Graf Alfred von Schlieffen (German pronunciation: [ɡʁaːf ˈalfʁeːt fɔn ˈʃliːfn̩]; 28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913) was a German and Prussian officer and strategist, eventually reaching the rank of field marshal. He served as chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. His name is most known for the 1905–06 "Schlieffen Plan", then Aufmarsch I, a deployment plan and operational guide for a decisive initial offensive operation/campaign in a two-front war against the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire.
Born in Prussia, Germany, on 28 February 1833, the son of a Prussian Army officer, he was part of an old Prussian noble family, the Schlieffen family. He lived with his father, Major Magnus von Schlieffen, on their estate in Silesia, which he left to go to school in 1842. The young Schlieffen had shown no interest in joining the military and so he did not attend the traditional Prussian cadet academies. Instead, he studied at the University of Berlin. While he was studying law, he enlisted in the army in 1853 for his one year of compulsory military service. Then, instead of joining the reserves, he was chosen as an officer candidate. He thus started a long military career, working his way up through the officer ranks, eventually completing 53 years of service.
In 1868, fifteen years into his military career, Schlieffen married his cousin Countess Anna Schlieffen. They had one healthy child (Elisabeth Auguste Marie Ernestine Gräfin von Schlieffen, 13 September 1869 – 23 September 1943), but after the birth of a second (Marie, who became a nun), his wife died. Schlieffen then focused all of his attention on his military work.
On the recommendation of his commanders, Schlieffen was admitted to the General War School in 1858 at the age of 25, much earlier than others. He graduated in 1861 with high honours, which guaranteed him a role as a General Staff officer. In 1862, he was assigned to the Topographic Bureau of the General Staff, providing him with geographical knowledge and a respect for the tactical and strategic value of terrain and weather that would serve him well throughout his career, particularly in the war games he conducted and in the devising of various war plans, including the famous Schlieffen Plan. In 1865 he was transferred to the German General Staff proper, though his role was initially a minor one. He first saw active war service as a staff officer with the Prussian Cavalry Corps at the Battle of Königgrätz of 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War. The tactical "battle of encirclement" conducted there was from that point forward a constant feature of his tactical doctrine, even as his strategic doctrine consistently favoured the counter-offensive due to both his understanding of the terrain and his respect for von Clausewitz's assessment of the constantly diminishing strength of the offensive.
During the Franco-Prussian War, he commanded a small force in the Loire Valley, in what was one of the most difficult campaigns fought by the Prussian Army in France. Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden, promoted him to Major and head of the military history division. After years working alongside Helmuth von Moltke and Alfred von Waldersee, on 4 December 1886 he was promoted to Major General, and shortly afterwards, with the retirement of Moltke, became Waldersee's Deputy Chief of Staff. Not long after this, he became Quartermeistergeneral, then Lieutenant General on 4 December 1888, and eventually General of the Cavalry on 27 January 1893.
In 1904, on the occasion of the Herero rebellion in German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), Chief of the General Staff Schlieffen was supportive of Lothar von Trotha's genocidal policies against the Herero and Nama peoples, saying: "The race war, once commenced, can only be ended by annihilation or the complete enslavement of one party". He agreed in principle with Trotha's notorious Vernichtungsbefehl ("extermination order") of 2 October 1904, even justifying the many cases of killing of Herero women by the Germans, writing "If ... women have been shot, then one must remember that women have not only participated in the fighting, they have also been the main originators of the cruel and horrible martyrdom that our wounded have often been subjected to, and that the sight of these victims ... provoked the comrades to forgivable fury." Only after the intervention of Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow and the fear that Germany's international image will be stained did Schlieffen agree, in December 1904, to repeal Trotha's orders to kill on the spot unarmed and surrendering Hereros.
In August 1905, at the age of 72, Schlieffen was kicked by a companion's horse, making him "incapable of battle". After nearly 53 years of service, Schlieffen retired on New Year's Day, 1906. He died on 4 January 1913, just 19 months before the outbreak of the First World War. His last words are said to have been, "Remember: keep the right wing very strong" (in reference to the main strategic manoeuvre of Aufmarsch I West), but the tale is believed to be apocryphal and to have originated decades after his death.
For Schlieffen, the smaller rate of conscription into the German army (55 per cent, compared to France's rate of 80 per cent), created a numerical imbalance, which was worsened by the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1896. German tactical and operational abilities could not compensate for this quantitative inferiority. Schlieffen had wanted to institute universal conscription and raise as many combat units from trained reservists as possible. Conscription policy was controlled by the Prussian Ministry of War, which answered to the Reichstag. Schlieffen planned to create masses of new units when war came, when he would assume command of the army. Upon mobilisation, large numbers of reservists would be assigned to replacement battalions (Ersatzbataillone), while waiting to join the field army.
From June 1891, Schlieffen proposed to form Ersatzbataillone into brigades in the field army, but the units were not effective forces. Replacement units as field units would also not be able to replace field army casualties. The War Ministry rejected Schlieffen's proposals, and nothing was done until 1911, six years after Schlieffen's retirement, when six Ersatz divisions were formed by General Erich Ludendorff. Schlieffen continued to believe in the mass use of Ersatzbataillone, making them fundamental to the Denkschrift (memorandum or think piece) which became known as the Schlieffen Plan (January 1906). The Denkschrift was not a campaign plan, as Schlieffen had retired on 31 December 1905 and the 96 divisions needed to carry out this one-front war plan did not exist (in 1914 the German army had 79, of which 68 were deployed in the west). Rather, it was a demonstration of what Germany might accomplish if universal conscription was introduced.
Schlieffen thought that even this hypothetical 96-division German army would probably not be able to defeat France,
These preparations [encircling Paris] can be made any way that you like: it will soon become clear that we will be too weak to continue the operation in this direction. We will have the same experience as that of all previous conquerors, that offensive warfare both requires and uses up very strong forces, that these forces become weaker even as those of the defender become stronger, and this is especially true in a land that bristles with fortresses.
Without twelve Ersatz divisions on the right flank (in 1914 the German army had six which operated in Lorraine), outflanking Paris was impossible. Schlieffen admitted in the Denkschrift that Ersatz units could not catch the right wing by foot-marching, nor would the rail system suffice to move twelve Ersatz divisions to Paris. If they could not be sent to the right wing, they could be deployed practically anywhere else on the German front, either between Verdun and Mézières, at Metz or on the right bank of the Moselle. There is no evidence that Schlieffen conducted an exercise to test a scheme of manoeuvre similar to the one in the Denkschrift, an envelopment of Paris by the right flank, which would be surprising if this represented the pinnacle of Schlieffen's strategic thought. None of Schlieffen's surviving deployment plans (Aufmarsch), General staff rides (Generalstabsreisen) or war games (Kriegsspiele) bear any resemblance to the manoeuvre of the Schlieffen Plan; the plans are consistent with Schlieffen's counter-attack doctrine. On 11 December 1893 Schlieffen wrote a Denkschrift that represented the completion of his idea of mass warfare. When war came, the German government ought to declare full mobilisation in East Prussia, owing to its vulnerability to Russian cavalry raids. The East Prussian militia would use prepared equipment; behind this militia screen the German field army would deploy and then throw back the Russians.