Terence Holmes reinvents the Schlieffen plan - Again

War in History

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 92-101

  Zuber, Terence ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 37349066680     PISSN: 09683445     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1191/0968344503wh263oa     Document Type: Review

References (6)

1. and cites as proof page 229 of his first article ('The Reluctant March on Paris', War in History, VIII (2), 2001, pp. 208-32). In fact, Holmes is trying to have it both ways, for on pages 223 and 224 of the same article he said 'But when Zuber asserts that "at no time . . . did the German army plan to swing the right wing to the west of Paris" (p. 305, cf. p. 299), he leaves out of account one very obvious piece of evidence that would seem to contradict him. On 27 August 1914 Moltke issued a directive calling for the German army to move against Paris. Specifically . . . 1st Army was to advance against the lower Seine . . . At least on that particular day there was an explicit plan "to swing the right wing to the west of Paris". And it seems improbable that it was an entirely spontaneous idea.' When I said that Holmes thought the German army intended to execute the march around Paris, I obviously did not misrepresent Holmes. I renew my question: the Schlieffen plan provided 13 corps for the march around Paris. How does Holmes think the 1st Army was going to accomplish the same thing with five corps?
2. C. Jany, Geschichte der Preußischen Armee vom 15. Jahrhundert bis 1914. Vierter Band. Die Königlich Preußische Armee und das Deutsche Reichsheer 1807 bis 1914, Zweite ergänzte Auflage herausgegeben von Eberhard Jany (Osnabrück, 1967), pp. 296-97
3. F. Immanuel, 'Der Krieg an der Westfront von Mitte September 1914 bis Mitte April 1915', in: M. Schwarte, ed., Der Grosse Krieg, 1914, Erster Teil: Der Deutsche Landkrieg (Leipzig, 1921), pp. 392-93
4. Ritter, Schlieffenplan, pp. 154-55
5. X, 'Les chemins de fer allemandes et les chemins de fer françaises au point de vue de la concentrations des armées', Journal des Sciences Militaires (mai 1879), pp. 5-16
6. A. Bucholz, Moltke, Schlieffen and Prussian War Planning (New York, Oxford, 1991), p. 205