Schlieffen Plan


Terence Holmes, Robert T. Foley, Gerhard Groβ, and Annika Mombauer have all argued forcefully against the Zuber thesis, the first two in the pages of War in History. I am only going to talk about Holmes’s and Mombauer’s criticisms. The crux of Holmes’s argument is that Zuber has too rigid […]

The Schlieffen Plan, part 3


If there was never a Schlieffen Plan, then it is fair to ask: Why has the Schlieffen Plan become a staple of virtually every single Western Civilization textbook?   It is a good question and one for which Zuber has a persuasive answer. The standard narrative about the Schlieffen Plan is […]

The Schlieffen Plan, part 2


This past August marked the centennial of the beginning of the First World War. Virtually everyone who has learned about the Great War knows about the Schlieffen Plan. The Schlieffen Plan, named after the German Chief of the General Staff Alfred von Schlieffen, was supposedly Germany’s plan to deal with […]

The Schlieffen Plan, part 1