Central to the Schlieffen myth is the allegation that Schlieffen was replaced at the wrong time and by the wrong person. His supporters frequently maintain that Schlieffen should have remained in office, and that Moltke's appointment was a grave mistake that ultimately lost Germany the war. Any investigation into Moltke's succession of Schlieffen must therefore begin by asking why Schlieffen was replaced in 1906, and must compare his role as Chief of the General Staff with that of his successor.

Concerns about the possibility of war in the winter of 1904/1905 were one of the reasons for the decision to replace Count Alfred von Schlieffen, who had been Chief of the General Staff since 1891, although there had been talk about replacing him since 1903. Both Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow feared that the 72-year-old general would be too old to lead the troops effectively should war break out. As a result of the Moroccan Crisis, war with France seemed likely by the end of 1905. After Delcassé's dismissal, the French were rearming with vigour. Although Schlieffen's supporters were later to deny this, after initial reluctance Schlieffen himself actually seems to have agreed that it was time for him to leave. However, replacing such a long-serving Chief of Staff would not be easy.

Wilhelm von Hahnke, Schlieffen's son-in-law and one of his most ardent supporters, advanced a different version of events after the war, blaming envious and ambitious men around Schlieffen for plotting against him. Part of the deliberate construction of the Schlieffen myth was to maintain that Schlieffen had been ousted from office, and that he could have continued to be an effective Chief of the General Staff if he had stayed on. Hahnke maintained that Schlieffen had been pushed out of office by disgruntled colleagues, such as Dietrich von Hülsen-Haeseler, the Kaiser's Chief of the Military Cabinet, who allegedly could not forget a sarcastic manoeuvre critique of Schlieffen's in 1900.