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Schlieffen Plan
Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's early 20th century overall
strategic plan for victory in a possible future war in which the German Empire
might find itself fighting on two fronts: France to the west and Russia to the east.
The First World War later became such a war, with both a Western and an
Eastern Front.
The plan took advantage of expected differences in the three countries' speed in
preparing for war. In short, it was the German plan to avoid a two-front war by
concentrating troops in the West and quickly defeating the French and then, if
necessary, rushing those troops by rail to the East to face the Russians before
they had time to mobilize fully. The Schlieffen Plan was created by Count Alfred
von Schlieffen and modified by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger after
Schlieffen's retirement; it was Moltke who actually implemented the plan at the
outset of World War I. In modified form, it was executed to near victory in the
first month of the war. However, the modifications to the original plan, a French
counterattack on the outskirts of Paris (the Battle of the Marne) and surprisingly
Count Alfred von Schlieffen
speedy Russian offensives ended the German offensive and resulted in years of
trench warfare. The plan has been the subject of intense debate among historians
and military scholars ever since. Schlieffen's last words were "remember to keep the right flank strong," which was
significant in that Moltke strengthened the left flank in his modification.
The Schlieffen Plan
After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, most of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, with a population that was
culturally both French and German, were annexed by the new German Empire. The revanchist French vowed to
regain these territories, which France had possessed for nearly 200 years. Due to alliances orchestrated by German
chancellor Otto von Bismarck, France was initially isolated, but after Kaiser Wilhelm II took the throne in 1888 and
gradually estranged Germany from Russia and Britain, the prospect of fighting a future war on two fronts
simultaneously caused increasing unease among German leaders.
France, having been defeated in a matter of weeks in 1870, was not considered as dangerous in the long run as the
Russians, who were expected to be difficult to defeat if the Tsar were allowed the necessary time to mobilize his
huge country to the fullest extent. After Britain and France concluded the Entente Cordiale in 1904, Wilhelm asked
Count Schlieffen to devise a plan which would allow Germany to fight a war on two fronts, and in December 1905
Schlieffen began circulating it.
The idea of the plan was to win a two-front war by first quickly defeating France in the west – the plan scheduled 39
days for the fall of Paris and 42 for the capitulation of France – before the "Russian Steamroller" would be able to
mobilize and descend upon East Prussia.[1] The plan depended on Germany's ability to quickly mobilize troops and
invade France before the French could fully mobilize their troops and defend their territory, and then to turn on
Russia, seen as the slowest of the three to mobilize, before the Russians were ready.
Schlieffen's solution reversed that of his great predecessor, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, whose experiences in the
Franco-Prussian War with modern warfare and concerns regarding the increasing lethality of weaponry, made him
doubt that a swift success could be achieved. Moltke had accordingly favoured limited operations against France and
a major effort against Russia. Schlieffen, on the other hand, would seek an immediate all-out victory against France.
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Schlieffen Plan
According to Cpt. Douglas Cohn, USA (ret.), the Japanese victory in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War had
discredited the Russian military, and the Schlieffen Plan, finalized less than three months after the end of that war,
clearly took this into account. The German victory over the numerically superior Russians at the Battle of
Tannenberg in 1914 validated this point.
The plan envisaged a rapid German mobilization, disregard for the neutrality of Luxembourg, Belgium and the
Netherlands and an overwhelming sweep of the powerful German right wing southwest through Belgium and
Northern France, "letting the last man on the right, brush the Channel with his sleeve,"[2] in the words of Schlieffen,
while maintaining only a defensive posture on the central and left wings, in Lorraine, the Vosges, and the Moselle.
Paris was not to be taken (in 1870, the Siege of Paris had lasted for
months) but was to be passed by the right wing to the west of the city.
The intent of the plan was not to conquer cities or industry in order to
weaken the French war efforts, but to capture most of the French Army
and to force France to surrender, in essence a repeat of the strategy
used to defeat France during the Franco-Prussian War. The plan was
that the French Army would be hemmed in around Paris and forced to
fight a decisive envelopment battle.
However, a seed of disaster lurked in the conception of the plan: both
The sizable railway station of Metz was designed
Schlieffen and Moltke were seduced by the possibility of the double
to accommodate troops on foot and on horseback
for the success of the Schlieffen plan.
envelopment of the entire French Army by the right wing coming from
the north and west of France and the left wing coming from the east.
