couldn't put successive victories together anywhere and, because they were fighting a 19th-century war against a 20th-century foe, lost millions of men and swaths of territory before the tsar was removed by the Social Democrats in February, 1917.

Whew. Lots to say. I hope this was helpful.

Answer 7

Attack France first, then Russia

Answer 8

attack France first, then Russia

Answer 9

balls