What is the main argument in article a? (max 100 words) [1 point] 95 words
Annika Mombauer contends the idea of Terence Zuber in article of ‘Of War Plans and War Guilt : The Debate Surrounding the Schlieffen Plan’. Zuber states that a Schlieffen plan was a defensive military plan of successive one-front wars constructed to deal with France and Russia’s attack on Germany. However, Mombauer refutes that in fact, there was a Schlieffen Plan, an offensive war plan defined as the most favourable future strategy of Germany and it developed as the deployment plan of 1914, which proves a war guilt of Germany for starting the First World war.
2. List and explain 2-3 supportive arguments for this argument. (circa 200 words) [1,5points] 205 words
The first supportive argument for the main argument is that actions of Germany in 1914 is hard to be described as defensive and a number of documents have shown that there was no defensive intention for German military. It’s clear that it was an offensive war plan since in 1914, France was not the one that attacked Germany but Germany invaded France through Belgium and Luxembourg. Consequently, carrying out this German deployment plan led to annual update and adaption under Moltke. For Germany, due to their desire to achieve victory against France, it did not take account of all moral and political considerations of neighboring countries’ neutrality. The second supportive argument for the main argument is that the Schlieffen plan of deployment of German troops in the West and its early military actions had been planned for a long time, which caused an offensive reaction to the actions of France and Russia. In the memorandum of 1905, it states that the operation plan and basic doctrines of its deployment had been developed few years beforehand. This means that it had been planned for several years and had an intention of an offensive military strategy in the future, which leads to a war guilt of Germany.
3. What is the main argument in article b? (max 100 words) [1 point] 90 words
The main argument in article of ‘Everyone Knows There Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’ : A Reply to Annika Mombauer’ is that Mombauer has misrepresented the argument of Schlieffen plan and the debate about the deployment plan updated and adapted under Moltke in 1914 by Terence Zuber ,and she was completely wrong about military facts for the first month of the First World war. Therefore, Mombauer has to know the military facts correctly in order to make use of military history to defend her theories regarding morality and politics of Germany.
4. Why does the author of article b disagree with the author of article a? (circa 250 words)
[1,5 points] 266 words
The author of article b, Terence Zuber disagrees with the author of article a, Annika Mombauer because Mombauer wrongly interpreted Zuber’s arguments and sources. First of all, Mombauer claims that Germany planned attack and invaded Belgium and Luxembourg in order to head for France. However, Zuber asserts that Mombauer’s claim is absolutely wrong since Germany was rather on the defensive since the army of Germany was the last one to implement offensive operations. France and Russia were the ones that crossed the border and attacked Germany first. Moreover, Mombauer contends that the Schlieffen plan was an offensive military plan that resulted in the Great War and thus, proving the war guilt of Germany. Nevertheless, as mentioned above in the military fact, the French and Russians first attacked before Germans did. This shows that Germany is not guilty for starting the WWI and also, Zuber did not make any attempt to make Germans’ war guilt since war guilt is not a question for just a study of war planning of Germany. Furthermore, Zuber supports his claim of the Schlieffen plan as a defensive war plan by referring to the actual war planning. It shows that Russia and France considered it was better for them to attack before the Germans and Germany thought it would be militarily advantageous for them to prepare to counter-attack against the Franco-Russian offensive plans. Overall, Zuber, the author of article b disagrees and criticizes ideas regarding the German strategy since the author of article a, Momabuer incorrectly analyzed Zuber’s statements with lack of military history and facts by using her own common knowledge.
5. What type of criticism is voiced in article b (e.g. selective use of sources or analysis of
sources)? [1 point] 31 words
Terence Zuber insists that the analysis by Mombauer is questionable since she relies on truthiness and common knowledge rather than referring to actual military histories or documents of actual war planning.
6. Which article do you find more convincing, and why? (circa 300 words) (NB: your
opinion is marked on academic accountability (i.e. quality of your argument) not on a
right or wrong opinion). [2,5 points] 300 words
I found article b, ‘Everyone Knows There Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’ : A Reply to Annika Mombauer’ more convincing since Terence Zuber was able to refute what Annika Mombauer claimed concerning the Schlieffen plan and the deployment plan in 1914. Further reasons to support my claim is that first of all, Russia was not included in Schlieffen plan which means that it was a plan regarding only a one-front war against the French, and secondly, a number of well-known historians actually supported and complemented Zuber’s argument. Mombauer contends that the German strategies, Schlieffen plan and deployment plan under Moltke in 1914 was designed to have one-front wars with France and Russia in succession instead of two-fronts wars. Nonetheless, Zuber refutes this by claiming that there was actually only a war against the French. In fact, Germany troops were not ever deployed in the east and there was no mention about a war against Russians at all. Schlieffen plan was to prepare military actions against the anticipated attack from France in advance. Furthermore, Mombauer mainly asserts in article a that Zuber’s arguments were not able to convince a considerable number of experts and professionals in the field. However, this is not true since Zuber was able to convince the most significant military historians such as Niall Ferguson, Samuel R.Williamson, Jeremy Black and Stig Förster. For instance, Black said that Zuber created an essential work called Inventing the Schlieffen Plan, which helped to clarifying war planning and bringing strategic interpretations in a part of historiography. According to Williamson, he described Zuber’s work as a significant book and Ferguson incorporated Zuber’s argument concerning Schlieffen plan in his book. With these reasons, I firmly believe that article b, ‘Everyone Knows There Was a ‘Schlieffen Plan’ : A Reply to Annika Mombauer’ is more convincing.
7. Look for an additional relevant publication in the Leiden catalogue.
Provide a reference according to the Chicago Manual of Style. [0,2 point]
Zuber, Terence. 1999. "The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered". War in History 6, no. 3: 262-305.
b. Provide a link to the item in the Leiden catalogue. [0,3 point]
https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=TN_proquest1683851167&context=PC&vid=UBL_V1&lang=en_US&search_scope=All_Content&adaptor=primo_central_multiple_fe&tab=all_content&query=any,contains,%22The%20Schlieffen%20Plan%20Reconsidered%22&sortby=rank&offset=0
c. Explain why this publication is relevant for this debate. (circa 150 words) [1 point] 156 words
The publication of ‘The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered’ by Terence Zuber in 1999 is relevant since this is the initial claim that came up by Zuber, which states that a Schlieffen plan did not exist. In this article, Zuber asserts that German General Schlieffen and Maltke only had planned to defeat French military and invade the territory of France as a means of counter-attack on the defensive if France first attacks on the Western front. Furthermore, this article shows that a Schlieffen plan did not exist from the first point. The claim of Zuber was the starting point of this debate whether a Schlieffen plan existed or not for approximately ten years. With the publication of this first article written by Zuber, there were many rebuttals against his arguments regarding a Schlieffen plan including Mombauer who wrote an article in 2005 to refute the arguments of Zuber. Therefore,‘The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered” is considered relevant for this debate.