The inspiration was the destruction of the Roman Army by Hannibal's forces at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC,
which was the object of meticulous study by Schlieffen. In essence, his plan was a very large scale strategic
readdressing of Hannibal's tactics, capitalizing on the recent breakthroughs in communications and transport. Hans
Delbrück's seminal study of the battle had a profound influence on subsequent German military theorists, in
particular on Schlieffen. Through his writings, Schlieffen taught that the "Cannae model" would continue to be
applicable in maneuver warfare throughout the 20th century:
"A battle of annihilation can be carried out today according to the same plan devised by Hannibal in
long forgotten times. The enemy front is not the goal of the principal attack. The mass of the troops and
the reserves should not be concentrated against the enemy front; the essential is that the flanks be
crushed. The wings should not be sought at the advanced points of the front but rather along the entire
depth and extension of the enemy formation. The annihilation is completed through an attack against the
enemy's rear... To bring about a decisive and annihilating victory requires an attack against the front
and against one or both flanks..."
Schlieffen later developed his own operational doctrine in a series of articles, many of which were later translated
and published in a work entitled "Cannae".
Politically, one of the major drawbacks of the Schlieffen Plan was that it called for the invasion of neutral states in
order to pass through German troops to France. As it turned out, at least formally, it was the decision to invade
Belgium which led to war with Great Britain. In the US, the manner in which Belgium was invaded had much to do
with turning popular sentiment against Germany, and facilitated the entrance of the US into war against Germany in
April 1917.
As noted previously, Russian mobilization would supposedly be extremely slow, due to its poor railway system.
Following the speedy defeat of France, the German General Staff would switch German concentrations to the
Eastern Front. The plan called for sending 91% of the German troops to France and 9% to Russia. His goal was to
defeat France in six weeks, the time it took for Russia to mobilize its army, and turn back to the Eastern Front before
Russia could react. Kaiser Wilhelm II is quoted as having said "Paris for lunch, dinner at St. Petersburg."
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Schlieffen Plan
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Modifications to the Plan, 1906
Following the retirement of Schlieffen
in 1906, Helmuth von Moltke became
the German chief of staff. He disagreed
with at least some of the Schlieffen
Plan, thinking it to be too risky. The
Plan, however, having been devised in
1905, was now too much a part of
German military thinking to be
abandoned completely, so all Moltke
could do was modify it.
• Moltke decided to pull significant
numbers of troops away from the
main force entering France from the
north, in order to fortify the forces
in Alsace-Lorraine, and the forces at
the Russian border.
Map of the Schlieffen Plan and planned French counter-offensives
• The other significant change he
made was not to enter through the Netherlands, instead sending troops through Belgium and Luxembourg only.
These changes have been the subject of much debate. L.C.F Turner in 1970 described von Moltke's changes as "a
substantial modification in the Schlieffen Plan and one which probably doomed the German campaign in the west
before it was ever launched." Turner claims that by weakening the main German offensive, they did not have a real
chance of defeating the French army quickly enough; hence they became stranded in a two-front-war. He also says
that not going through the Netherlands not only created a bottleneck at the German-Belgian border, but also that not
having the Dutch railways at their disposal created a huge supply problem, a problem which outweighed the benefits
they gained by still having access to the Dutch ports.
However, in 1977, Martin van Creveld, analyzing the role of logistics in the plan, felt that the effects of Moltke's
alteration to avoid invading Dutch neutrality were more apparent than real, since two corps of troops which had been
allocated to contain the 90,000-strong Dutch Army could instead be used for the invasion of France. Further, van
Creveld points out that while Schlieffen had assigned five corps for the investment of Antwerp, Moltke made do
with only two. "Though it is therefore quite true that Moltke's right wing was not as strong as Schlieffen had planned
to make it, this loss was more than compensated for by the economies effected in [Moltke's] version of the plan."[3]
Early in the war, according to the directives of Plan XVII, the French mobilized and hurled their forces towards the
German border in an ill-fated attempt to recapture Alsace-Lorraine. This played exactly into Schlieffen's conception
of a trap through double envelopment, which called for a loose defense of the border, and actually for retreats by
which the French forces would have been lured further away from the main thrust of the German advance. However,
Moltke's weakening of the German right, the defense of Alsace-Lorraine, and the transfer of three army corps and
one cavalry division from the western front to help contain the Russian advance into East Prussia, all contributed to
the failure of the German army to break through the Allied forces at the Marne. Without that breakthrough, the plan
was destroyed.
