The original German plan was broad and simple. The main striking force was to march through Belgium and Luxembourg into France. Its advance was to be a wheel pivoting on Thionville. Count von Schlieffen, who had vacated the appointment of Chief of the General Staff in 1906, had prepared this plan. He maintained that if the advance of a strong right wing, marching on Paris through Belgium, were firmly persisted in, it would draw the bulk of the French forces away from their eastern fortress positions to the neighbourhood of Paris, and that there the decisive battle would be fought. His successor, von Moltke, believed that the French, on the outbreak of war, would at once deliver a strong offensive in Lorraine and so would themselves come into the open, away from the bastion of the eastern fortresses. He must be prepared, he thought, to fight the decisive battle either on his left wing in Lorraine, or on his right wing near Paris, or, in short, at any point that the initial operations of the French should determine. This was not the conception of Count von Schlieffen, who had intended to impose his will on the campaign and to make the enemy conform to his movements. When he was on his death-bed in 1913, his thoughts were fixed on the war. 'It must come to a fight,' were the last words he was heard to mutter, 'only give me a strong right wing.' Von Moltke, though he did not absolutely weaken the right wing, weakened it relatively, by using most of the newly formed divisions of the German army for strengthening the left wing. The French, when the war came, delivered their offensive in Alsace and Lorraine as had been expected, but not in the strength that had been expected. They were held up, and retired, not without loss, to strong defensive positions covering Epinal and Nancy. Meantime, the advance of the German armies through Belgium was met by a French offensive in the Ardennes, which also failed, whereupon General Joffre ordered a retreat on the whole front, and began to move some of his forces westward, to prepare for the battle in front of Paris. The successes won by the German left wing and centre against a yielding and retreating enemy were mistaken by the German high command for decisive actions, which they were not. The French armies which had been driven back on the Lorraine front rapidly recovered, and on the 25th of August delivered a brilliant counter-offensive, inflicting heavy losses on the Germans, and in effect upsetting all the German plans. The indecision which marked the movements of the German right wing through northern France had its origin in von Moltke's modifications of von Schlieffen's plans and in the readiness of the Germans to believe that the war was virtually won.[4] [Footnote 4: This brief summary is based on two admirable articles in _The Army Quarterly_ for April and July 1921, compiled by the Historical Section (Military Branch) of the Committee of Imperial Defence.]