von Moltke Removed from Command Before the Battle of the Marne

[Jim Smitty]

The tin says it all. As the bodies in the early weeks of the war started to be stacked like coodwood von Moltke was losing it. Lets say von Moltke snaps on August 31 and he is replaced by von Falkenhayn on Sep 1. Would this allow Germany to in the Battle of the Marne and defeat the French and British and take Paris? Instead of allowing the gap between 1st and 2nd German Armies no Gap forms and the British break their backs on German machine guns?

 

[Mikestone8]

Sep 1 is too late. The crucial point is not the Marne but the Frontiers.

If whoever replaces Moltke allows Kluck to move further west, then by the time of Mons he is well placed to take the BEF in flank, and drive it back across V Armee's line of retreat. If both are destroyed, there may never be a Battle of the Marne as we know it, as the remaining French armies would have the unenviable choice of staying were they are and risking encirclement, or else abandoning the fortified positions along France's eastern border and falling back westward, which allows the opposing German armies to pursue and exposes them to a double envelopment. Not good either way.

By the time of the FBotM, the best Germany can do is hold more ground than OTL and get a Western Front much deeper inside France, but still not including Paris. This change could lead to a CP victory in the long term, but not an instant one.