Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke с.1870 (Photo by Hulton Archive)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Helmuth von Moltke. Steel Engraving, Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America by Evert A. Duyckinck, Published by Henry J. Johnson, Johnson, Wilson & Company, New York, 1873. (Photo by Glasshouse Vintage/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Helmuth von Moltke (Photo by Photo12/Universal Images Group)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Portrait of Von Moltke
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
A depiction of the talks hours after the French Army of Chalons had surrendered at Sedan with members of the French delegation pictured on the left, Supreme Commander Emmanuel Félix de Wimpffen (just standing up), General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot, and other officers together with the delegation from the Prussian Coalition, Supreme Commander Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (standing at the table), Otto von Bismarck (sitting to Moltke's left), General Field Marshall Leonhard Graf von Blumenthal, General Field Marshall Alexander August Wilhelm von Pape, commanders of the 3rd-and the Maas-Army, and other officers following the fall of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War on 2 September 1870 at Donchery, France. (Photo by Hulton Archive)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
The engraving of Helmuth Graf von Moltke (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, portrait by Franz Lenbach.
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Photographic portrait of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. Dated 19th Century. (Photo by Photo 12/Universal Images Group)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Photograph of Emperor Wilhelm II King of Prussia and German Emperor, and his Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Gallery of Helmuth von Moltke
Portrait of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, 1870s. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group)
Helmuth von Moltke. Steel Engraving, Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America by Evert A. Duyckinck, Published by Henry J. Johnson, Johnson, Wilson & Company, New York, 1873. (Photo by Glasshouse Vintage/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
A depiction of the talks hours after the French Army of Chalons had surrendered at Sedan with members of the French delegation pictured on the left, Supreme Commander Emmanuel Félix de Wimpffen (just standing up), General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot, and other officers together with the delegation from the Prussian Coalition, Supreme Commander Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (standing at the table), Otto von Bismarck (sitting to Moltke's left), General Field Marshall Leonhard Graf von Blumenthal, General Field Marshall Alexander August Wilhelm von Pape, commanders of the 3rd-and the Maas-Army, and other officers following the fall of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War on 2 September 1870 at Donchery, France. (Photo by Hulton Archive)
Photograph of Emperor Wilhelm II King of Prussia and German Emperor, and his Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Moltke, His Life And Character: Sketched In Journals, Letters, Memoirs, A Novel And Autobiographical Notes
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Helmuth von Moltke the Elder was a Prussian field marshal who served as the Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army for 30 years. He is best known for devising modern ways of directing the armies on the field.
Background
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder was born Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, on October 26, 1800, in Parchim, Holy Roman Empire, into a well-known Prussian aristocratic family. His father was Friedrich Philipp Victor, an ace German Generalleutnant.
He, along with his family, moved to Holstein at the age of 5. Around the same time, the 'War of the Fourth Coalition' broke out, and both his country house and town house were attacked by the French. As a result of this, the family became impoverished.
Education
Helmuth von Moltke was inspired by his father from early childhood and dreamed about joining the military like his father. He received his early education from the Copenhagen Royal Cadet Corps (1811-1817). For the next several years, he carried on with his education, and kept his focus on joining the Danish army and court. When he turned 18, he became a page to the King of Denmark and later, joined the Danish infantry regiment as a second lieutenant.
He had a great future ahead in the Danish Army but he became interested in joining the Prussian Army when he was about 21 years old. This also meant that he would lose the seniority that he had gained in the Danish Army, but he still went ahead with the decision.
In 1822, he became a second lieutenant in the 8th infantry regiment of the Prussian army. He also attended the general war school, which was later renamed the 'Prussian Military Academy.' He studied there for three years and graduated in 1826.
