Moltke really panics after Battle of Gumbinnen

Historically after the battle of Gumbinnen, Moltke panicked and withdrew three corps and a cavalry division to go to the eastern front.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gumbinnen

Lets say in this TL he abandons the Schlieffen plan at this point and decides to just occupy any French industrial and resource regions in reach before going over to the defensive.

(Why? perhaps he figures the remaining forces are not going to achieve a decisive victory in the west, and even with a major victory the French won't make peace with the Russians doing well in the east so a long war is likely regardless)

Instead of swinging east or west of Paris. He will advance to a line roughly from Verdun to where the Somme reaches the sea before going over the the defensive and focusing on the east. Securing this would be very doable in the time frame of August 20th. Would secure the Pas de Calais and all the major French industrial resource areas ans well as being relatively short. Securing all of Belgium might for the Belgians into an armistice.

What are the effects going forward?
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Lets say in this TL he abandons the Schlieffen plan at this point and decides to just occupy any French industrial and resource regions in reach before going over to the defensive.
Highly unrealistic.

The essence of the Schlieffen-plan : FIRST beating France - THEN Russia was not only widly accepted in german higher officers corps, it had more the status of a Confession of Faith, a dogmatic one.
Moltke, by every fibre of his mind and body was a Schlieffen pupil. It would take much more to let him abandon the Schlieffen-essence.

Though ... he wasn't a "pure" Schliefferian anymore tbh, with his trap setting in Lorraine (Battle of Morhange) and was deeply dissapointed, when Joffre 'only' put 2 armies into it.
Moltke WAS prepared to abandon further advance through Belgium if it would have been 3 or even better 4 french armies running up in the direction of Saarbrucken.

But going east first ... no, nay, never. Being in front of this decision at 1st August already almost 'broke' him mentally, but never let him abandon his belief in 'France First'.


However
What are the effects going forward?
For a timeline with the channel in german hands look at this formidable thread.
 
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Moltke would have a pretty fair grasp on what the Russians were and were not capable of and would know that Gumbinnen was a success for the 2 quickly mobilised Armies rather than a steamroller of the Armies that were to be mobilised from deeper in Russia as per the Plan 19-G and later developments of that plan. It was the mobilisation and deployment schedule of these armies, 1 in the G variant up to about 1913 and then 2 to Silesia in the 1914 variant, that gave Moltke his 6 weeks to defeat France since these Armies could not get to the front until week 6 or later of mobilisation.
 
I agree more with Catspoke than NoMommsen on the plausibility based on the last stuff I read on German pre-war planning, by Terence Zuber

https://www.amazon.com/Real-German-...&qid=1485568717&sr=8-1&keywords=terence+zuber

What particular in the book was mentioned to break the hold of Schlieffen on the German officer corps?

It doesn't seem to be a stretch from current day viewpoint at least that by August 20th going east of Paris isn't going to bring a decisive victory or force the French out of the war (in 6 weeks, or just 4 from August 20th), plus removing 3 corps lowers the balance of force to where defeat in France is a possibility. Their 1871 experience should show the French might force a large German army to remain in France for a long time regardless.
 
Instead of swinging east or west of Paris. He will advance to a line roughly from Verdun to where the Somme reaches the sea before going over the the defensive and focusing on the east. Securing this would be very doable in the time frame of August 20th. Would secure the Pas de Calais and all the major French industrial resource areas ans well as being relatively short. Securing all of Belgium might for the Belgians into an armistice.

What are the effects going forward?

I don't know how abandoning the extant war plan and presumably stripping the front of troops to send to the east would achieve the capture of the French coast down to the Somme, but capturing that part of France is a war winner for Germany
 
Yes, Moltke panicked - and sacked Prittwitz and his COS, Waldersee. They were replaced by Ludendorff, whom Hindenburg was attached as commanding general. The decision to send 3 (later reduced to two) corps and 1 cavalry division east was only taken after the Battles of the Frontiers, when - for a few days - the Germans beieved they had already won in the west. This relocation was part of the general plan, not induced by Gumbinnen but by the conviction the corps were no longer required in the west.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
What particular in the book was mentioned to break the hold of Schlieffen on the German officer corps?

In Zuber's interpretation, there was no need to break the hold of the Schlieffen Plan on the officers, because he believes the Schlieffen Plan, as we understand it, was a post WWI invention by the officer corps to say, we had the perfect plan, but Moltke miffed it, so we still should be trusted to be awesome.

Zuber reviews the war plans and staffs rides of every year from 1905, and finds a pattern where the intent is to fend off an attack on one side and then take advantage of interior lines to smash an incoming attack on the other side, and repeat the process as necessary.
 
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