April 15, 1944 - 4,000 German teens trapped in Tarnopol

What a coincidence that the bad guys were losing to Ukraine 79 years ago and now today here we are with forced government drag shows and child gender reassignment


Wait what was I saying?

I thought that you and I were having a nice discussion over in the WWI thread that you started. Since you left the discussion, I assume that you lost interest?

I was wondering whether you had any interest in reading some Schlieffen Plan information on Zuber's website, and having a further discussion on that topic?

Well, you need to get going. Thousands of us are waiting fir the debate. We all love this stuff.

You'll enjoy your time spent reading on his website.

With regard to this period of war on the Eastern Front, I am very impressed at the rapid pace of deterioration of combat power of the German forces there at that period of time.

After the Battle of Kursk, the Soviets launched their first massive Summer Offensive. During Fall, 1943, German combat power on the East fronts seems to have collapsed, IMHO. The heavy defeats came one after the other, and the only thing that caused Soviet combat power to pause was the problem of Soviet logistics.

Spring 44 was a disaster for German armies in the South. Then Summer 44 was the massive Soviet offensive which utterly destroyed German Army Group Center.

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As such, Schlieffen focused all of his attention on defeating France before turning the Imperial Army east to face the Russians.

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But, no, Schlieffen most definitely did not do that. Schlieffen factually did not focus all of his attention on defeating France before turning the armies East to face the Russians. The actual wargames that Schlieffen conducted before he retired demonstrate the truth. The truth is that Schlieffen played the German side in a final detailed wargame before he retired. He played a totally Defensive Strategy. He used the German Railroad system to shift his reserves quickly to counter attack against enemy attack penetrations, whether that be a French or a Russian offensive. Once that counter attack succeeded, Schlieffen gathered his reserve again to make ready for another counter attack.

At no time during the actual plans and wargames that Schlieffen focused on did he envision a deep penetration of German forces into the interior of France, primarily because Schlieffen knew that the French and Russians would destroy their railnet before any German invading forces, and those invading German forces would be beyond their supply depots. These facts are revealed in Zuber's research on his website.

The "Schlieffen Plan" that every popular history work describes, the one with the big red arrows sweeping to the West and Southwest of Paris, was actually a Denkschrift, or "Study", in which Schlieffen hoped would be a convincing argument for Germany to expand the size of the Imperial German Army such that a sweep to the West and SW of Paris might one day be possible. It was never a "Plan" that was the subject of any kind of General Staff wargame or formal Unternehmen or Fall, like Unternehmen Michael in 1918 or Fall Gelb in 1940. The German General Staff never did any work on the "Schlieffen Plan". General von Moltke never did any planning or work based off of Schlieffen's Denkschrift.

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The Schlieffen Plan was also further weakened in August 1914 when Moltke was forced to divert even more divisions from the Western Front to the Eastern Front to counter a faster-than-expected Russian mobilization and invasion of East Prussia.

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Which divisions are you talking about here?

Moltke wasn't "forced" to send any German forces from the West front to the East Front. The forces that Moltke decided to send East arrived after the German Eighth Army had stabilized the Eastern front. Moltke took two Corps from the Right wing and sent them East, only to arrive too late to influence the Eastern battle. Those two Right Wing corps would have made a big difference in France, where they were sorely needed when Moltke decided to send them East. Moltke panicked and sent them East. The Eighth Army leadership advised him not to send them East. The German Army commanders in France advised Moltke not to send them East. Moltke panicked and sent them anyway.

The only other divisions that you could be talking about were the six "Ersatz" divisions that were mobilized and really WERE supposed to be deployed on the East Front with the German Eighth Army. Instead, Moltke decided to send them to the West Front to fight France but Moltke ordered those six divisions to be deployed on the German LEFT Wing in order to attack towards the French city of Nancy. It is important to note that Moltke could have deployed these six divisions on the Right Wing (as he would do if he were really trying to follow "The Schlieffen Plan"), but he deployed them on the Left Wing.

When you have time, you'll see what I'm talking about when you read the stuff that Zuber has on his website about "The Schlieffen Plan."

Moltke was not very well suited for the job he was given. He was in over his head. This is pretty evident from the fact that von Moltke was fired from his job on September 14th, 1914 because he had something like a nervous breakdown.

