Schlieffen Plan

>but realistically, what other option did the Germans have?
why invade at all? what prevented germans from fortifying the same border?

True, but it was certainly blind arrogance or pride to assume that either the United Kingdom would stay out of the war or be unable to stop the German war machine rolling on Paris.

Still, it's one of my favorite what-ifs to think about ways the Germans could have won. Maybe offering the Italians Marseilles and Nice if they pitched in from the south? Merely going through Luxembourg instead of Belgium? Moltke not reassigning those army divisions to the eastern front just before the Marne? The possibilities are endless.

It had been too long since a german state had plunged europe into war, so they had the itch.

Desperate to prove themselves relevant to the whole world, the Germans frantically searched for a reason to wage a war they could win. The death of some irrelevant prince in some backwater country with a vague connection to the German "emperor" Was all they needed to start a war.
With inflated egos, they decided to declare war against the whole world. The Germans fought this war quite seriously, exterminating anyone in their path and using all sorts of underhanded tricks. They were dead-set on world domination.
But the rest of the world wasn't taking it so seriously. They could have easily exterminated the Germans, had they stooped half as low as them. But, as humanists, they didn't want to deprive future generations from observing one of nature's most hilarious mistakes. Trenches were built along a general area. Within, all the territory was declared a German reservation. Where Germans could upkeep their unique customs and "culture".
The German "war machine" was dead in its tracks. Infuriated and with no way to show the relevance of their "war machine", they committed dastardly actions (that became a German tradition). They hurt defenseless people. They aimed their weapons at civilians.

I say, keep the original Schlieffen Plan, but don't make any costly offences after the front cools down. instead use reverse slope defence and local counter attacks to grind the entente down for as long as possible

your doom is invertible maybe because of manpower differences then though

so many just strengthen the right wing more and envelop paris as planned

>implying it's optional for the Teuton to destroy Europe

it's in their dna

Metz area was the most important steel producing region in Germany and could easily be shelled from the French border by French artillery - crippling the German war machine without a single battle.

A defensive strategy would have been suicide for the Reich. You do realize that artillery was otherwise occupied holding off the Germans at the Marne the way it went down historically, right?

>Austria-Hungary
>railroad logistics networks

the third reich survived strategic bombing, and even improved production during this time
I think germany can survive some of their industry starting out in range of france artillery

france lost some of it smost important industrial areas to germany and never got them back until end of the war, and hey were hardly crippled

stalin had to evacuate entire industries beyond the urals and ussr production also increased during ww2

>WW2

Entirely different era, logistics, and circumstances retard. 75% of Germany's iron came from Alsace-Lorraine. Deal with it.

I'm not sure I ascribe to your idea of french artillery destroying the entire industry of Alsac Lorraine during wartime nerd

What French artillery? 75s? how were they going to bombard Metz?

Keep in mind it took the miracle at the Marne to halt their advance. Schlieffen plan almost worked.

>The Schlieffen plan is often regarded as a "bad plan", but realistically, what other option did the Germans have?
Fighting a regular two-fronts war against France and Russia. If Germany had done that they would have won. They most of all overestimated the Russians.

Pretty much. Schlieffen plan happened because the Germans were too pessimistic about their own strength and thought they couldn't fight Russia and France at the same time. The Austrian collapse in Galicia wouldn't have happened if the Germans had allocated more troops to the East from the start.

If the Germans reached Paris what would happen, would it be a siege or would it have meant France throwing in the towel?

the Germans had outrun their supply lines and their frontline forces were running out of ammo fast so even without Marne they might not have advanced that much further

They were close enough, Joffre could see them from the Eifel tower

I came into this thread to defend Alfred von Schlieffen's honor by reminding everyone that what Germany did in 1914 differed significantly from his original plan.

That is all.

Luxembourgh would have required them to concentrate all their forces to a ludicrous degree and at the same time they had to be 100% sure the Belgians would keep their promise of neutrality otherwise that's suddenly a lot of infrastructure that could be used to encircle your troops

Belgium wasn't really friendly to France. Even after the war, they bailed on the French alliance.

>What other plan did Germany have
Not escalating a minor conflict into a world war

While underdeveloped compared to France and Germany, Austrian rail networks weren't ridiculously out of date or iniffective.

The real Austrian problem was indecision in the early days of the war

The merits and failures of the Schlieffen Plan are a sideshow compared to the failures of policy after the collapse of Russia

M8. AH was fucked when it came to railways. They had several different gauge railways, so they had to change everything onto several different lines to move it further east

How so?

Not marching through Holland, kek

Hit Russia, not France

But then France would attack them

And then UK won't be in the war, world opinion won't be against them, they won't have a blockade on their ass, and the US would have helped supply them.

>Metz area was the most important steel producing region in Germany
Nah. Most dense concentration of natural resources of which steel was dependent.
Ruhr Valley and Silesia were the steel kings of all mainland

If they sent 1 million men concentrated in a section they probably would have broke the French line anyway. It was the Belgian forts slowing them and the fear of Russia. If they had known how inept russia would be a 2 million man spear head would send the French realing. The Gwrman artillery early on was vastly superior to the French.

Good question. The main assumptions he made were
1) The French will attack at the beginning of a war (given their penchant for the offensive)
2) They will likely invade Alsace-Lorraine (given their emotional pain after Franco-Prussian war)
3) Germany is the fastest mobilizing nation in Europe, France is second, and Russia is effectively last

Based on these assumptions, he calculated that Germany could afford to fight not a two-front war, but two single front wars. By executing the wide envelopment of the advancing French forces, France could be neutralized in 6-8 weeks, just as Russia was becoming ready for war - at which point, the armies would be transported by the rail network the krauts were so proud of to fight the Russians. The key point here is that the French WILL invade German territory; in fact, that's the whole point. As long as the Germans remained committed to the wide sweep through the lowcountries, around the French armies and then through Paris, communication and supply lines could be cut and the French armies in Germany would wither and die. His plan specifically cautioned against becoming bogged down in conflicts with the main French armies, and his dying words were (literally) "Keep the right wing strong". Moltke, of course, did none of these things. He was terrified of losing the war in a single gamble, and so continually weakened the critical right wing to strengthen the subordinate left. We can argue about whether this plan would have actually worked, but either way it is not what Moltke ended up doing.
This guy is also right, Schlieffen had no compunctions about violating Dutch neutrality. Moltke, for whatever reason, did. This forced the Germans to stuff 3 armies through a 35 mile section of Belgian territory.

err, this guy

These posters have the answer. Germany should have left Belgium alone. Defended hard in Alsace-Lorraine, and concentrated their offensive strength against Russia and the Balkans.

If the Germans could also keep their natural bloodlust in check there would be no atrocities for Britain/USA to rally around.

Of course this is all in hindsight. In the early 20th century nobody knew how badly prepared the Russians were or how resilient the French would be.

>Implying Napoleon III. was a noble
>Implying WWI generals weren't nobles
>Implying France could win Franco-Prussian war
>Implying Napoleon III. didn't modernize French arny
>Implying Germany didn't copy French style
>Implying Schlieffen plan wasn't rewised by Moltke
>Implying that Germany could possibly execute the new version of the plan

Actually Germany was one of three Guarantors of Belgian indeoendence along with France and British Empire

Good b8 m8