Could Germany in WWI have possibly won with the Schlieffen Plan?

[33k7]

You fail to realise I’m taking about an ATL deployment of troops. Not reacting to the OTL deployment and simply leaving a gap where the BEF would have been.

General Alexander von Kluck will push the French back as well he will be able to stop French reinforcements from coming to the aid of Paris

General Karl von Bülow will be able to force French armies north of the Marne into a final confrontation to Defender Paris I'm giving the French a lot of leeway thinking they're doing well enough to get to the same point otherwise otherwise the French are completely wrecked and the Germans are there by the end of august and Paris is once again Under Siege there is no maneuver that the French can pull off against the German Army's at this point they are not ready for such a vicious onslaught

 

[Riain]

General moltke was an idiot compared to Moltke the Elder he was 500 miles away from the front writing to his wife about how will he be able to confront God with all the people he has killed just think if there was at least a competent General in charge of the Western Front at this key moment. if you remove those 6 British divisions due to delayed reaction from Britain I just can't see the French pulling it off

I believe poor command was a key reason for the plan achieving less than its potential, not that I think its potential is as vast as many throwaway histories imply. This was partly recognized by giving Bulow 'operational control ' of 1st and 3rd armies, but this didn't work. What was needed was either Moltke to travel between the right wing armies like Joffre did with his armies, or set up a formal Heeresgruppe where the constituent armies are seen as intact manoeuvre units rather thana source of extra corps by Bulow.

 

[33k7]

I believe poor command was a key reason for the plan achieving less than its potential, not that I think its potential is as vast as many throwaway histories imply. This was partly recognized by giving Bulow 'operational control ' of 1st and 3rd armies, but this didn't work. What was needed was either Moltke to travel between the right wing armies like Joffre did with his armies, or set up a formal Heeresgruppe where the constituent armies are seen as intact manoeuvre units rather thana source of extra corps by Bulow.

poor communication from the high command was a Factor there is no question of that. but considering how well the generals on the ground did if you remove just a little bit of pressure from the front I think they could have secured victory.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

I believe poor command was a key reason for the plan achieving less than its potential, not that I think its potential is as vast as many throwaway histories imply. This was partly recognized by giving Bulow 'operational control ' of 1st and 3rd armies, but this didn't work. What was needed was either Moltke to travel between the right wing armies like Joffre did with his armies, or set up a formal Heeresgruppe where the constituent armies are seen as intact manoeuvre units rather thana source of extra corps by Bulow.

Yes it’s interesting to note how many people say “Moltke was dumb” but one of the many “dumb” things he did was give control to “better” officers like von Bülow who messed it up by allowing the gaps to develop.

 

[Nephi]

Secret treaty with Belgium would probably do it, in the event of war yeah we aren't really neutral they promised us some of France if we just sit this out and let them through.

 

[DragonsInAmerica]

I'll also add that the alternate history book I read about a German victory in WWI (see original post) involved attacking and defeating Belgium and France. Britain was also involved but eventually Britain and Germany came to amends and became the two great colonial powers. France ceded some land to Germany (I can't remember what land exactly, but according to the narrator, France gave up a lot less than Belgium did, which had to give up the Congo). America was never involved in WWI and had a war with Japan in the forties. Also, the Russian Revolution failed.

How likely was that, and what was necessary for such an event to have happened?

 

[Michele]

Secret treaty with Belgium would probably do it, in the event of war yeah we aren't really neutral they promised us some of France if we just sit this out and let them through.

Because the Belgians coveted a piece of France?

 

[Jericho7son]

The Schlieffen plan died in the Reichstag in the 10 and more importantly 4 years before the war when Germany decided not to pass budgets that would allow them to field as large a percentage of active and active reserves of their population as France did. In 1912,1913,1914 France was conscripting and active reserving well over 80 percent of their military age male population, where Germany was nominally 50 but in practice was more like 35, executing the original Schlieffen plan or a modernized version of it required at least two more field armies which Germany was easily capable of fielding, but didn't pay to build in peace time

 

[marathag]

Would the French not have deployed differently if there were no BEF to shore up their line?

As.it was, Joffre was ignoring the scouting reports from Fifth Army's Cavalry, on a huge number of Germans heading his way. Joffre's responce was to pull a Corps away from Lanerzac and earmark some reserve divisions to head his way.

Joffre wanted to have Fourth and Third Army attack thru the corner of the Ardennes, and didn't approve Lanerzac's request to redeploy.
This was all before the BEF was doing anything but unloading.
If ATL of no BEF still has Joffre do OTL orders, yes, the Fifth Army will be overrun.
But that doesn't give von Bülow's men magical feet that can march 250 miles continuously for a month without rest.

