Forty-first episode: The plans of France and Germany at the start of the First World War (Plan XVII and Schlieffen Plan) This video is the first in a series of EIGHT (...) on the beginning of the First World War on the Western Front. The aim of this series is to get an idea of ​​the shape that this war took at the beginning and to understand the shock that this beginning produced. The series will go from the plans to the setting up of the trenches but will not deal with the other fronts or the underlying causes of the war. When the First World War began in 1914, France and Germany had a plan. But these were more the expression of a vision of the war to come, with its anxieties, than a projection adapted to the direction that the war would take, with its technological innovations and its totally new masses of men. We will therefore see in this episode how the plans of France, Plan XVII, and of Germany, the (Moltke-)Schlieffen Plan, were constructed, what they respond to, what they are witness to, in order to try to qualify their (retrospective) failure. Member channel of the Hérodote Label https://label-herodote.com/​​ Episode supported by Les Clionautes https://www.clionautes.org/ Sources: 1- Holger H. Herwig, The First World War Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918, Bloomsbury Academic, 1996 2- Peter Simkins, The First World War The Western Front 1914-1916, Routledge, 2002 3- Holger H. Herwig, The Marne, 1914 The Opening of World War I and the Battle That Changed the World, New York: Random House, 2009 4- Paul Kennedy, The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880-1914, Routledge, 1979 5- Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War, Cambridge University Press, 2001 6- Peter Hart, The Great War A Combat History of the First World War, Oxford University Press, 2013 7- Alfred von Schlieffen, Cannae, Fort Leavenworth, 1931 8- Jean-Jacques Becker, Gerd Krumeich, La grande guerre, une histoire franco-allemande, Tallandier, 2012 -Jay Winter, The Cambridge History of the First World War Volume 2, The State, Cambridge University Press, 2014 -Pierre-Yves Hénin, Le plan Schlieffen: un mois de guerre, deux siècles de controversies, Economica, 2012 -André Loez, La Grande Guerre, La Découverte, 2010 Notes: -You will notice that I am setting up a more direct reference system to the sources. This is an effort at clarification on my part to also encourage people to go and see. That being said, the unnumbered sources also played a role in the development of the episodes. Already because I read them but also because it nourished my understanding of the events and allowed for crossovers or nuances. -As for the Schlieffen Plan, if we have seen some good elements of it, there would remain other subjects to be dealt with as the plan itself is a historical object in its own right. Thus, the history of the perception of the plan thereafter, its successive versions, the influence of the Battle of Cannae (or not), are subjects that have not been dealt with in depth here. -Here, as until now, it must be kept in mind that I cannot talk about everything. Not only are there many other issues, which I would not have dealt with, forgotten or voluntarily ignored in order to remain comprehensible, but in addition the subject is far from being closed in historical works. -Yes I say Alsace-Lorraine. The region that passes from France to Germany and then from Germany to France is actually Alsace and Moselle in France (and not all of French Lorraine). But this region, then German in 1914, is named Alsace-Lorraine by them. I therefore stick with this name (it will be valid throughout the series). / surlechampdebataille / surlechampfr To support the channel financially: https://www.helloasso.com/association... Original credits music composed by Julien Théron Logo designed by Camille Sanchez.