THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN - The World War I Document Archive
THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN - The World War I Document Archive
THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN - The World War I Document Archive
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I. <strong>SCHLIEFFEN</strong>'S GREAT MEMOPvANDUM<br />
OF DECEMBER 1905<br />
A. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION<br />
1. <strong>The</strong> Drafts<br />
F the great memorandum of December 1905 Schlieffens papers<br />
contain the preliminary drafts, fragments, fair copies and transcripts<br />
enumerated below. <strong>The</strong>ir relationship with each other is not easily<br />
recognisable, because in his constant re-writing Schliejfen often presents the<br />
ideas in the drafts in a different order, using old and new drafts simultaneously<br />
as his working copy without always keeping to the exact wording, etc. However,<br />
by carefully comparing the relevant corrections and insertions with the text<br />
of th°. subsequent fair copies (which in turn served as drafts themselves) it has<br />
been possible to construct a chronological order. <strong>The</strong> provisional order made<br />
by an archivist (in Washington?) by means of consecutive numbers (in pencil<br />
at the top of each page) is arbitrary and has furthermore disrupted the sequence<br />
of pages. Flere I have enumerated the items chronologically.<br />
I. Draft in the handwriting of Major von Hahuke, nineteen half-page<br />
columns (pages 119-38) interleaved with empty pages for corrections, two of<br />
them used for postscripts (in Hahnke's hand). Many corrections and insertions<br />
in Schlieffens handwriting in the empty left-hand columns. Begins: Chief<br />
of the Army General Staff. Berlin, December 31st, 1905. In a war<br />
against Germany, France will probably at first restrict herself to<br />
defence. Ends: . . . therefore a German attack on France does not permit<br />
one to respect the neutrality of Luxembourg and Belgium.<br />
Since the text displays several gaps (re-starting out of context, sometimes in<br />
the middle of a sentence), parts of this draft must have been lost or have been<br />
used for other purposes. It is probably the earliest dictated draft. I therefore<br />
reproduce it infill as Appendix, 1.<br />
II, Ha, lib. Two fair copies in Hahnke's hand. One of them (lid) com-<br />
prising eighteen half-page columns (pp. 139-56) is not corrected; the other<br />
(II), of nineteen columns (pp. 192-210), has many corrections and insertions<br />
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