Talk:Helmuth von Moltke the Younger

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There's still a lot to be done here - we need coverage of Moltke's militarism and advocacy for preventative war. I've also only skimmed the surface of the planning issue, but such a discussion might warrant its own article (German Military Planning, 1870-1914). Mackensen 02:40, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Any chance someone could include the quote from Moltke to the Kaiser after the attempt to take Paris failed that goes something along the lines of 'Your Majesty, We have just lost the war'? I would include it myself but I'm too busy at the moment to find the correct quote...

[edit] Moltkes implementation of Schlieffen

AFAIK the criticism of Moltkes focuses on two points:

before the war started he changed the plan by shifting several division from the right wing (which would march through belgium) to the left wing (stationed) at the franco-german border. These divisions were needed on the right wing at the battle of the Marne, without achieving achieving much on the left wing.

before the battle of the Marne he transferred two army-corps from the western front to the eastern front. Had these troops been avaiable they probably would have changed the outcome by closing the gap between the German 1st. and 2nd. Army. Here he is blamed for not understanding Schliffen, whose core-idea for a two front war was to attack France with the bulk of the army, while delaying the russians with a token force by trading territory for time. Once France was defeated the entire German army was to attack the russians and retake the lost ground. It is claimed that Moltke simply should have left the eastern front to fight on their own and accepted the threatened loss of eastern prussia for the time being (he could not possibly forsee the German victory at Tannenberg). Nevfennas 23:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

This is, as far as I know, not at all true: "The Schlieffen Plan (based on the Denkschrift of 1905) envisaged a one-front war against France and England." Everything I've ever read has indicated that the point of Schlieffen's plan was to win a two-front war by moving quickly against France (and not England) with the vast majority of the German army while the ponderous Russians mobilized. The dichotomy between Schlieffen's one-front plan and Moltke's two-front plan is entirely false; Moltke was just more worried about the Russians (and the political consequences of giving up East Prussia).--24.18.125.239 07:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's a problem within the historiography. The 1905 memorandum doesn't mention Russia at all, but obviously Schlieffen had to be thinking about Russia. Historians slip around this by taking the 1905 concept and converting it into a two-front war, but there are some obvious problems with that. The article probably isn't clear enough on this point; I'll see what I can do with it. Mackensen (talk) 12:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tuchman

From memory I think that the last two paragraphs of this article may be plagiarized from Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August. I will check if I get hold of the book, but for now this should be explored further.