Schlieffen and his generation of officers, made the same mistake that Hitler would make later in Russia. i.e. that Paris must be taken and the French would surrender if that happened. Or that if they surrounded and "anhilalated" the French Army, the country would surrender. Same thing in the East. A "tactical victory" in or around Warsaw would not be some kind of slap on the wrist to Russia, bringing her back in line. The days of Metz and Sedan were long gone. Ludendorff himself would write a book in the 20's called "Total War". Any future war between "Grate Powers" would end olny when one of those Powers was completely destroyed, physically, economically, politically and territorially, (occupied). There would never be another Versailles, (either 1871, or 1918. There would be olny 1945
Bismarck died on 30 July 1898. Russia and Germany seemed to be natural allies so it was a great failure that Russia entered WW2 on the side of Britain.
Bismarck would have changed his mind if circumstances had made him. After all Bismarck was a pragmatist and Patriot. The type we haven't seen in the leadership in Germany since the early 90s
After Germany got lands from Russia why didnt they just call a truce then with France and England? That to me looks like the sweet spot of success in war for them. If they had beaten Allies they couldn't have ruled France. Maybe they would have gotten small piece of land like 1871, but to risk empire for that doesn't make sense.
Lands don´t win wars, rather they tie up valuable men, much needed on other fronts. England and France had already the prospect of infinite resources from the USA at their disposal, and they were not stupid: anyone would be able to see that any "truce" would play in the hands of Germany, and that Gerry would resume hostilities once he felt strong again, this time with the Russian resources on his side. The only "truce" the Anglo-yanks (and their stooges, the French) would be willing to talk about would be unconditional surrender, as it would happen twenty-six years later!
For Germany to offer a truce to the Allies after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty would ignore the realities of war. By then the war had been raging for four years and caused the death of millions and billions in treasure. Where these to count for nothing? The state of mind of the leaders on both sides was we've sacrificed so much, lets see it through to the end. As it was the B-L agreement itself was only signed in March 1918 by which time the Austrians were about the sue for peace and the German population was being gradually starved into submission thanks to the RN blockade.
The allies weren’t interested in a truce, you’re acting like only 1 side was belligerent, the Germans actually made more peace offers throughout the war than the entente powers.
Hi Ross Why do you say people dislike Christopher Clarks book the Sleepwalkers? I have it, and have read it and watch his lectures. I cannot fault it, and I have been studying 1914 and ww1 causally for 50 years.
Fascinating: minute 45/47 there was a more modern chief of staff who decided to use “ersatz” troops to beef up his numbers in a war in which the enemy’s will and capacity for resistance were vastly underestimated - Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara’s very cruel decision to allow the US army to recruit and send troops with sun-par learning abilities to combat roles in vietnam. I think the documentary on RU-vid is called McNamara’s Folly
Great job, well done. I'm 71 now and I've had a fascination with the Schlieffen plan since I was 14 (in 1964) I often wonder if its partly due to his name Schlieffen is such a cool sounding name Eg if it was the von Kluck plan, or the Holstein plan, it would not have the same magic.
The British would not tolerate a German presence on the channel which is why they guaranteed Belgiums neutrality. If the war had somehow been confined between Germany and France would Great Britain have stayed out of it? Remember that France not Germany had always been GB’s traditional enemy.
At a time when Germany did not exist. With Germany on the stage, the Anglo-French animosity looked very different indeed, since now they had a common enemy, and nothing bonds more than that.
Thanks for a great talk, I learned much from it! One thing struck me: the ease with which these men - Von Schlieffen, Moltke, Tirpitz - doomed countless people to their deaths or to gruesome suffering ... It is a sobering warning about how much some people can lack empathy with their fellow human beings. It is a lesson that we saw repeated in 2001-3: some people should be kept as far away from power as possible. How to do that though? Now there's a challenge.
They were also just doinf their job. Ie heads of the army, and navy etc. Lets hope that our generals and admirals are on top of things if a war breaks out in Ukraine or South East Asia, or in the middle east. The only leader I can think of who had empathy was Neville Chamberlain, and look at the misery he caused!
I think your comment is 100% relevent to 2020-2021(and counting). The difference is that this time, the 'people in power' are neither the politicians or the generals but rather the Corporatists at the top of the mega corporations.
War is in the Bible. War is the subject of the very oldest relics of humanity. War is a human activity from the beginning up to today. How can this be eliminated? I can see it happening, but only when predicated upon the entire population of the planet being enlightened saints.