Zuber's work shows that Moltke did not have the kinds of jobs in his military career that would prepare a person to excel at the job of Chief and Commander of the German Armies. Moltke didn't last even two months at his job from the time of Mobilization on August 1st, 1914 to his date of getting fired on September 14th, 1914.

"Plan" is rather a term of art. A fully developed "plan" will name individual combat units and discuss their mission at a certain location, at a certain time, on a map. It will have annexes covering issues like logistics and medical support. Something like this never existed for what now is known as "The Schlieffen Plan."

It is more accurate to call Schlieffen's Study an "Idea", rather than a plan. His idea was that, if Germany had 24 more divisions, which they could have had if they had fully exploited their manpower reserves, they'd have enough combat power to surround Paris from the West. Of course, Imperial Germany never tried to fully exploit their manpower reserves until after the war had already started. By then it was too late to make a decisive difference in 1914.

But, it is great to have this discussion and, it is very interesting to note that, perhaps "The History Book" is not closed and written in stone on what happened in WW1 in 1914.

For a long time, I thought along lines very close to your thinking. It was very interesting for me to discover that perhaps there was more for me to learn about this campaign.

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Moltke, however, decided that this was the only way to defeat France quickly enough to be able to turn around and deal with Russia

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Is there something on-line that I can find that talks about Moltke making this decision in writing or at a conference?

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The fact of the matter is, Helmuth von Moltke got his hands on this idea, became a believer in said idea, and wedded himself completely to Alfred von Schlieffen's plan that involved an invasion of Belgium.

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Moltke was quite indecisive in almost his entire time of his less than two month stint as a war time commander. It seems like an exaggeration to me when I read that Moltke "wedded himself completely" to the idea of invading Belgium. But it is true that he did invade Belgium. If the Liege Fortress complex did not fall quick enough, Moltke was going to invade Holland to go around the Liege forts.

I also don't care for your embellishment about how Schlieffen's study was just something he did because he was bored. It's not helpful in understanding the truth. Schlieffen was a very serious and careful military leader.

Moltke on the other hand had a LOT of faults and was pretty much a failure. That's why his stint as a wartime supreme commander lasted only two months.

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All those war games show is that Schlieffen was a flexible military commander who was not wedded to any one particular idea on how to defeat an opponent in the field.

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How do you reach this conclusion? What did you read that supports this conclusion?

If Schlieffen's last serious staff study wargame had him playing the German side and conducting a purely defensive strategy based on concentration of reserves by railroad and using them to launch concentrated counter-attacks, I think that the proper conclusion is that Schlieffen thought that this was the best way for Germany to hold off her enemies, because he knew that Germany was outnumbered and he knew that the German combat power was maximized when it operated close to the supply depots located on the major railroad lines inside Germany.

I hope that you do one day have the time to read Zuber's research material on his website. He has a lot of info about Moltke, too.

I think that it's wrong-thinking to assume that Moltke intended to invade France and take Paris or surround it in any way. He weakened the Right Wing enough to make that task impossible to achieve. Also, bear in mind that Moltke himself ordered the German First Army to be under the command of the German Second Army and to serve as the Second Army's flank guard. That's a very strong indication that Moltke had no plans to order First Army to take Paris or surround Paris.

I continue to be very unpersuaded that Moltke had any intention to emulate and follow Schlieffen's Study proposal for surrounding Paris from the West. Just because Moltke invaded Belgium doesn't allow the conclusion that was a totally committed disciple of Schlieffen's Study.

Moltke's plan for both East and West, Zuber says, was that the war would be relatively short - only a few months - and that the side that had captured some enemy territory while holding on to their own territory would have the strongest position at the bargaining table.

Moltke's "plan" was not really any plan at all. After the mobilization was complete, Eighth Army would be on defense, and the Western Armies invading France had been given objectives that were quite close to the starting line. After that, Moltke issue very few orders to his armies in the less than two months that he was a war time commander. He very much allowed the Army commanders to do what they liked, except for that restriction on First Army under Kluck. Kluck very much disliked his order that he was to be the flank guard and serve the needs of Second Army commander. In fact, Kluck disobeyed that order with impunity. Moltke never tried to make him obey that order.