Candace ’s Reviews > The Guns of August > Status Update

I enjoyed reading about what led up to the war much more than reading about the battles.

Whereas the German plan was very rigid, the French leaned more toward adaptability and improvisation. Plan 17 also differed in that the French did not believe reserve troops could be effective in active duty. They ignored intelligence that the Germans were using reserves as active troops.

I’m very unfamiliar with these details of pre-WW1 so this is slow reading for me!
This chapter describes in detail the Schlieffen Plan which was Germany’s plan to envelop France by way of invading neutral Belgium. The plan of conquering France was to be completed in 39 days in order to beat the six weeks Russia would need to mobilize.
Germany did not quite make their 39 day timeframe- this I do know!!

Tuchman quotes Clifton Fadiman (book critic) in her preface: “…this book fixes the moments that have led inexorably to our own time….It is [Tuchman’s] conviction that the deadlock of the terrible month of August [1914] determined the future course of the war and the terms of the peace, the shape of the inter-war period and the conditions of the Second Round.” xvii.