Wilhelm Groener
Post-war writing by senior German officers like Hermann von Kuhl, Gerhard Tappen, Wilhelm Groener and the historians led by the former (Lieutenant-Colonel) Wolfgang Förster, managed to establish a commonly accepted narrative that Moltke the Younger failed to follow the blueprint devised by Schlieffen and condemned the belligerents to four years of attrition warfare. It was not German strategic miscalculation that denied Germany the quick, decisive conflict it "should" have been. In 1956, Gerhard Ritter published ("The Schlieffen Plan: Critique of a Myth"), which began a period of revision, when the details of the supposed Schlieffen Plan were subjected to scrutiny and contextualisation. Treating the plan as a blueprint was rejected, because this was contrary to the tradition of Prussian war planning established by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, in which military operations were considered to be inherently unpredictable. Mobilisation and deployment plans were essential but campaign plans were pointless; rather than attempting to dictate to subordinate commanders, the commander gave the intent of the operation and subordinates achieved it through (mission-type tactics).