Schlieffen Plan
Activation and subsequent failure
Though debate continues about the merits of the Schlieffen Plan and even on whether the Schlieffen Plan was ever
truly executed, a number of causes contributed to the failure of the German invasion:
Belgian resistance
Although the Belgian army was only a tenth of the size of the German army, it
still delayed the Germans for nearly a month, defending fortresses and cities. The
Germans used their "Big Bertha" artillery to destroy Belgian forts in Liège,
Namur, and Antwerp, but the Belgians still fought back, creating a constant
threat to German supply lines in the north. In addition, the German attack on
neutral Belgium and reports and propaganda about German atrocities there
turned public opinion in many neutral countries against Germany and Kaiser
Wilhelm II. Still, despite stiff Belgian resistance, the timetable for the Schlieffen
Plan was going according to schedule before it was halted in France.
German underestimation of the British-Belgian alliance
Britain and Belgium had an alliance due to the London Treaty of 1839. Germany
A British postcard reflecting
hoped that Britain, which was wary of making alliances due to its wish to remain
Belgium's determination to retain
neutral, would not honor the treaty and would not rush to the aid of Belgium. To
sovereignty.
Germany's dismay, Britain kept to the terms of the treaty and responded to
German aggression against Belgium by declaring war on Germany. The famous line "The Britons will go to war for
a mere scrap of paper?" comes from the German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg asking the British Ambassador
Goschen about the decision.[4]
The effectiveness of the British Expeditionary Force
The BEF was small, numbering only 75,000 at the start of the war. The French mobilized millions of recruits, and
their goal was to use this number to defeat the Germans quickly in Alsace. To this end, the French
commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre placed the small but highly-trained BEF on the left flank, where he believed there
would not be any fighting. Due to the rapid German advance through Belgium, the British were almost annihilated
several times, but they managed to delay the Germans long enough for French and British reinforcements to arrive.
While the BEF was forced into retreat throughout the month of August, it provided enough resistance against the
German First Army under Alexander von Kluck to help induce the German general to break off the Schlieffen Plan.
Instead, von Kluck turned south-east towards Compiègne, showing his flank to the Garrison of Paris under Gallieni,
making possible the "Miracle of the Marne".
The speed of Russian mobilization
The Russians moved faster than expected, gaining ground in East Prussia more quickly than the Germans had
planned for. While the Russian advance may not have posed much of a real threat at the time, had they kept gaining
ground at that pace, they would get dangerously close to Berlin. This caused the Germans to pull even more men
from their main force, in order to reinforce the Eastern Front. This proved counterproductive, since the forces pulled
from the Western Front were still in transit during the Battle of Tannenberg, in which the Germans would emerge
victorious, while the battles on the Western front were being lost for Germany.
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Schlieffen Plan
The French railway system
Because of the delays caused by the British and Belgians, the French had more time to mobilize its troops and send
them to northeastern France. The Germans greatly underestimated how well they would be able to do this, especially
with the extra time they were granted by the slowing of the German forces. The French sent some of their troops by
train, some through taxis, and marched the rest of them. By the time the Germans got into France, the French were
there waiting for them.
Logistical shortcomings
Van Creveld asserts that:
...Schlieffen does not appear to have devoted much attention to logistics when he evolved his great Plan.
He well understood the difficulties likely to be encountered, but made no systematic effort to solve
them. Had he done so, he might well have reached the conclusion that the operation was impracticable.
... Moltke did much to improve the logistic side of the Plan. Under his direction, the problem was
seriously studied for the first time and officers trained in the 'technics' of warfare ... He did, it is true,
make a number of changes in the Plan. From an exclusively logistic point of view, some of these were
beneficial, but most were harmful. Nevertheless, taking his period of office as a whole, he probably did
more to improve the Plan than to damage its prospects.[3]
He concludes that, overall, the logistical shortcomings of the Plan did not contribute to the German defeat at the First
Battle of the Marne. However,
Had the battle gone in Germany's favour ... there is every reason to believe that the advance would have
petered out. The prime factors would have been the inability of the railheads to keep up with the
advance, the lack of fodder, and sheer exhaustion. In this sense, but no other, it is true to say that the
Schlieffen Plan was logistically impracticable.[3]
In van Creveld's view the design of the Plan was not characterized by the kind of thoroughness and detailed planning
that is usually thought to be the hallmark of the German General Staff, but by "an ostrich-like refusal on Schlieffen's
part to face even those problems which, after forty years of peace, could be foreseen." Although Moltke did improve
the Plan somewhat in this respect, it was not methodical advanced planning which enabled the German advance to
succeed, but "furious improvisation"
That the Army achieved as much as it did, at a time when the standing orders could only be said to have
caused no actual harm, is remarkable indeed. Critics of the advance would do well to keep this in
mind.[3]
German troops were exhausted by the time they engaged French forces; many horses (towing artillery pieces)
sickened, having eaten green corn.[5]
German supply lines stretched 80 mi (130 km) at the Marne; the front line of the German Army had already broken
into retreat before the rear had even arrived.
