Ruth Henig lays out the German Schleiffen Plan as a preemptive all out attack on France through neutral Belgium in the hopes of taking the French by surprise.1 Once the French were conquered the Germans would then turn to the eastern front with Russia and deal with Russia's response to defend their ally France.2 Henig points out one of Germany's major flaw in carrying out the Schleiffen Plan is not taking the possibility of Britain's willingness to get involved. The Schleiffen Plan required for Germany to invade neutral Belgium, whose neutrality had been guaranteed by all European great powers since 1839.3 Germany understood they would be attacking and invading a neutral nation and hoped that Britain would restrain from getting involved based