Career
Moltke worked in the general staff's topographical office from 1828 to 1831. He wrote technical studies, histories, translations, and fiction in attempts to advance his career, which in 1829 he diagnosed as suffering from his own weakness of character. In 1833 he became a first lieutenant in the general staff and in 1835 a captain. In September 1835 Moltke became an adviser to the Turkish army. While staying in Constantinople, he was asked by Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II to help his army get better. The Ottoman army was known for its valour but they lacked in adapting modern techniques of warfare which had become a huge concern. For the next two years, he worked with the Ottoman army, which eventually showed in their war with Egypt. Helmuth also fought in the war alongside the Ottomans. Despite their valor, the Ottoman army lost to Egypt and Helmuth escaped to save his life.
After his 1840 reentry into Prussian service, the 1841 publication of his Turkish Letters established him as an author of some popularity. Moltke served on the Coblenz staff and the transport section and general staff at Berlin, then briefly headed the Magdeburg staff. Royal unwillingness to use the Prussian army during the Revolution of 1848 briefly caused Moltke to consider migrating to Australia as a farmer. However, service as adjutant to Prince Henry in Rome, and later to Crown Prince Frederick William, gave Moltke diplomatic experience, more rapid promotion, the material for more "travel books," and the soubriquet of "the man who knows how to be silent in seven languages."
On October 29, 1857, Maj. Gen. Moltke became Chief of Staff. He changed little in staff organization but emphasized modern technology in all sections. General strategy and a two-front war plan produced in 1860 occupied much of Moltke's personal attention. The Austro-Prussian attack on the Danes over Schleswig-Holstein in 1864 was so mismanaged by Baron F. H. E. von Wrangel's Chief of Staff, Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein, that the latter was superseded by Moltke, who soon brought the Danes to terms. This promotion to a field post was then accounted the climax of Moltke's career, as well as a triumph of "staff" over "regulars."
In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 King William I and Minister-President Otto von Bismarck entrusted the deployment of forces to Moltke, who telegraphed laconic "general directives" from Berlin for the rapid convergence of 85 percent of the Prussian army against Austrian and Saxon forces in Bohemia. In the July 3 battle of Sadowa (Königgrätz) King William relied entirely on Moltke's judgment through a closely contested, but finally decisive, engagement. The Austrian infantry was routed and demoralized, and the Hapsburgs hastened to agree to Bismarck's terms. This blitzkrieg campaign made Moltke famous.
In the 1870-1871 war against France, Moltke detrained the 2d Army on the Rhine, expecting to win a defensive battle there before marching on Paris. The conversion of this deployment into a German invasion of France was a measure of Prussian staff capacity, Moltke's confidence and adaptability, and French strategic passivity. The German army units cohered in a general advance, while the French units collapsed into pockets of local resistance. The surrender of Napoleon III at Sedan (September 2, 1870) and Marshal Achille Bazaine at Metz (October 28) opened the way to a siege of Paris. Moltke attended the proclamation of the German "Reich" (January 18, 1871), followed by the January 28 armistice and May 10 Treaty of Frankfurt. In June 1871 "der Grosse Schweiger," or "the Great Silent One," as Moltke was called, was promoted to field marshal.
As Chief of Staff, Moltke consistently discounted the chances of complete success in a two-front war. A defensive victory on the Rhine or Vistula, followed by an offensive and a negotiated peace, was the essence of his strategy for conflict against France and Russia. Moltke's view that "perpetual peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful one" must be set against his opinion that "a war, even the most victorious, is a national misfortune" to begin to grasp the breadth of his military thinking. After his retirement in 1888, he took an increasingly critical view of Kaiser William II. Moltke continued to be politically active, however, until his death in Berlin on April 24, 1891.
Helmuth von Moltke served in the Diet of the North German Confederation from 1867 to 1871, and from 1871 to 1891 he was a member of the Reichstag (federal parliament).
Views
Moltke was among the first senior officers to appreciate the important role that railways could play in the deployment, movement, and supply of armies on a great scale. Hitherto, the movement of troops had been restricted by the paucity and seasonal unreliability of road communications. The aim of every great field commander had been to bring the strongest possible force in the best possible condition onto a small battlefield where he could control the entire army. Moltke saw that the advent of railways had changed this. Many more men and much more equipment could now be deployed much faster on vastly wider fronts. In place of battlefields of a few square miles, there would be long battlefronts of perhaps hundreds of miles. The limited flank attack by a few battalions would give place to wide turning movements by many divisions. Supplied by railways, troops would be able to keep the field in all weather throughout the year.