And in some ways, not having French commanding the BEF makes things better for the defense of France, since French 'didn't play well with others'.
There was close to zero coordination between Fifth Army and the BEF

 

[MichaelWest]

Like others I am surprised it turned out as successful as it did, my opinion is that it was far too much gamble and not enough real plan, but that said, with just another stroke of luck it might well have pulled off the miracle I think it was. Steer First army to miss hitting BEF or turn inward to envelop the French 5th or have the 5th obey orders to move even further into exposing itself to a flank attack or have the Fourth and Fifth pull back as intended to draw the French deeper on to bad terrain for enveloping attacks or have Belgium not resist or any of a few PODs and the stars align. That said it really boils down to the logistics, and fatigue, the Germans were in my opinion at the end of their tether about where they paused and ultimately ended. Getting past that appears a steep climb. If this was to succeed we needed more envelopment of French units and either high prisoner takes or casualty numbers, Germany needed to kill French not pursue them, no matter how far, the key to victory was annihilation of the counter attack once it goes to the defense.

 

[BlackDragon98]

No, because Otto von Bismarck was not around to direct it.
Kaiserreich can only win if von Bismarck is in charge.

 

[CalBear]

The Heer didn't the troop strength, nor, critically, the rail network to actually carry out the Plan. That is why a modified, weaker version was used. If there had been the transport network and sufficient personnel there is a reasonable change of success, assuming the French react as the Plan requires.

The problem with all these sorts of grand, sweeping, maneuver plans is that the enemy always gets a vote.

 

[BlackDragon98]

The Heer didn't the troop strength, nor, critically, the rail network to actually carry out the Plan. That is why a modified, weaker version was used. If there had been the transport network and sufficient personnel there is a reasonable change of success, assuming the French react as the Plan requires.

The problem with all these sorts of grand, sweeping, maneuver plans is that the enemy always gets a vote.

Hear, Hear!

 

[Riain]

IIRC the French were expecting the Germans to cut across the corner of Belgium and knew how many actce divisions the Germans had on strength, thus their deployment reflected this. The big surprises were that thee Germans went deep into Belgium before wheeling south, and that they used Reserve divisions which gave them the numbers to do so.

I'd note that when facing frontal attacks early in the war envelopments were rare, the entire western campaign is evidence of this as is the battle of Masurian Lakes, the winner simply pushed the loser back. For an evelopment and annihilation to occur the enemy had to cooperate, like the did at Tannenburg, by moving into the sack. This sort of did occur in the west when the 5th Army was deployed in an L shape jutting out north and facing 2nd and 3rd Armies on different Axes, this is a chance for an evelopment. Should an envelopment have occured the entire nature of the western campaign would have changed and been far more successful than OTL. But it does rely on better German command decisions and the fortunes of war which are so, so fickle.

 

[Jericho7son]

The Heer didn't the troop strength, nor, critically, the rail network to actually carry out the Plan. That is why a modified, weaker version was used. If there had been the transport network and sufficient personnel there is a reasonable change of success, assuming the French react as the Plan requires.

The problem with all these sorts of grand, sweeping, maneuver plans is that the enemy always gets a vote.

The weaker version was used due to the lack of additional field armies, which is something that could be addressed pretty easily with a point of departure from history, namely the Reichstag responds 1:1 to the French 1912 conscription law and approves two-three additional field armies, the Austro Hungarians could have done the same

 

[Deleted member 94680]

The problem with all these sorts of grand, sweeping, maneuver plans is that the enemy always gets a vote.

Wonderfully put and delightfully understated.

 

[Bougnas]

RE "the enemy always gets a vote"

If anything even though the relative odds of winning were not the same for the two world wars for a German invasion of France, I kind of view WW1 as a 1910's Blunted Sickle in that the French "almost miraculously" wore down the Germans enough to stop them after losing the Battle of the Frontiers due to terrible troop deployment and doctrine (funnily enough France lost all Battle of the Frontiers against Germany in all three wars from 1870 to 1940).

That said, this also means that yet again France had plenty of opportunities to do much better than it did OTL.

 

[cjc]

One thing, I recently read "home before the leaf's fall, a new history of the fall campaign of 1914" and it came to the conclusion that the french armys fighting the german 1 and 2 armys where nearly at the braking point and probably wount have be able to last another day, it was so bad that von bullow dint send reinforcements into the gap because he felt he could destroy the enemy at his front before turning to face the bef, his opponent apparently agreed because he had orders drafted to order a retreat if the counterattack failed sense he dint think his position was tenable. Without the bef the French have one corps to attack the gap, which is defend by a German calvary corps and the river itself, a battle I attest think will go to the calvary (its jaegers really), or Joffrey could think he doesn't have the men for the counterattack and gust moves that corps to one of the two other battlefields.

The battle of the marine was so close that without the bef it's very unlikely that the french win, what happens after I don't know but nothing good for the french I'm sure.