Alternate history: what if the Schlieffen plan had been successful?

Nick Lloyd, professor of modern warfare at King’s College London and author of The Western Front: A History of the First World War (Viking, 2021), is in no doubt that the successful execution of the Schlieffen Plan would have avoided such a catastrophic amount of casualties. “Had it achieved its aims and knocked France out of the war, then the Western Front as it became known would not have existed. The British Expeditionary Force could not have continued without French support and would have been forced to leave the continent very quickly, akin to the scenes witnessed in the summer of 1940.”

As well as the heavy death toll having been avoided, Europe would not have suffered from the crippling economic damage caused by the First World War. “If the war had come to a conclusion in 1914 or 1915, Europe would have remained the most powerful continent in the world. It’s likely that some form of economic recovery would have taken off in 1917–18 and brought greater prosperity all round, thus avoiding the kind of economic crash we would see in 1929.”

Had the Schlieffen Plan achieved its goals both in the west and the east, Professor Lloyd sees the map of Europe being redrawn, with Germany possibly annexing coveted territory such as Poland and the Baltic states. In the west, Belgium “would also certainly have been annexed and put into a close economic and political relationship with Germany, with garrison troops being stationed in the country to guarantee Germany supremacy.” And what of France? “Berlin would have likely demanded a more punitive peace treaty to that of 1871, with significant reparations, the demobilisation of the French army, and adjustments on the border to suit German interests.”

Prestige and power

The political and military make-up of the following decades would have looked very different had German domination prevailed. “It is certainly likely that a victorious war in 1914 would have added greatly to the prestige and power of Imperial Germany,” explains Professor Lloyd. “Kaiser Wilhelm II would have taken his place among the great leaders of history as his empire expanded in both the east and west, and looked to dominate Europe in peacetime with its chief rivals unable to stop it.”

Victory, of course, wouldn’t have precipitated the depth of domestic dissent that Germany suffered from after the strict terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in 1919, which ultimately led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

“There would have been no great grievance or betrayal to react against, as the National Socialists would do, and Adolf Hitler would have remained a fringe figure in German politics, likely campaigning for a more hard-line victorious peace and for more annexations, but without the appeal
that he would have by the 1930s.”

A different cold war

Just as Hitler’s rise would have been avoided by a successful Schlieffen Plan, a communist Russia might not have come into being. “However,” cautions Professor Lloyd, “even if Russian casualties and territorial losses had been less than what it actually suffered in 1918, it’s likely that some form of revolution or palace coup would have taken place. This would have reduced the power of the tsar and allowed greater forms of democratic participation in Russian life, actually weakening the forces of Bolshevism and communism and allowing Russia to evolve in a more stable and less revolutionary way.

Europe would not have suffered from the crippling economic damage caused by the First World War

“Despite this, the lure of communism would likely have remained in many parts of the world, including South America and Asia. Yet, without a Soviet Union to spearhead and support these communist movements, it’s more likely that establishment forces would have been able to hold on in many places, keeping communism at bay.”

And what of Britain’s place in a Europe redefined by the Schlieffen Plan? “The British could not have continued the war,” Professor Lloyd concludes. “The government of Herbert Asquith would have likely fallen and a new ministry come into power that sought to work with Germany to forge the best path forward. There would probably have been a period of uneasy coexistence, followed by a kind of cold war until Germany’s conquest was set in stone.

“The history of the 20th century would have been unrecognisable had the Schlieffen Plan succeeded.”

This article was first published in the March 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed