Why did the Schlieffen plan fail?
>>1127232
Because it was never viable in the first place. The plan had been drafted as a thought-exercise, included armies that didn't exist in reality and handwaved away things like supply lines.
But all of it is just one part of the overall picture: no initial war plan worked out during WWI. The French attack against Alsace failed hilariously, Russia got wrecked in the battle of the Masurian lakes, Germnay failed to knock out France, and don't even get me started on Austria-Hungary.
>>1127265
What about Austria Hungary? What happened?
>>1127275
Attacks on all fronts with insufficient forces, because high command decided to mess with the mobilization plan in real time. The KuK army gets trashed so badly that it has to be propped up by Germany for the rest of the war.
>>1127265
It probably would have worked if it wasn't for the BEF.
Because the Krauts didn't follow it.
>>1127290
>KuK army
>Cuck army
DELET THIS
delays, trouble with supply logistics, and the speed of their enemy's mobilization.
The march through Belgium wasn't supposed to take but a few weeks, but ended up taking the Germans almost 3 months to completely nail down the territory due to Belgians destroying rail lines and roads.
German supply also had trouble keeping up with supply the front line with sufficient food, ammunition, and supplies due to the destroyed transportation lines in Belgium.
Lastly, no one expected the Russians to start marching into East Prussia so quickly, causing Germany to divert troops to defend the east before they could finish the job in France, weakening the western front's lines.
the speed in which french and british soldiers came to counter the German offensive was impressive as well, managing to assemble a coherent defense with hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the Marne River.
The Schlieffen Plan almost entirely relied on speed to deal one swift knockout blow, so time was completely against the Germans from day 1.
>>1127609
>ammunition
this one was pretty big
I can't remember the numbers right now
but some crazy amount of divisions were literally on their last artillery ammunition supplies
like, couple of hours/days at most
shit I gotta remember to look it up
>>1127232
>Schlieffen plan
also it was never the Schileffen plan that got executed, it was the bastardized version by Moltke - who did things like cutting troop numbers to half of the original plan, removing the invasion of netherlands etc.
and it fell apart further the second they started it
that is not to say the original schlieffen plan would have worked, just that it was very different
>>1127553
No, the BEF nearly broke iirc. It would have worked if not for French high command creating an entire new army using regiments from armies already engaged on the front and sending them to the west of Paris to counter the pincer movement in a matter of days.
The BEF was essential in holding the front AFTER the plan had failed.
>>1127232
The biggest reason is that the plan underestimated France, Belgium and Britain (although Britain's contribution is vastly overstated in most English language accounts), while overestimating Russia and Austria-Hungary. Russia had the weaker army in 1914, not France.
>plan created to browbeat the central command into drafting more men fails because the army is understaffed because no one actually paid enough attention
>>1127232
It almost worked tho, the GERMan's were very close to paris and if Moltke hadn't sent so many troops from the west to the east they would have taken paris and broken the French spirit.
>>1127232
>>1127232
Moltke.
The real plan remained only on paper.
Yes.
>>1130385
Seems cool, too wide to read without destroying my eyes
