The Battle of the Frontiers (; ; ) was a series of battles fought along the eastern frontier of France and in southern Belgium, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. The battles resolved the military strategies of the French Chief of Staff General Joseph Joffre with Plan XVII and an offensive interpretation of the German deployment plan by Helmuth von Moltke the Younger: the German concentration on the right (northern) flank, to wheel through Belgium and attack the French in the rear.