EvF plan for 1st Ypres was the last realistic chance of Germany wining the war. He wanted to break through the not yet consolidated allied lines btw Arras and Ypres and swing southwest towards the Channel ports to cut off allied forces in Belgium and the BEF communications.
Bring the starting line back to the Ardenes and had a lot more allied forces to be cut off in Belgium and that's plan yellow. That he was willing to risk his green division in a bid to do it show that he understood the situation.
When that failed he started the process of bringing down the allied powers in the east and made the right call to start with Serbia instead of going after a premature victory over Russia.
His concept of wearing down the French through a limited offensive show that he understood that attraction was working for the allies, and that he had to change the variables somehow.
Germany from early 1915 was a boat that was taking in water and sinking. Luddendorf was the guy who kept pumping out water, seeing that he was pumping out water at a slower rate than was comming in and keeping on pumping anyway. Falkenhein was the guy who tried, and failed, to build a bigger pump.
Young Moltke just shot a few holes in the boat.