The War Begins

1. The War Begins

2. The Schlieffen Plan German Objective: Avoid a 2-front war by quickly defeating France before turning toward Russia

3. The German Army Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen devised a plan that would be able to counter a combined attack from France, Britain and Russia. • He knew when war broke France had to be defeated quickly so that Russia and Britain would be unwilling to continue.

4. What Schlieffen thought: • Russia would take 6 weeks to mobilize its army • Belgium would offer little or no resistance • France could be defeated in 6 weeks • Britain would remain neutral, despite an alliance with Belgium • France was less dangerous than Russia, being beaten by Germany within weeks in 1870 What Schlieffen knew: • Belgium and the Netherlands are flat lands, easy to move an army across • France would concentrate its army along the French-German Border

5. How do I draw the arrows?

6. The Schlieffen Plan • Move rapidly against the French while the Russians take a long time to mobilize their army • As the French army massed at the German border, the Germans would sweep across Belgium and The Netherlands • Then turn towards Paris like a claw, falling west of the capital • All this would take six weeks • With France out of the war, Germany could turn to Russia

7. The Schlieffen Plan How the plan was actually executed

8. Why did the plan fail? • Germany assumed wrongly that Britain would not object to the invasion of Belgium • Britain used the invasion as a reason to enter the war • Schlieffen died in 1913 – his replacement made changes to his plan • Instead of approaching Paris from the west, they were forced to turn south too soon, meeting the French army along the border

9. A weaker German right flank was attacked by an effective British Expeditionary Force • Belgium put up a strong resistance • Russia mobilized faster than expected • German troops were moved from the Western front to support the Russian advance

10. The Result? • The German advance was halted on the Marne River • Both sides “dug in” extensive trench systems protected by artillery and machine guns • Germany found itself trapped on the Western Front, facing the combined armies of France, Britain, and their empires, including Canada • Four years of trench warfare began

11. Canada Responds • “When the call comes, our answer goes at once, and it goes in the classical language of the British answer to the call of duty: ‘Ready, aye, ready’” • Most of Canada was soon caught up in war fever, with many worrying it would be over before they got there • Although automatically at war when Britain was at war, Canada was able to determine the extent of its participation • An expeditionary force was prepared before the British even requested one