German military's non-secretive communication
An added logistical problem resulted from the absence of General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger from the
Western Front, which proved to be another crucial (though not decisive) factor in the failure of the Schlieffen Plan.
Communication was especially poor and, in addition, German forces sent wireless messages uncoded, allowing
French forces under the command of acting Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre to pinpoint the location of the
German advance.[5]
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Schlieffen Plan
Moltke's changes to the plan
Chief of the General Staff Helmuth von Moltke made several changes to the Schlieffen Plan. One of his changes was
that he weakened the right wing of the German army, which was invading France by way of Belgium, in order to
strengthen the left-wing, which was defending Alsace-Lorraine against the French invasion. Moltke balked at the
weakness of the Alsatian "hinge" region, fearing that the massive strength of the right-wing's hammer would allow
the French to breakthrough the relatively sparsely manned left-wing "anvil". This had been part of Schlieffen's
design: his plan called for the invading French forces to be enveloped. Schlieffen had been willing to sacrifice some
German territory in the short run to decisively destroy the French Army but Moltke refused to run the same risk and
shifted some divisions from the right flank to the left flank in Alsace-Lorraine. This proved problematic, because the
German units who were supposed to fall back and lure the French away from Paris and the German right flank, were
now driving the French before them. Rather than diverting the French forces from the action, this placed the French
units much closer to the German 1st and 2nd armies threatening Paris.
Repulsed by the left-wing of Moltke's forces near Sarrebourg, the French retreated to the hills around the city of
Nancy (near the German border.) Rather than sweeping around them and enveloping the French armies and Paris
itself from the east, Moltke opted to directly attack their reinforced positions around Nancy which ended in an
unmitigated failure.
Before the war, Moltke also moved 180,000 men to eastern Germany to defend against the Russian invasion of East
Prussia. Shortly before the Battle of the Marne, he moved 80,000 more men to the east against the advisement of
General Ludendorff. Ludendorff would be vindicated as two days before the reinforcements arrived the Germans had
decisively defeated the Russians at Tannenberg, nearly destroying the Russian Second Army in its entirety in the
process. Ultimately Moltke reassigned some 250,000 men (an entire army's worth) from the right-wing assault before
finally abandoning the Schlieffen Plan altogether.
Moltke also had ideological opposition to the proposed passage of the invading armies through the neutral
Netherlands, deciding instead to send his armies only through Belgium and Luxembourg.
Decision to break off the plan
General von Kluck made the decision at the front to wheel south-easterly instead of continuing on past Paris in
accordance with Schlieffen's plan. German generals were taught to think for themselves, and in fact his decision to
wheel inwards made orthodox military sense. However, it deprived Germany of the chance to force a decisive
envelopment battle around Paris. It also turned the right flank of von Kluck's army toward Paris, leaving it in an
unprotected position when it was attacked by the newly created French Sixth Army under General Michel-Joseph
Maunoury. The result was a French victory at the First Battle of the Marne, which decisively ended the German
advance.
Aftermath of the plan's failure
The failures of the German army in the West resulted in defeat at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, a
stalemate, trench warfare, and a two-front war for Germany. After Germany's defeat at the Marne, there began a
series of flanking maneuvres by both the Germans, and the British and French Allies heading northwards in one last
attempt to end the war quickly. However, by December, the two armies had built an elaborate series of trench
fortifications stretching essentially from the English Channel to the Swiss border which would remain nearly static
for four years. Schlieffen's great gamble would, ironically, result in the one outcome he had feared: A long,
drawn-out war of attrition against a numerically stronger enemy.
