[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Why pivot away from Paris at all? The damn war could've been over by Fall of 2014. But by pivoting south/Southeast, they created a gap in their lines that made the Miracle of the Marne possible. The Schlieffen Plan gets excoriated by historians but to my eyes the damn thing worked. The Germans were within a days march of Paris and it had been largely evacuated - take Paris and the War is effectively over (because John French would've gotten the English the hell out of dodge quickly; he wanted no part of a land war on continental Europe). Instead they get sidetracked by a battle they could've easily circled back to clean up and opened up a flank for Joffre to exploit. Suddenly you have the race to the sea, the Schlieffen plan is scrapped and millions of people die for no real reason. Just so very stupid.

I've never had the impression that the Germans should have won WWII; only that they maybe could have. Had Stalingrad not gone sideways on them, I guess it's possible. WWI, OTOH, they should've won 3 or 4 times over. They had every conceivable advantage and just shot themselves in the foot several times.

Jesus I'd hope so