In fact, in Jochen's opinion, Schlieffen's plan is nothing to praise from a purely creative point of view, whether it is a revolving door or a right hook, no matter how good it sounds, it is just a flank outflank. And Schlieffen himself was inspired by Hannibal's annihilation of the Roman legions from the flanks at the Battle of Cannae.

Moreover, this flanking was also very large, and Cheng Dù was a last resort attack in the face of the strong fortress group of the French at that time, and there was no good solution to it.

But what really sets Schlieffen Plan apart is that the scale, purpose, and detail of the plan are unprecedented, it is not a tactical or strategic attack, but a war aimed at destroying France at the expense of the entire German national power.

If the plan succeeds, it will make a world's top power perish in an instant, and in order to achieve this goal, Schlieffen painstakingly formulated careful steps to make this plan seem interlocking, and can fully achieve the purpose of the plan, which is why later generations respect Schlieffen and regret the failure of Schlieffen's plan.

In Schlieffen's plan, in the early stage of the future war, he should take a defensive position on the eastern front, with a small number of troops to defend against the Russian attack, and take an offensive on the western front, defeat France with all his strength, and then use his own domestic communication network to transport the opponents back to the eastern front to defeat Russia, in order to achieve this goal, the ratio of troops deployed on the eastern and western fronts should be 1:8.

In Schlieffen's view, France has a small land area and a small population, but the army has extremely strong combat effectiveness and a fast mobilization speed, so it should use superior forces to quickly defeat France and crush his will to resist before his full mobilization is completed, so as to avoid a head-to-head confrontation between the German army and the French army, which is comparable in strength.

Russia, on the other hand, has a vast land area, a long strategic depth, a huge population, and a harsh climate, but the Russian army has poor combat effectiveness, poor transportation infrastructure, and slow mobilization ability, so although there is no need to worry about winning a war with the Russians, it will not be able to win for a while.

Therefore, defending the east and attacking the west, with a small number of troops, you can drag the Russians, or even let the Russians enter East Prussia, as long as you can solve the French problem, it will be easy for the army to return to the division to clean up the Russians. However, if you defend the west and attack the east, then you will not be able to achieve victory for a while and fall into the quagmire of war, then the attack of the French army, which has completed the mobilization of the war and has strong combat effectiveness, may not be able to be prevented by a small number of troops on the western front.

And there is another reason, that is, Germany and Russia do not have a common enmity, which is different from the relationship between Germany and France, as long as the French can be solved, and then a military advantage is achieved over the Russians, then as long as the Germans do not rush to exterminate, then it is possible to end the war and make peace.

So in order to achieve this goal, Schlieffen planned to put 72 divisions into the war against France, of which 9 divisions were deployed on the Lorraine line, facing the French fortress group as the left flank, 10 divisions were deployed at Verdun as the pivot between the two wings, and 53 divisions were assigned to the right flank along the English Channel, aiming directly at Paris, if the French could be defeated in 40 days, and at this time the Russians were still slowly mobilizing and gathering troops.

And now, Schlieffen has better cards in his hand than in history, in Schlieffen's plan, it is natural to use all the chips that can be used, at present all 68 divisions of the Wehrmacht will be put into the Western Front, and the defense of the Eastern Front will be lost to the National Guard, the National Guard cannot go abroad to fight, but the Russians will attack you must always resist.

Although the combat capability of the National Guard is inferior to that of the Wehrmacht, it is quite numerous, and the strength of the 26 divisions is not inferior to the 10 divisions in history, but it is not a big problem to survive for two months while only defending and allowing East Prussia to be abandoned.

The stealth division, which was previously expanded by adding deputy officers, will be used as a supplement and reserve for the front-line troops, which gives Schlieffen more confidence to implement this plan.

Although the stealth division plan was initially resisted by the national military aristocratic officers, after all, there were only so many nobles, and the expansion of the army in peacetime would inevitably increase the proportion of civilian officers, even if the German army added Austrian aristocratic officers, it was still not worth mentioning compared to the huge base.

Historically, before World War I in Germany, the Junker aristocracy accounted for nearly 75% of the army, and you can imagine how huge this force was, in order to maintain the "purity" of the officer corps. A large number of Junker aristocratic officers resisted this, and a considerable number of Austrian aristocratic officers were involved, and Jochen was naturally under a lot of pressure.

But perhaps this is the norm in every country's military: the greatest enemy of one branch of the armed forces in peacetime is not an imaginary enemy, but another. Without hesitation, Jochen pulled the navy out to make a cushion.