What eventually occurred was a "reverse Schlieffen", in that Russia was defeated prior to the Western Allies. The
Russian army, aided by the Romanian and Serbian armies and considered by the German command as more
dangerous than the Western Allies, was defeated with relative ease. Meanwhile the Western Allies had a larger
6
Schlieffen Plan
manpower base from which to feed the war of attrition taking place. Even though Germany sent many divisions to
fight in Italy and the Franco-Benelux theater following the collapse of Russia and the Eastern Front in 1917/18, the
Western Allies still defeated the Central Powers' forces. In the 1918 summer campaign, Italy obtained a long sought
decisive victory over Austria-Hungary, and Austria withdrew from the war exposing Germany's southern flank. The
defeat of Bulgaria also exposed Germany (and Austria) to an Allied advance up the Danube. Finally the entrance of
the United States on the side of the Allies in 1917, and the arrival of substantial U.S. troops, coupled with the failure
of the final German offensives in the West in early 1918, allowed the Allies to push the Germans out of France and
into Belgium, towards the German border. Once the long-held static positions were lost, Germany accepted the
Allies' armistice terms.
Criticism
Several historians argue that the plan was unfeasible for its time, due to the recent advances in weaponry and the
improved transportation of industrial warfare. Some would say the plan was "too good". B.H. Liddell Hart, for
instance, praised the Schlieffen Plan as a conception of Napoleonic boldness, but concluded that:
The plan would again become possible in the next generation—when air power could paralyze the defending
side’s attempt to switch its forces, while the development of mechanized forces greatly accelerated the speed of
encircling moves, and extended their range. But Schlieffen’s plan had a very poor chance of success at the
time it was conceived.
Contrarily, Captain Douglas Cohn argues that the plan may have worked if Moltke had followed Schlieffen's original
plan instead of modifying it. He argues that had Moltke not depleted the right flank on the Western Front, Kluck's 1st
German Army would not have been forced away from the sea, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) would have
been overwhelmed, and the French armies would have been trapped between Paris and France's eastern frontiers.
The idea that logistics would have prevented this was disproven by the German supply improvisations that actually
occurred.
A different approach to the debate has been taken by other historians, including David Fromkin, author of Europe's
Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?, and David Stevenson, author of Cataclysm: The First World
War as Political Tragedy. They have argued that what is known as the Schlieffen Plan may not have been an actual
plan as such, but instead was laid down in one 1905 hypothetical memorandum and a brief 1906 addition.[6]
According to this view, Schlieffen may not have intended his concept to be carried out in the form he laid down,
instead, seeing it as perhaps an intellectual exercise. Fromkin has argued that, given what historians have recently
seen in Schlieffen's papers, captured by the U.S. Army along with other German war documents, that the
memorandum had never been refined into an operational program. No orders or operational details (such as specific
units for each area of the offensive) were appended. Furthermore, Fromkin says that the memorandum acknowledges
the fact that for the plan to work the German Army needs more divisions, and there needs to be more parallel roads
through Belgium. Fromkin continues by putting much of the genesis of the plan, as finally enacted, on Moltke, who
had seen the memorandum and believed it to be a fully operational plan which he then proceeded to expand upon.
Fromkin, in fact, has advocated referring to the "Moltke Plan" as opposed to the "Schlieffen Plan", as it may have
been more a product of Moltke's misreading of the Schlieffen Memorandum of 1905 and its 1906 codicil.
According to the historian A. Palmer, however, closer inspection of documents regarding the German war plan
reveal that Moltke's changes were not that great, and that the plan was basically flawed from the start. He claims that
the Schlieffen plan does not deserve its high reputation, because it underestimated pretty much everyone—the
Russians, French, British, and Belgians.
Another view is that both Palmer and Fromkin are correct, since Palmer's opinion that the Schlieffen plan was a poor
plan would indicate its origin as one not fully vetted. The Schlieffen plan could have been simply a document that
spurred operational thinking and planning, and became the working name for a strategy of bypassing the bulk of the
French forces through a flanking maneuver.
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Schlieffen Plan
The British military historian John Keegan in summarizing the debate over the plan, criticizes it for its lack of
realism about the speed with which the right wing of the German army would be able to wheel through Belgium and
the Netherlands in order to arrive outside of Paris on schedule. He observes that, regardless of the path taken, there
were simply not enough roads for the masses of troops planned to reach Paris in the time required. In other words,
the Plan required German forces to arrive on schedule and in sufficient force, but in reality only one or the other
could be achieved, not both.
