Sure enough. Who knows if the Schlieffen Plan could ever have worked in the days before armor, but transferring troops from the West to the East to shore up the Russian front pretty well ended any chance of success.
Russia paid a steep price for its service to the West, suffering 70 years of communist rule.
It makes sense this government would restore the Romanovs now that Russia is in effect being ruled by Vladimir I.
The Schlieffen Plan had to be altered before even a shot was fired, because the manpower required was more than Germany could mobilize and train without tipping off everyone. Not long ago I read about the finding of documentation that the plan had actually had a formal existence — apparently there was a school of alleged thought that said that there never was such a plan. Imagine!
The Germans (and the Austrians) achieved battlefield supremacy through superior firepower (along with better training, better leadership, better command structure, and a coherent plan). When they were under attack by massively superior numbers, they merely staged orderly retreats, let the allies “pay for the same real estate twice” (line from the movie “Patton” I’ve often wanted to use), let the allies have undefendable ground and force them to assault easily defendable spots, let them punch themselves out, then shifted resources, and wiped the battlefield clear of them. The BEF had wrecked itself by the time the US entered the war, and until 1917, the German casualty figures never approached those of the allies.
The French actually figured out the problem after a couple of years (the British never did, and apparently keep peddling their wartime propaganda in their schools and histories of the war), and sent people from their most successful units to assist in training the US army. Thanks, France. Of course, they made up for it by selling us really lousy guns, but we shoulda/coulda used the Browning. ;’)