Editing Schlieffen Plan (section)

====Deployment plans, 1871–1872 to 1890–1891====
[[File:Conrad Freyberg Moltke.jpg|thumb|{{center|Portrait of {{lang|de|Generalfeldmarschall}} Helmuth Graf von Moltke by Conrad Freyberg (1877)}}]]
Assuming French hostility and a desire to recover [[Alsace–Lorraine]], Moltke the Elder drew up a deployment plan for 1871–1872, expecting that another rapid victory could be achieved but the French introduced [[Conscription in France|conscription]] in 1872. By 1873, Moltke thought that the French army was too powerful to be defeated quickly and in 1875, Moltke considered a [[preventive war]] but did not expect an easy victory. The course of the second period of the Franco-Prussian War and the example of the Wars of Unification had prompted [[Austria-Hungary]] to begin conscription in 1868 and [[Russian Empire|Russia]] in 1874. Moltke assumed that in another war, Germany would have to fight a coalition of France and Austria or France and Russia. Even if one opponent was quickly defeated, the victory could not be exploited before the Germans would have to redeploy their armies against the second enemy. By 1877, Moltke was writing war plans with provision for an incomplete victory, in which diplomats negotiated a peace, even if it meant a return to the {{lang|la|[[Status quo ante bellum]]}} and in 1879, the deployment plan reflected pessimism over the possibility of a [[Franco-Russian alliance]] and progress made by the French fortification programme.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=20–22}}

Despite international developments and his doubts about {{lang|de|Vernichtungsstrategie}}, Moltke retained the traditional commitment to {{lang|de|Bewegungskrieg}} (war of manoeuvre) and an army trained to fight ever-bigger battles. A decisive victory might no longer be possible but success would make a diplomatic settlement easier. Growth in the size and power of rival European armies increased the pessimism with which Moltke contemplated another war and on 14 May 1890 he gave a speech to the ''[[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]]'', saying that the age of {{lang|de|Volkskrieg}} had returned. According to Ritter (1969) the contingency plans from 1872 to 1890 were his attempts to resolve the problems caused by international developments, by adopting a strategy of the defensive, after an opening tactical offensive, to weaken the opponent, a change from {{lang|de|Vernichtungsstrategie}} to {{lang|de|Ermattungsstrategie}}. Foerster (1987) wrote that Moltke wanted to deter war altogether and that his calls for a preventive war diminished, peace would be preserved by the maintenance of a powerful German army instead. In 2005, Foley wrote that Foerster had exaggerated and that Moltke still believed that success in war was possible, even if incomplete and that it would make peace easier to negotiate. The possibility that a defeated enemy would ''not'' negotiate, was something that Moltke did not address.{{sfn|Foley|2007|pp=22–24}}