MILITARY

"The high state of discipline, training, leadership, and armament of the German Army reduced the significance of the initial numerical inferiority of the armies of the Central Powers. Due to the comparative slowness of mobilization, poor leadership, and lower scale of armament of the Russian Armies, there was an approximate balance of forces in August 1914 which prevented one side from gaining a quick victory." ERM. "World Wars", Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol 23, page 692.

1. Pre War Planning:

a. The Schlieffen Plan: "The basic problem which the plan had to meet was that a two front war, in which Germanym and Austria-Hungary faced Russia on the east and France on the west _ a combination whose forces wre numerically superior although separated from one another." ERM. "World Wars", Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol 23, page 693.

b. Plan Seventeen: "The Notorious Plan 17, which the French adopted in May 1913, was fatally flawed due to a serious miscalculation of German strength and intentions." Davis. "World War 1", Strategy & Tactics. # 51, page 12.

c. The Russian Steamroller. "The French, ... urged the Russians to deliver a simultaneous attack against Germany ... an extra offensive for which they were neither ready in numbers nor organized. ... Russia, whose proverbial slowness and crude organization dictated a cautious strategy, was about to break with tradition and launch out on a gamble that only an army of high mobility and organization could have hoped to bring off. ERM. "World Wars", Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol 23, page 696.