The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I (Foreign Military Studies)

With the creation of the Franco-Russian Alliance and the failure of the Reinsurance Treaty in the late nineteenth century, Germany needed a strategy for fighting a two-front war. In response, Field Marshal Count Alfred von Schlieffen produced a study that represented the apex of modern military planning. His Memorandum for a War against France, which incorporated a mechanized cavalry as well as new technologies in weaponry, advocated that Germany concentrate its field army to the west and annihilate the French army within a few weeks. For generations, historians have considered Schlieffen's writings to be the foundation of Germany's military strategy in World War I and have hotly debated the reasons why the plan, as executed, failed.

In this important volume, international scholars reassess Schlieffen's work for the first time in decades, offering new insights into the renowned general's impact not only on World War I but also on nearly a century of military historiography. The contributors draw on newly available source materials from European and Russian archives to demonstrate both the significance of the Schlieffen Plan and its deficiencies. They examine the operational planning of relevant European states and provide a broad, comparative historical context that other studies lack. Featuring fold-out maps and abstracts of the original German deployment plans as they evolved from 1893 to 1914, this rigorous reassessment vividly illustrates how failures in statecraft as well as military planning led to the tragedy of the First World War.

• The Generals’ War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918 (Twentieth-Century Battles)
• Alfred Von Schlieffen's Military Writings (Military History and Policy)
• Imperial Germany and War, 1871-1918 (Modern War Studies)
• The Myth and Reality of German Warfare: Operational Thinking from Moltke the Elder to Heusinger (Foreign Military Studies)
• The Plan That Broke the World: The "Schlieffen Plan" and World War I (What Were They Thinking?)
• Invasion 1914: The Schelieffen Plan to the Battle of the Marne: Before the trenches - the first battles of World War I (General Military)
• The Turn of the Tide in the Pacific War: Strategic Initiative, Intelligence, and Command, 1941-1943 (Modern War Studies)
• The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945 (Modern War Studies)
• The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire
• On to Petersburg: Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864