If the Army believes that the increase in civilian officers will affect the "purity" of the Army's officer corps, and thus abandons this plan that is beneficial to the Empire's military strength, then as the crown prince, it can only compromise and meet the Army's demands. However, in order to ensure the improvement of the Empire's military mobilization capability, he will implement this plan within the Marine Corps, and intensify his efforts to build the entire Marine Corps into an officer reserve.

Tirpitz did not question Jochen's trick of pulling the Navy out to block the gun, but instead agreed, with a good, good, and just right attitude, and took great pains to let the Navy Office start drafting and formulating a plan, which immediately stimulated the nerves of the Army General Staff.

How can this kind of thing be endured? The Army, which was originally dissatisfied with the Marines stealing their jobs, now has to expand their snobbery and compete for troops, so that the civilian population is no longer the enemy of the Junker aristocratic officers, but the Navy is. Although Schlieffen knew that this was Jochen's trick, he was also making a battle plan and realized that he would indeed strengthen the army's troops, so he finally took the lead in supporting Jochen's plan.

Tirpitz, of course, didn't really want the Marines to steal the Army's jobs, but he made such a move to match Jochen's plan. Of course, such cooperation cannot be without purpose, Tirpitz also has his own small abacus, using this cooperation in exchange for the crown prince's support for the naval expansion plan, as long as he pretends to be, no matter how he looks at it, it is a profitable deal. The first reward for Tirpitz's cooperation was Jochen's full support for the first amendment to the Navy Act.

However, Tirpitz didn't know, and Jochen, who knew that there would be a competition between Britain and Germany to build ships in the future, also regarded his support for the naval expansion plan as a profitable deal.

However, in any case, the Army's acceptance of the Stealth Division program has greatly improved the speed of the army's wartime mobilization and assembly, and as time goes on, the Army has slowly accepted this fact.

As automobiles were equipped and used within the army, the German army's mobility and logistical capabilities were also improved to a certain extent. The armament is also stronger than in history, but Jochen's opinion on the Schlieffen plan remains unchanged, and the plan may have some effect in the early stage, but it will definitely fail in the long run.

The reason for the failure is simple: Schlieffen plans were formulated too idealisticly, miscalculated the variables in the war, underestimated the combat effectiveness of an industrial country in a total war, and overestimated its own ability to carry out the plan.

Schlieffen's plan was idealistic, and he was not content to thwart the French attempts on Lorraine and Alsace, but to storm Paris and bleed the French with a war of annihilation, so that France could no longer pose any threat to Germany for at least 20 years, if not erased the country from the map.

However, Schlieffen forgot one point, that is, the reason why Germany was able to win the Franco-Prussian War quickly was due to four important conditions in addition to Prussia's efficient combat capability: the neutrality of the Great Powers, the one-front operation, the unexpected capture of Napoleon III, and the outbreak of the French army**, without these conditions, then there would not have been a situation in which the Prussian Seven Years' War would not have occurred.

Schlieffen also had a very strict misjudgment of the deployment of the French forces, Schlieffen believed that the French had neither a strategic reserve deployed in the rear nor a large number of reserves in a short period of time to deal with the German army attacking in a roundabout way, except for the troops facing Germany on the Verdun front, and this misjudgment ultimately led to the defeat of the German army in the Battle of Verdun.

In fact, at the end of the 19th century, there were already a few sober-minded military strategists who realized the horror of all-out war under the national system, and Moltke the Elder was one of them, "After the main force of the army of a great power has been attacked by annihilation, as long as the will to resist is not completely destroyed, it can continue to mobilize new armies for a long time." ”

Schlieffen could not be unaffected by Moltke the Elder's words, so he hoped to crush the French will to resist by taking Paris quickly, but he kept things simple, even if the Germans occupied Paris, the French would not necessarily give up resistance, because no government could afford to lose in a total war, because that would mean the total collapse of the entire government.

So in fact there were no voices within the Wehrmacht that questioned the Schlieffen plan, and some generals once pointed out: "You can't disarm a big country like you do with a cat in a bag." But such a voice, under Schlieffen's absolute authority, did not have much effect.

The core of Schlieffen's plan was a quick detour to France to attack Paris, and there was an unavoidable problem in such a roundabout operation - Belgium, but the misjudgment of the Belgian situation and the miscalculation of the execution ability of its own troops once again added a weight to the bankruptcy of Schlieffen's plan. R1152