Lecture 32: 1914 Marne—Paris Is Saved
France as soon as war was declared and defeating it within weeks.
Then, using Germany’s excellent rail system, the troops could be
rushed back to the Russian frontier.x The powerful right wing of the German army would swing to the
north, crossing through neutral Belgium before enveloping Paris
and the main body of the French army. The violation of Belgian
territory would most likely bring Great Britain into the war, but
the British army had fewer than 100,000 men available for quick
deployment in Europe.x It was a bold plan, with little room for error or the unexpected. In
Schlieffen’s concept, everything depended on the right wing, which
had to be powerful enough to punch through any opposition and
keep advancing without losing momentum. He was willing to risk
weakening other sectors to ensure that it would be strong enough
and constantly fretted that less daring commanders might alter his
plan by distributing the troops more evenly.x His successor as Chief of Staff was Helmuth von Moltke, the nephew
and namesake of the great Moltke who had led Germany to victories
in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. Moltke assigned
eight new divisions to the German center and added only one to the
crucial right wing. Worse, at a key moment, he lost his nerve and
prematurely shifted two corps from the French front to the Russian,
further weakening the power of the German offensive thrust.x The French General Staff made several incorrect assumptions about
how the Germans would behave.
o First, they didn’t believe that the Germans would violate
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meet an attack from that direction.o Second, they grossly underestimated the number of troops
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estimated that they were facing 43 German divisions, when
there were actually 83.