SCHLIEFFEN'S PLAN OF INVASION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 51, 14 June 1940, Page 2

SCHLIEFFEN'S PLAN OF INVASION

ERMAN armies invading France have apparently worked to what is known as the "Schlieffen Plan." This is no new thing. For years it has been regarded as the German High Command’s scheme for the conquest of Britain and the overthrow of France. Count von Schlieffen was a former German war lord and Chief of the German General Staff. His plan was to attack France first through the Low Countries, Holland and Belgium, as indicated in the smaller map. The army was to execute a great wheeling movement via the Belgiag river valley and enter France through the frontier gaps at Armentieres, Oise, Meuse, and Stenay, which are the chief lines of communication and railway nerve centres. Schlieffen planned to drive any existing forces in the way to the coast, encircle Paris and take the French Army in the rear, as indicated in the inset map. This plan was modified for the 1914 invasion. Holland was not invaded, but Belgium and Luxembourg were over-run. ‘For a time this plan succeeded, but the

German right wing was cut up in front of Paris and the Battle of the Marne broke the German advance and forced the army to retreat. The 22nd and 31st day lines indicate the position. of the German advance in 1914, In the larger map the gaps on the French frontier are shown. This time the break in the line of Allied defences was made through the Meuse and Stenay gaps; then the German forces made for the coast down the Somme River valley to cut the two important ports of Boulogne and Calais, which are Britain’s principal sources of supply for men and arms and supplies. It would seem, from reading the reports since the invasion of Belgium and France, that the failure to blow up bridges over the Meuse was one of the principal reasons for the swift German advance. No one can say for certain until the full story is written. The dismissal of the French generals may also be another clue to the German success. One of Belgium’s strongest fortresses, Namur, on the River Meuse, held up six German divisions and 500 guns for five days in 1914, but this time it failed to stem the. enemy advance.