Six Feet Under

The problem with the two plans was that they relied on the swiftness of action.  The Schlieffen plan figured that it would take Russia six months to mobilize and that Belgium would not resist the occupation.  This plan was fatally flawed in that the Germans did not expect Britain to step in.  Also, the Schlieffen plan counted on France to keel over if they did take Paris, and this belief resembles a strong reliance on 19th century war tactics where the victors capture the enemy’s capital city.  Furthermore, Plan 17 was unsuccessful because it did exactly what the Germans expected.  France focused on Alsace and Lorraine, which was what Germany wanted.  The Germans hoped that France would be sucked into a conflict there and not have time to return to defend Paris.  However the French were overestimated by their opponents and were unable to penetrate the German lines far enough to be held there, and were able to return to Paris where they dug trenches and stopped the German advancement at the First Battle of the Marne.

If Plan 17 had been successful the Germans would have enveloped the French army and then took Paris, successfully executing the Schlieffen plan’s first step.  They then would have been able to handle Russia on one front instead of two.  In a way France became successful through failure and prevented an immediate German victory.

Since both sides took great care in defending the ground that they captured, battles such as the one at Verdun were fought for ten months over an area of three and a half square miles.  In the span of those ten months three quarters of a million casualties stacked up with nearly 182,000 deaths.  These lives were lost for a piece of land that held no significant strategic value, but merely was a psychological victory that retained French pride, and created the famous motto of the French army, “They shall not pass”.

In reality, trench warfare, however grotesque, brutal or disgusting it may be, has brought us closer to a humane look at life.  After World War I ended, we came to realize that fighting a war does not bring honor or valor to a nation, but rather sends it crumbling to its knees but it was already too late the moment the Armistice was agreed upon.   There was no grand victory that came from the war, it merely prolonged suffering and in a false sense of stability presented a treaty that held together Europe for another twenty years.  What happened during those twenty years?  Countries grew to resent their differences in cultures, hefty war taxes were left for Germany to handle, a Great Depression hit the United States and spread to various countries of the world, and the world sat by idly as they watched a totalitarian dictator slowly find himself at the head of an antagonized German nation.  If we can learn one thing from the “Great War”, it is that war is a necessary evil, but if handled incorrectly the promotion of that evil outweighs the good worth fighting for, especially when blinded by revenge and ambition.