Editing Schlieffen Plan (section)

===={{lang|de|Volkskrieg}}====

[[File:Francs-tireurs.jpg|thumb|{{centre|Francs-tireurs in the [[Vosges]] during the Franco-Prussian War.}}]]
The Germans had defeated the forces of the Second Empire by superior numbers and then found the tables turned; only their superior training and organisation had enabled them to capture Paris and dictate peace terms.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=14–16}} Attacks by {{lang|fr|francs-tireurs}} forced the diversion of {{nowrap|110,000 men}} to guard railways and bridges, which put great strain on Prussian manpower. Moltke wrote later,

{{quote|The days are gone by when, for dynastical ends, small armies of professional soldiers went to war to conquer a city, or a province, and then sought winter quarters or made peace. The wars of the present day call whole nations to arms.... The entire financial resources of the State are appropriated to military purposes....|Moltke the Elder{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=16–18}}}}

He had already written, in 1867, that [[French nationalism|French patriotism]] would lead them to make a supreme effort and use all their national resources. The quick victories of 1870 led Moltke to hope that he had been mistaken but by December, he planned an {{lang|de|Exterminationskrieg}} against the French population by taking the war into the south, once the size of the [[Prussian Army]] had been increased by another {{nowrap|100 battalions}} of reservists. Moltke intended to destroy or capture the remaining resources which the French possessed, against the protests of the German civilian authorities, who after the fall of Paris, negotiated a quick end to the war.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=18–20}}

[[File:Colmar von der Goltz.JPG|thumb|upright|{{centre|Colmar von der Goltz}}]]
[[Colmar von der Goltz]] (1843–1916) and other military thinkers, like Fritz Hoenig in {{lang|de|Der Volkskrieg an der Loire im Herbst 1870}} (The People's War in the Loire Valley in Autumn 1870, 1893–1899) and Georg von Widdern in {{lang|de|Der Kleine Krieg und der Etappendienst}} ([[Petty warfare|Petty Warfare]] and the Supply Service, 1892–1907), called the short-war belief of mainstream writers like [[Friedrich von Bernhardi]] {{nowrap|(1849–1930)}} and [[Hugo von Freytag-Loringhoven]] {{nowrap|(1855–1924)}} an illusion. They saw the longer war against the improvised armies of the French republic, the ''indecisive'' battles of the winter of 1870–1871 and the {{lang|de|Kleinkrieg}} against {{lang|fr|francs-tireurs}} on the lines of communication, as better examples of the nature of modern war. Hoenig and Widdern conflated the old sense of {{lang|de|Volkskrieg}} as a [[Partisan (military)|partisan war]], with a newer sense of ''a war between industrialised states, fought by nations-in-arms'' and tended to explain French success by reference to German failings, implying that fundamental reforms were unnecessary.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=16–18, 30–34}}

In {{lang|de|[[Léon Gambetta]] und die [[Armée de la Loire|Loirearmee]]}} (Leon Gambetta and the Army of the Loire, 1874) and {{lang|de|Leon Gambetta und seine Armeen}} (Leon Gambetta and his Armies, 1877), Goltz wrote that Germany must adopt ideas used by Léon Gambetta, by improving the training of Reserve and {{lang|de|[[Landwehr]]}} officers, to increase the effectiveness of the {{lang|de|Etappendienst}} (supply service troops). Goltz advocated the [[conscription]] of every able-bodied man and a reduction of the period of service to two years (a proposal that got him sacked from the Great General Staff but was then introduced in 1893) in a nation-in-arms. The mass army would be able to compete with armies raised on the model of the improvised French armies and be controlled from above, to avoid the emergence of a radical and democratic people's army. Goltz maintained the theme in other publications up to 1914, notably in {{lang|de|Das Volk in Waffen}} (The People in Arms, 1883) and used his position as a corps commander from 1902 to 1907 to implement his ideas, particularly in improving the training of Reserve officers and creating a unified youth organisation, the {{lang|de|Jungdeutschlandbund}} (Young Germany League) to prepare teenagers for military service.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=25–30}}