Schlieffen Plan

The Schlieffen Plan, created by Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, was basically a strategy after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to prevent Germany from having to fight future wars on two different fronts at once. The plan was to invade France before they could mobilize their troops and conquer Paris in 39 days. Afterwards focus on defeating Russia due to their difficulty in mobilizing a substantial amount of troops. The setbacks that they did not take into account was the Belgium Resistance. Though small it was enough to delay Germany for a month where as they should have invaded France. Alfred Graf von Schlieffen resigned in 1906 which left Helmuth von Moltke with the position of German chief of staff. The choices he made to modify the plan ultimatly are what doomed the Germans before it was even executed. One of these substancial changes was not to go through the Netherlands but through belgium alone and the other was to pull significant numbers of troops away from the main force entering France from the north, in order to fortify the forces in Alsace-Lorraine, and the forces at the Russian border.