My take is that the Schlieffen 'plan' was the worst and least-likely-to-succeed of all the strategic options developed since 1870. Yet it was the one favored by Moltke, Jr. And presented by the general staff to the civilian leadership as the strategy to pursue. The final slide is the most vital: the generals failed to *really* to do their true duty to the Kaiser and give him *real* advice. Failures like this even happen today. Rumsfeld/others tell Bush: invade Iraq, 2003. Shoigu/Gerasimov tell Putin: invade Ukraine, 2022.
German planners falsely believed that Britain wouldn't honor its treaty committment to Belgium from 1830, and that, if it did, it wouldn't make any difference. In the event, the relatively tiny BEF made all the difference. Its fighting retreat from Mons led to the Miracle on the Marne. A RFC plane spotted the Germans' vulnerability, ie von Kluck's First Army's left wheel, exposing his flank to French forces. The only way for the Schlieffen Plan, as finally implemented, to have worked was for First Army to have been motorized, which was feasible in 1914.
I agree to your comments about Britain's honouring the Belgium 1830 treaty commitment, (which incidentally was signed by all the belligerent countries involved in WWI), but Germany was also warned that Britain would not stand by and watch France be destroyed.
Hindsight is always 20/20, and re-enacting on the keyboard at home wars bloodily fought in the field over a century ago is as safe as it is sterile, but, really: what the hell were those Germans thinking, what was EVERYBODY at the OHL smoking? Suppose the (obviously unworkable) Schlieffen plan worked, and Paris fell. So what? I´ll commit another historian´s deadly sin, and fast forward 26 years. Didn´t Paris (and the whole of France) fall in 1940? What the hell made the OHL druggies think Britain (much, much more powerful in 1914 than in 1940) would surrender too, and give up the fight? Germans are very bad at humour, but the joke of "knocking France out of the war and then shifting all those millions of men over to the East to knock out the Russians too" is laughable indeed. A Germany victorious in the West would have to have substantial forces tied up in the huge (by European standards) France in order to keep the country subdued, enjoying the hatred and animosity of ALL the froggies in the process (watch the fierce resistance of the theoretically puny Belgians), and with the British Lion ready to pounce on them and tear them apart with its mighty claws. The much-debated Schlieffen plan conceals the ABSOLUTE LACK OF A PLAN to sensibly deal with Britain AND the monstrous Russian bear. And, what kind of "peace" did Gerry expect after those three impossible "victories"? One thing is to (successively) defeat Denmark, Austria and France, and another, quite different, to (simultanoeusly) defeat France, England and Russia! And keep the "peace" steady!!!! Again, what were those guys high on? I want that dope, it really hits hard!
Great and entertaining lecture. However, there are several things I wished you would have addressed in the beginning. I am impressed that you mentioned Zuber's thesis when most current historians ignore it. You said that Holmes, Foley, and Mombauer debunk Zuber. You fail to mention that Zuber answered all of them by using primary sources. You also say that they are the experts and you implied that Zuber is not an expert. That was an argument that Mombauer used and it holds no weight. Zuber extensively studied German war planning prior to WWI. Perhaps he did not have academic training in this period, but studying and understanding the sources makes him an expert like anyone else who does. Also, Holmes himself writes that Mombauer and the other historians who do not take the time to study the minute details of German war planning have no place in the debate. If anything, Zuber is a greater expert than Mombauer in German war planning.
I trusted Zuber's ability to count battalions and divisions etc. He is a soldier.I use his numbers, even though they tend to be more extreme than others. However the notion that the Germans did not plan a pre-emptive strike using a strong right wing to invade France via neutral Belgium --the essence of Schlieffen- does not work. Moltke was desperate to attack, becasue once he concluded war was inevitable, he needed it to start straight away and so pushed the Kaiser into war. As I understand Zuber he argues that the Germans had a defensive-offensive strategy which I just can't see.
Zuber has the academic training, he obtained a Phd in history in Germany. Yet he is wrong. German troops in 1914 acted according to some plan, what they actually did has reflected the ideas of Schlieffen. So I do not know what Zuber s point was. What had been regarded as the plan was not the plan but only the core ideas of the plan written down on a few pages of paper which remained private property of Count Schlieffen. So?
@@rg-cc5kg They had a plan but it had absolutely nothing to do with Schlieffen. I would say there are three separate lines of nonsense about Schlieffen and his alleged plan. 1. The supposed plan (more correctly described as a thought experiment) assumed 24 new divisions would be raised and that The Russian army would some how disappear. 2. Allowing that this was a plan (which it wasn't) it became irrelevant as soon as Schlieffen retired in January 1906. 3. The man who actually drew up the 1914 war plan was Molke. It is him we should be studying and all talk about Schlieffen is completely irrelevant.
Kalan Red stone. Zuber doesn't always present his arguments as clearly as might be wished. For instance, I wish he would take care to place the term "Schlieffen Plan" inside scare quotes to make it clearer that there was no such thing.
