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Schlieffen, the Marne, and the War Nobody Planned For
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Germany's Schlieffen Plan promised a six-week victory — instead it unleashed a war no one could stop. Episode 4 traces the invasion of Belgium, the fall of France's Plan XVII, and the Battle of the Marne that buried every general's assumptions.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
August fourth, nineteen fourteen. A column of German infantry crosses the Belgian border.
The Belgian army was small. Around two hundred thousand men facing the full weight of Germany's western force.
Meanwhile, France had its own plan. It was called Plan XVII, and it was built around a different theory entirely.
The French government prepared to evacuate the capital. German cavalry patrols were reported within thirty miles of Paris.
Both sides now faced an open flank to the north. Neither army had yet reached the English Channel.
This is the part that needs explaining, because it's easy to look back and wonder why both sides simply accepted this situation. Why dig in?
Before we close on nineteen fourteen, the scale of the losses deserves a moment's attention. France lost approximately three hundred thousand dead in the first five months of the war.
By December nineteen fourteen, the Western Front had set. Both sides were entrenched.
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