The Schlieffen Plan Was an Orphan

Abstract

Robert Foley contends that the first antecedent of the Schlieffen plan was Schlieffen’s 1899/1900 war plan, and that Schlieffen could only execute this plan when the modern ‘armoured’ fortifications at Metz were completed in 1905. Terence Zuber argues that the 1899/1900 war plan was an episode of six months’ duration, unconnected to Schlieffen’s later planning, and that in the 1906 ‘Schlieffen plan’ Denkschrift, Schlieffen explicitly disavowed any connection between the Denkschrift and the new fortifications at Metz.