@@rossbeadle6709 It's certainly an interesting question why Moltke planned such a bold offensive with an army which was so obviously too small to win a quick victory over The French. I suppose if he could conquer even a part of North East France, a major industrial zone, it would be an accomplishment.
What a fascinating talk! If Germany had only struck East and South France and Great Britain would probably have stayed out of it. Food for thought.This is making the pieces of ww2 fit together why Hitler wanted to avoid war with the West and invade Russia only. The world most certainly look different today.
The British were going to get involved anyway, I don’t know where these outdated historians get their info from, Edward Gray and promised British military support to France REGARDLESS of Belgian neutrality if France and Germany went to war. This was given in 1908 and was classified for decades. The British cares about maintaining economic dominance over their main rival, Germany, to suggest they’d have sat out is ridiculous. Also the German army would’ve been unbelievably stupid to try and assault the French frontier forts
It's very interesting, but surely the map is wrong (Austro-Hungarian South Tyrol appears to have vanished) and the Russo-Japanese War was 1904-5, why is it listed as 1903?
map @ 20:40 ff. shows what von Moltke the lesser actually did...Not what Schlieffen wanted: an overwhelmingly strong right wing coming down channel coast to envelop Paris from the west and north. The lesser v. Moltke killed the S Plan pre-war by allocating 150,000 troops to defend Alsace-Lorraine so that, in the event, an attenuated German Right turned well short of the channel and came down just east of Paris. Result: disaster; a long multi-front war that an encircled, blockaded Germany could not win. And same with Round II, 1939-45.
But Germany went much wider and started much farther north in Belgium in 1914 than the very general map @20:40. For example, Liege is much farther north, practically touching the Dutch border. And we're not even considering the "race" to the coast
@@trauko1388 It really makes me want to scream that people are still talking about this imaginary Schlieffen Plan instead of the actual planning done by Moltke.
The premise of your talk is mistaken: the plan very much was designed for a two front war - in fact the whole rationale for the plan was that Germany could not win such a war unless it achieved a knock-out blow against one antagonist and then turning about to throw the whole of the German armies against the other.
The Germans were looking for a war! That Serbian thing was just an excuse. The Germans could see war coming in the next few years and they wanted to beat everyone to the punch. However it was a major miscalculation violating Belgium’s neutrality. Everything depended on a quick victory. When Germany let it slip through their fingers they were branded as the aggressors that started the whole thing. Bad for their image.
Your rhetoric has been outdated since the 70s, Germany didn’t want a war, but if war was inevitable the generals preferred it sooner than later, however the emperor had no desire to make war on his customers so to speak, Germany was prospering in peace times and starting a war would be suicidal madness. While Germany did make some diplomatic blunders she was no more guilty than the other powers, and the kaiser was the one writing the most telegrams trying to de-escalate the conflict, and he was the last monarch to mobilise his arm….
Of course the Germans wanted war. What was the purpose of the Schlieffen Plan if that was'nt the case. What they wanted was to avoid appearing to have started the war so they used their influence with the Austrians to provoke a war with Serbia that would bring in their Russian allies into the conflict. Its a complex subject but the German economy had overtaken Britain's and they wanted a short war like the 1864 2nd Schleswig war, the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 and Franco-Prussian war of 1871 to win 'their place in the sun' and be treated as a global power of the first rank.
@@normanconnor2771 You have an incredibly outdated and childish views of these events. Are you aware that every country has war plans in case of conflict? Right now every country in Europe has some form of war plan against another, that doesn’t mean they are looking for a war, the schleffian plan wasn’t some DR evil scheme to conquer the continent, it was a military strategy devised in case of war, the French had plan 17 which was to immediately March into Alsace Lorraine, then threaten Berlin, they enacted this war plan and got humiliated in less than a week, Russia had war plans to occupy east Prussia and Galicia before marching on Berlin, yet I don’t see you accusing them of planning a war premeditated in fashion? You’ve been raised on a politically motivated false version of history, the schleffian plan was no different than any other countries war plan, it was designed to be used in case of war with France. History shows the Serbian military intelligence branch was involved in the Sarajevo killing and the Russian military attaché to Serbia provided the weapons, the Germans simply supported their ally to take action against state terrorism, and it was Russia, seeking a railway access through Serbia to the Mediterranean, that chose to escalate this local Balkan conflict into a continental war by mobilising over something that was nothing to do with them. The sheer nature of their alliance with France meant that once Russia and Germany were in war, France would inevitably joined, the German army was the last to mobilise on the continent too, and they kept asking Russia to demobilise and avoid a large scale war.
