field army concentrated behind the Gete river, with two divisions further forward at Liège and Namur. Schlieffen–Moltke Plan Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of the Imperial German General Staff (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL) from devised plans for a decisive battle against the French army in Germany, Belgium or France. was a contingency plan for a Franco-German war, in which France (due to fewer numbers) would be on the defensive and Germany would attack by invading Belgium between Antwerp and Namur to advance south and breach the Verdun–Marne–Paris defensive area. The German armies would then pause until railways could be repaired and supplies accumulated for a second offensive operation. Helmuth von Moltke the Younger succeeded Schlieffen in 1906 and became convinced that an isolated Franco-German war was impossible and that Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces would not be available to defend the Franco-German border as had been planned. was abolished but in 1914 Moltke tried to apply the offensive strategy of to the deployment plan for a two-front war, The main German force tried to follow to envelop the French armies on the left (north) and press them back over the Meuse, Aisne, Somme, Oise, Marne and Seine rivers, unable to withdraw into central France. Moltke hoped that the French would either be annihilated or the manoeuvre from the north would create conditions for victory in the centre or in Lorraine, on the common border. Plan XVII Under Plan XVII, the French peacetime army was to form five field armies of with groups of Reserve divisions attached to each army and with a group of reserve divisions on the southern and northern flanks. The armies were to concentrate opposite the German frontier around Épinal, Nancy and Verdun–Mezières, with an army in reserve around Ste Menehould and Commercy. Since 1871, railway building had given the French General Staff sixteen lines to the German frontier against thirteen available to the German army; the French could wait until German intentions were clear. The French deployment was intended to be ready for a German offensive in Lorraine or through Belgium. It was anticipated that the Germans would use reserve troops but also that a large German army would be mobilised on the border with Russia, leaving the western army with sufficient troops only to advance through Belgium south of the Meuse and the Sambre rivers. French intelligence had obtained a map exercise of the German general staff of