Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to this lesson two of six on the enquiry did the Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand lead to the outbreak of world war one? Now this lesson is entitled The Schlieffen Plan And for this lesson, you're going to need a pen and something to write on, and you also need to make sure that wherever you are, you're free of any distractions.

I'll give you a moment to write down the title, The Schlieffen Plan and then when you're ready, we'll move on.

Hello, it's me again, Mr. Hewitt.

And I'm back for this lesson two in six on our enquiry about the causes of the first world war.

It's fantastic to see you here again, and if you're joining us for the first time, you're very welcome, but it might be a good idea to have a look at that first lesson enquiry.

Now today's lesson is on The Schlieffen Plan.

Now to really understand where we're going in this enquiry into what is in many ways, German history.

And of course the history of France also, I want to take you back to an event called The Franco Prussian War in 1870 1871.

Now Prussia was the largest and the most powerful of the German States, which after the Franco Prussian war in 1871 unified and became an empire or the new nation State of Germany and Franco of course refers to France.

So this war, which took place between France and Prussia that very powerful German state is very important for understanding how Germany came to be a country, but also how war was changing at this time in European history.

What happened was this the French government hoping to distract from the problems they had at home in France invaded the German States and the German States, which used to be separate principalities and countries, Westphalia for example Saxony this were separate top Prussia.

These States came together and actually remarkably defeated the whole of France.

That was partly because of the work they did as a unit.

It was partly because the power and strength of the Prussian army, but it was also a lot to do with what happened in Germany, in the area that became known as Germany, and that was industrialization.

And in particular, the laying of lots of railways and these new railways, new industrial technologies allowed the Prussians and the Germans when they were attacked by the French to quickly mobilise their army, bring them all the way over to the border, push into France, attack Paris and actually force a surrender of the French.

And in that image right at the top of the picture in the centre of the screen just on the left, you can see the proclamation of the German empire in 1871.

That is the Germans coming together to proclaim Germany as a newly unified state, guess where they're doing it, where you can see is a clue on the walls in the background, those are mirrors, they're inside a room called the hall of mirrors in the palace of Versailles.

Versailles is one of the great French Royal palaces.

So they're actually declaring their empire inside of France, just outside of Paris, having defeated the French in the Franco Prussian war.

Just to show their power.

I need you to understand this story because I need you to understand in next lesson, how Germany became the country that it wants by 1914, but also to understand the role of rapid industrialization railways in rapid mobilisation.

When I use the word mobilisation, what I mean is that bringing together of an army very quickly, for example, being able to move troops from their barracks in one part of the country, barracks is where troops live to the front line where the fighting goes on because the speed with which countries can mobilise was absolutely essential to the formation of the Schlieffen plan.

I'll get my head off the way so that you can see this individual a bit better.

Now this person is general von Schlieffen.

Member of the German high command, who was really directly responsible for the planning of a Germany's attack.

Should the European powers go to war cause all the European powers had thought it was possible.

They might have to fight a war in Europe.

And so all of the armies in Europe have been planning for this.

And the Germans had entrusted this plan to general Schlieffen, which is why the plan became known as the Schlieffen plan.

Now, even though the plan was constructed 10 years before the war, it was still put into action in August 1914.

And this plan was absolutely essential to why the war started and accelerated in the way that it did now to understand exactly what the plan comprised of and why it was so important to the outbreak the war.

We need to take a look at this map from the last lesson.

Do you remember this? Look at Germany in the centre of the image and take note of the arrows.

They point to Germany's Western and Eastern borders.

It's Western border shares with France, and Eastern with Russia.

Now I wonder as a German general knowing that France and Russia were allies, what would you be most afraid of in this scenario? Pause the video, write down your thoughts and in a moment unpause it and I'll share my ideas with you.

Fantastic.

The Germans were deeply concerned about a war on two fronts.

A front is where you fight like for example, the Western front in France and Belgium during the first world war, what the Germans figured is that yes, they could defeat France on its own and probably also Russia on its own.

But to fight the two at the same time would be challenging.

Take a look at France and Russia on that contemporary map of the world, France in green and Russia in orange, which of these two nations do you think might had the larger population and the large number of soldiers in 1914? And which of these two nations do you think might have been quicker to mobilise that is to bring their troops to the German border? Again, I want you to pause the video, just jot down your thoughts and when you're happy, unpause the video and we can share our ideas.

Great work.

France did have a smaller population and a smaller army.

It was a much smaller country, but it was more industrialised.

It had more railways and because it was smaller, France would be quicker to mobilise to bring its troops from their barracks for example, to the German border, you're quite right.

Russia in orange has the larger army, but of course it's such an enormous country and it wasn't very industrialised.

It didn't have the same quality of railways that France did that they will be very slow to mobilise.

Imagine the difficulty of bringing troops across the challenging terrain all the way from the border with China cross the whole of Asia to the European part of Russia.

Now think back to general Von Schlieffen.

If you were planning for a war with both of these nations, what might you be thinking to do? Just one more reminder.

