How Did The Schlieffen Plan
Germany was prepared for the war in August, 1914. The Schlieffen Plan was a huge plan of attack to be used in the event of a war which was announced by Count Von Schlieffen on the 31st of December, 1905 (9 years before the war started). The European powers (allies) heard about this plan in 1914 before the outbreak of the war. The idea was that the Germans would sweep across Holland and Belgium to the sea at Dunkirk, the area between forts at Verdun and the Dunkirk coast would be attacked by 35 army corps and France was thought to of been defeated in about 6 weeks. These are only examples of results that Germany would get after using their plan of attack ‘The Schlieffen Plan’.
This was until unforeseen problems occurred. This included the unexpected supply problems created by the rapid advance through Belgium and France, The Germans not realising the strength of French armies and how they would be able to switch troops using the rail network, German rail transport ended at the Belgian border meaning that from there soldiers would …show more content…
The tactical and strategic problems that arose during this stage included things such as transportation difficulties as a result of poor French roads and infrastructure. as well as due to the invention and implementation of the machine gun, armies could no longer rely on their cavalry forces as they were often slow, inefficient and easy targets. The moral of the soldiers was also greatly impacted by the introduction of the machine gun into warfare. Machine gun attacks were greatly underestimated and enormous casualties would often result. This was most apparent in the failure of plan XV11 where the French believed that they would be able to cover 50 metres in a 20 second charge before the Germans were able to draw their rifles. This plan obviously did not succeed with the majority of French troops being killed within the first 10
This was until unforeseen problems occurred. This included the unexpected supply problems created by the rapid advance through Belgium and France, The Germans not realising the strength of French armies and how they would be able to switch troops using the rail network, German rail transport ended at the Belgian border meaning that from there soldiers would …show more content…
The tactical and strategic problems that arose during this stage included things such as transportation difficulties as a result of poor French roads and infrastructure. as well as due to the invention and implementation of the machine gun, armies could no longer rely on their cavalry forces as they were often slow, inefficient and easy targets. The moral of the soldiers was also greatly impacted by the introduction of the machine gun into warfare. Machine gun attacks were greatly underestimated and enormous casualties would often result. This was most apparent in the failure of plan XV11 where the French believed that they would be able to cover 50 metres in a 20 second charge before the Germans were able to draw their rifles. This plan obviously did not succeed with the majority of French troops being killed within the first 10