Keegan also points to the Schlieffen Plan as a leading example of the separation between military war planning and
political/diplomatic considerations which was one of the original causes of the war. Schlieffen conceived his Plan as
the best possible solution to a strategic problem, while ignoring the political reality that violating Belgian neutrality
was the thing most likely to invite British intervention and expand the conflict.
The rigidity of the Schlieffen Plan has also been a source of much criticism. The plan called for the defeat of France
in precisely 42 days. Armed with an inflexible timetable, argue many scholars, the German General Staff was unable
to improvise as the "fog" of war became more apparent. Thus, many scholars believe that the Schlieffen Plan was
anti-Clausewitzian in concept.
A factor in evaluating the significance of the Schlieffen plan is the misinformation that was widely disseminated
during and after the war. Records were lost and material made up to paint the events in a light more acceptable to
those making the decisions at the time.[7]
References
Notes
[1] Grenville, J.A.S., A History of the World in the 20th Century, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 21
[2] Rosinski, Herbert, The German Army, London, Hogarth, 1939
[3] van Creveld, Martin, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. pages 121,
138-140. ISBN 0-521-29793-1
[4] http:/ / www. mindef. gov. sg/ safti/ pointer/ back/ journals/ 1999/ Vol25_1/ 8. htm
[5] Lecture 4: The Great War: Why Germany Lost (http:/ / www. westernciv. com/ syllabi/ notes/ TC-4-WWIOutcomeInst. pdf)
[6] Fromkin, David (2004). "Chapter 4: Countries Arm". Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf. pp. 34–35. ISBN 0-375-72575-X.Stevenson, David (2004). "Chapter 2: The Failure of the War of Movement, Summer-Winter 1914".
Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy. New York: Basic Books. pp. 38–39. ISBN 0-465-08184-3.
[7] Fromkin, David (2004). "Chapter 43: Shredding the Evidence". Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 251–253. ISBN 0-375-72575-X.
Bibliography
• Cohn, Cpt. Douglas A., USA (ret.), "Jackson's Valley Campaign with Maps from The West Point Atlas of
American Wars." American Publishing Co., 1986
• Fromkin, David, Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
ISBN 0-375-72575-X
• Stevenson, David Catacylsm: The First World War as Political Tragedy. New York: Basic Books, 2004. ISBN
0-465-08174-3
• van Creveld, Martin, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977. ISBN 0-521-29793-1
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Schlieffen Plan
Further reading
• Foley, Robert Alfred von Schlieffen's Military Writings. London: Frank Cass, 2003.
• Foley, Robert T. "The Real Schlieffen Plan", War in History, Vol. 13, Issue 1. (2006), pp. 91–115.
• Gross, Gerhard P., "There was a Schlieffen Plan: New Sources on the History of German Military Planning", War
in History, Vol. 15, Issue 4 (November 2008), p. 389.
• Holmes, Terence Michael, "'One Throw of the Gambler's Dice': A Comment on Holger Herwig's View of the
Schlieffen Plan", The Journal of Military History, Vol. 67, No. 2 (April 2003), pp. 513-16.
• Hull, Isabel V. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Cornell
University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8014-4258-3
• Landa, Manuel de. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. 1991.
• Mombauer, Annika, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005.
• Ritter, Gerhard The Schlieffen plan, Critique of a Myth, foreword by B. H. Liddell Hart. London: O. Wolff, 1958.
. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/47646420/The-Schlieffen-Plan-by-Gerhard-Ritter-1958)
• Rothenberg, Gunther E. "Moltke, Schlieffen, and the Doctrine of Strategic Envelopment." in Makers of Modern
Strategy Peter Paret (Ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
• Senior, Ian. Home before the leaves fall: A New History of the German Invasion of 1914 (Osprey 2012)
• Stoneman, Mark R. “Wilhelm Groener, Officering, and the Schlieffen Plan.” PhD diss., Georgetown University,
2006 (http://www.archive.org/details/WilhelmGroenerOfficeringAndTheSchlieffenPlan).
• Zuber, Terence,"The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered." War in History 6/3 (1999) 262-306.
• -----.Inventing the Schlieffen Plan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-925016-2
• -----.The Real German War Plan 1904-14. Stroud: The History Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-7524-5664-5
9
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