There's Russia and France in that cartoon from last lesson, Russia has shown is the more powerful of the two with a larger army but whilst Germany is focused on attacking Russia in this image, we see France rushing up from behind to threaten the Germans.

And this is exactly what Schlieffen and other German generals were worried about if they turned to take on Russia first, might they end up facing a quick mobilisation from the French.

Consider those three different options for the German military.

When planning for a war, what do you think would make the most sense? All I want you to write down one risk involved in each of these approaches, for example, what would be the risk of invading Russia first or France first? Or what would be the risk of splitting the army and trying to invade both at the same time, pause the video, write down one risk for each.

And when you're happy, I'll take a look at what you've said.

Great work.

If you invaded Russia first, well, the French might mobilise quickly and attack your Western border before you'd finished defeating the large Russian army.

By contrast, if you invaded France first, yes, you might knock the French out of the war, but of course the Russians would have a larger army to bring to bare on Germany.

You could split the army, but this would weaken the army.

It would be half of its strength from both the Western and Eastern front.

And this was something that the Germans were desperate to avoid.

So what was the Schlieffen plan then? Well, Schlieffen decided that the most sensible option was to attack France first.

It would be easier to defeat then Russia, but quick to mobilise.

So the Germans had to move quickly.

They need to avoid heavily defended French German border.

By going through Belgium, amounting an attack on Paris, the capital of France, the Germans believed that if they moved quickly enough and without warning, they could reach Paris in six weeks and force the French to surrender before they'd even been able to mobilise after this, the Germans could turn back towards Russia, who also would not have been able to mobilise by this point.

And then having already knocked the French out of the war, the Germans could focus just on fighting the Russians.

Now as a reminder of exactly what the Schlieffen plan was invade France first capture Paris in the first six weeks, turn back to take on Russia before they'd had time to mobilise, but remember to avoid those French defences, the German army would have to go through Belgium.

Well, why was Belgium important? It's just a small Northern European nation, admittedly one with a horrifically cruel and exploitative empire in the Congo at that time in Africa, but in Europe, not a major military power, well the difficulty was this, Britain had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium.

When you guarantee something, you make sure that it will happen.

Neutrality means you don't pick one side or the other to fight for.

So really what's being said, that is, Britain has said that if any nation France or Germany, were it go into Belgium, then Britain would defend Belgium.

This was partly because Britain didn't want the French to control the whole North sea coast, but also because Britain wanted to keep a balance of power in Europe and to separate the French in German borders.

So there was less likely to be a conflict between the two.

I'll explain that to you more in detail, you can see that map of the coast there, the Belgium coast in particular, you see there were ports on the Belgium coast that were crucial to Britain's shipping in English channel in the North sea, if France controlled all of the coast that would give them too much power over those shipping routes, which is why the British were keen to guarantee Belgium's neutrality.

Let's take a look at these comprehension questions.

I want you to pause the video, have a go on answering those.

And when you come back, we can look at some of the answers that you might've got.

Hello I'm back.

Let's look at these questions together.

So what name was given to the German Army's plan of attack? If you have The Schlieffen Plan, fantastic.

You might have to developed your answer a little further by saying working for the German army, general Schlieffen had developed the plan 1905-6.

What about this question? What is meant by the term mobilisation in a military context? Well if he said preparing for war or getting your army for war well done.

You could have gone a little further and written something similar to mobilisation is when an army is prepared for war, for example its soldiers are brought from the barracks to the front line.

What about this third question, which European nation did the German army need to pass through, to avoid French defences? If you wrote Belgium well done, that's fantastic.

You might've developed this a little further by saying passing through Belgium was faster and avoided the direct and heavily defended French border, but it risked a war with Britain.

Ha! This fourth question, how did the Schlieffen plan accelerate the start of world war one? Well, if you alluded to the fact that Germany had to and would attack first as part of the plan and well done, that's really fantastic.

You could have developed back even further and said The Schlieffen Plan only worked.

If it was acted on quickly, therefore it was a more likely to accelerate conflict.

Why did the Schlieffen plan make the outbreak of war in July 1914 even more likely? Well, if you wrote Schlieffen plan required Germany to go to war quickly, and with France and Russia, you're doing an outstanding job.

You could develop that answer even further and say something similar to The Schlieffen Plan was an aggressive plan, it required the Germans to strike first to invade both France and Russia and to travel through Belgium, which of course drew Britain into well done.

That's outstanding.

I'm so impressed.

You've completed all of the questions.

There's even some extra extension work for you on the last slide in which we returned to our enquiry.

Now it is explain why the German army formed the Schlieffen plan to begin with.

what military situation were they trying to avoid? And you've got to couple on a sentence starter their and three key words, which you can use.

Now, I'm going to leave this one up to you, but if you'd like to share your work with us, we'd be really interested in seeing it.

And so if you've got parental carer who's using Twitter, they can share your work using the details on this slide.

I'm looking forward to seeing you again in our next lesson, on Germany, Germany unification, and a new state that Germany was in 1871.

See you later.