Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "How Prussia Ended The French Empire: Franco-Prussian War | Animated History" video.

  1. "every political factor and military engagement came to an advantage for one side" France had better rifles and the battle of Gravelotte st.Private was fought against French numerical superiority. Strategically could France have just massed troops along the short Franco-German border and made it hard for German troops to win the war, as they would have been forced to fight a strong enemy with well prepared defensive positions. Prussia did however have better tactics, better logistics, better overall prepardness for war - and of course von Moltke's genius. "Sadly for the german history his sucessors Schlieffen and his nephew Moltke the younger did not want to realize this" Schlieffens plan was a master work. Had not Austria failed so badly at the eastern front and forced Germany to move troops to the east to stop a Russian invasion - then would France have fallen and the war would have been over in 1914 with German easy win in the west. And there after would Russia have fallen in the east, and probably also before 1917. The Schlieffen plan had to be improved in ways its father never originally intended, and it is surprising how well the plan did work despite its many changes. The schlieffen plan was created when the French army was much weaker. But then a few years before WW1 did France introduce 6 years conscription for all males and it grew its army. This changed the power-balance so much that Germany had to put hundreds of thousands more men into the fight in France in order to win this fast victory in the west. But such a growth in size of the German invasion army did create new problems this plan was not really suited for. You could only walk so many men over a bridge at once, over otherwise it will collapse. A thin road will create ques and road blocs if you try to march too many men, horses and guns over it all at once... So growing an army and maintaining the speed for a fast invasion of France was two things which did go against each other. Russia would also begin to mobilize its army faster than this plan anticipated - which meant that a German victory over France must happen even faster than planned, before Russia could field a large enough army to become a deadly threat to Germany. All those factors made it seem nearly impossible for Germany to win in 1914. But Germany nearly won the war in 1914 despite all those problems - and that says a lot about the high quality this plan originally had. Had this plans originals been badly made to begin with, I think it would have been very unlikely that a fast invasion of France and Belgium would have been possible. Paris would never be under threat, since French forces would have gotten more time to plan their counter-moves to stop the German offensives. Troops could get the time to dig in and put up barbed wire on every kilometer before the Germans came. But that did not happen. Because Germany kept all the initiative in their hands on the west front battlefield in 1914.
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