Alfred von Schlieffen

Alfred von Schlieffen (born February 28, 1833, Berlin—died January 4, 1913, Berlin) was a German officer and head of the general staff who developed the plan of attack (Schlieffen Plan) that the German armies used, with significant modifications, at the outbreak of World War I.

Schlieffen, the son of a Prussian general, entered the army in 1854. He soon moved to the general staff and participated in the Seven Weeks’ War against Austria (1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). By 1884 he had become head of the military-history section of the general staff and in 1891 replaced Alfred, Graf von Waldersee, as chief of the Great General Staff.

Germany, by this time, had to face the possibility of a two-front war—against France in the west and Russia in the east. In attempting to solve this problem, Schlieffen differed from his predecessors, Waldersee and Field Marshal Helmuth, Graf von Moltke, who had aimed the first strike against Russia. Taking into account the vast territorial expanse of Germany’s eastern neighbour and its growing defensive strength, he proposed to aim a rapid, decisive opening blow against France. Further, realizing that frontal assaults against mass armies would be costly and often indecisive, Schlieffen decided to strike at the enemy’s flank. The plan that gradually emerged through the 1890s and the first years of the 20th century envisaged that only small numbers were to be left in the east to contain any threat by slowly mobilizing Russian forces, while the great bulk of Germany’s armies were to be deployed in the west. A flanking movement would have greatest success in the north, through Belgium and possibly Holland, the south being too mountainous to allow the rapid movement of large bodies of troops. Hence, Schlieffen proposed to hold the southern portion of the Western Front with relatively few men, while concentrating a vast force in the north, which would sweep through Belgium and northern France, enveloping the French armies and eventually crushing them against Germany’s southern wing. This, in essence, was the Schlieffen Plan as it was finalized in 1905, the year of its author’s retirement.

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World War I Quiz

The plan was not applied in its pure form at the beginning of World War I. Schlieffen’s successor, Helmuth von Moltke, drastically reduced the strength of the attacking armies and thus, is often blamed for Germany’s failure to win a quick, decisive victory.