User talk:JDefauw/Bibliography of Schlieffen plan

von Schlieffen Bibliog

Thanks for creating the bibliography concerning the traditionalist/revisionist controversy over the Plan. Looks very useful. I don't have good acess to the books, but I may be able to access some of the articles via JSTOR. My "day job" means my efforts will be very sporadic, though. --Pechmerle (talk) 04:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One of the advantages of working for Wikipedia is that there are no deadlines. At some point in the future, this article will be a little more up to date.JDefauw (talk) 01:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)JDefauw[reply]

Zuber's views debated on a military blog thread

I just came across a fascinating debate between Zuber and various military-background commenters here: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?s=6bee79ed61bc5eaed90ef9455cccf55a&showtopic=9240&st=100 Took place in 2011.

It's not citable stuff, but it is very enlightening for the true shape of the arguments on each side. It also tells me that if I truly want to understand this topic, I'm going to have to (somehow) find time to read some of Zuber's scholarly works. I'm sure that doing that would enable one, at the least, to give a very cogent summary of the position that the traditionalist view of the von Schlieffen plan goes far astray -- and is unsupported by both the primary documents and the course of events in northern France in August 1914. --Pechmerle (talk) 05:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On Monday night, I read the first two pages of that discussion. I was going to continue reading yesterday, and then I became distracted with creating the bibliography. I did not know that Terence Zuber himself was going to enter the discussion on pages 4 and 5. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. As you may already know, in those first two pages of the discussion one person said that Inventing the Schlieffen plan is expensive, very long, and unreadable, and you will be able to read the same basic material by reading the debate with Holmes instead.

Having read about the current debate on the internet, it appears that while Zuber's belief that "the Schlieffen plan" was invented by the German General Staff after the war has been widely criticized, he made a valuable contribution to the debate and made it impossible to simply maintain the traditional view of Ritter and other historians of 20th century without revision. Zuber said that both Schlieffen and Moltke were too intelligent to draw up a rigid, detailed plan for a potential war. Similarly, Holmes and Foley both recognize that the 1905 Denkschrift was a position paper, not a detailed plan for an invasion. So apparently one can take a position which is neither the traditional view nor the position of Zuber.

When I get a chance, I'll call the local library and see if it has access to these articles. It sounds like they will be interesting to read.JDefauw (talk) 02:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC)JDefauw[reply]

Inventing the Schlieffen Plan is expensive. It lists at $150 -- still in print -- at Oxford University Press. It's not that long for a work of professional history -- 288 pp. Having now read a great many of Zuber's comments in the blog thread we're talking about, I doubt that the book is unreadable. He seems to me to write pretty clearly. But given the cost, one would have to get the book from a library. Per its online catalog, my (major) city public library does not have it. Some of Zuber's more recent works include copies with translation of actual German general staff planning documents from 1870-1914. Following those through time would no doubt give a better understanding. Zuber's strongest contribution seems to be to have found a trove of original documents at Freiburg, that add greatly to what was available after the secrecy of the German government in 1919-45, and then the destruction through bombardment of important archives in 1945. He has stimulated others to dig deeper than before for primary documents too.

I got into the blog thread only after Zuber showed up in it, because that's how I found my way to it. I now see that there is a link in the first pages of the blog thread to Ritter's book, which is available in its entirety online. I've downloaded a copy. That gives me two things I didn't have: a translated copy of the actual von Schlieffen essay of 1905, and Ritter's thoughts from the mid-50's. I couldn't resist going right to the urtext, the von Schlieffen essay itself. I'm still digesting what I think having just read this famous document.

Also noteworthy is that in 1905, Russia was (temporarily) seen as less of threat -- despite the Franco-Russian treaty of 1894 -- because of the surprising, stinging defeat that Russia had just been handed by the upstart Japanese empire.

--Pechmerle (talk) 06:02, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I really appreciate it that you're working on this. Last month, when I decided to dismantle the section in the article that was not encyclopedic and integrate it into the article, I had no idea that I was rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic (although I think that the dismantling of that section still needed to be done). I definitely did not want to just leave the article in its present state. I think that revising this article is a very worthwhile project, and I'm glad at least one other person is helping with this.

One important point that I learned during the last week is that Ritter's account of Schlieffen's war planning contrasts not only with Zuber's account. It also contrasts with the account of Zuber's most tenacious opponent, Terence Holmes. Holmes and Zuber agree that there was no 39 and 42 day timetable in the original plan. It's annoying to have statements in the article speaking of that timetable without calling it into question.JDefauw (talk) 04:10, 2 September 2012 (UTC)JDefauw[reply]