At the same time, Moltke appreciated that new command techniques and a much more highly trained body of staff officers would be required to realize his new conception of warfare. The mounted staff officer with his necessarily confined outlook would give way to one with a much wider view, capable of compiling intricate railway-movement tables for vast numbers of men, animals, and equipment and of arranging for daily trainloads of supplies. Moltke saw, too, that changes were necessary in another direction. Whereas, previously, commanders had kept a very tight hold on their subordinates and had been able always to give short and explicit orders, it was clear to Moltke that this system would not work in an army of perhaps millions locked in battle along a front that might extend for hundreds of miles. He therefore instituted the system of "general directives" in place of rigid "operation orders." In these directives the recipient was given a long-term task in general terms but was allowed considerable latitude and was expected to use his discretion and initiative in carrying it out.
Quotations:
"No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force."
"The surest way of achieving your goal is through the single-minded pursuit of simple actions."
"Strategy is a system of makeshifts. Is is more than a science. It is bringing knowledge to bear on practical life, the further elaboration of an original guiding idea under constantly changing circumstances. It is the art of acting under the pressure of the most demanding conditions...That is why general principles, rules derived from them, and systems based on these rules cannot possibly have any value for strategy."
"In the last analysis, luck comes only to the well prepared."
"Eternal peace is a dream - and not even a beautiful one."
"The Jews form a state, and, obeying their own laws, they evade those of their host country. the Jews always considered an oath regarding a Christian not binding. During the Campaign of 1812 the Jews were spies, they were paid by both sides, they betrayed both sides. It is seldom that the police investigate a robbery in which a Jew is not found either to be an accomplice or a receiver."
"Strategy is a system of expedients."
Personality
The lank, bewigged, half-Danish Moltke has been called a "general on wheels" as distinct from his military predecessors on horseback. This expression grasps only the particular form - railway deployment - most salient in Moltke's emphasis on modern technology as part of the totality of a military enterprise. It was the breadth and versatility of his mind that gave dimension to Moltke's personal motto: "First weigh, then wage." Moltke thus considered every strategic problem "simply common sense," but his method of analysis was so demanding that Paul von Hindenburg accounted Moltke "unlike all the other German generals." If the German general staff proved unable to inherit Moltke's strategic system, the German army for a time was inspirited by his motto for its officers: "Be more than you seem."
His acute intelligence was obvious to all who met him, but, though he was a considerable linguist, he was habitually so taciturn that he was described as being "silent in seven languages" (he knew at least German, Danish, French, English, Italian, and Turkish, besides any Slavic or Iberian languages that he might have picked up).
No indiscreet or unkind word is recorded as having passed his lips, and to his military colleagues he became "the Golden Man," without enemies or detractors.
There were many things that stood him apart from other military generals, especially his love for poetry and music. He pursued them as escapades from the tough military training. He also had a good command over language and used to write as well.
Physical Characteristics:
A tall, spare figure, Moltke had a tanned face that usually wore an expression of grave austerity.
Quotes from others about the person
Patrick Feaster: "Helmuth von Moltke was born in 1800, technically the last year of the 18th century. [...] There's a wonderful irony here: Moltke's nickname was 'der große Schweiger' (the great silent one), because he had a reputation for speaking very little; and yet, of all the hundreds of millions of people born in the 18th century, his is the only voice we can hear today."
Interests
poetry, music, languages
Connections
Moltke’s married life to an English wife, Marie Burt, was affectionate and happy but childless. Marie was his sister’s step-daughter.
German Strategy and the Path to Verdun
The term "Battle of Verdun" has become synonymous with senseless slaughter. This book offers a new perspective on one of the twentieth century's bloodiest battles by examining the development of German military ideas from the end of the Franco-German War in 1871 to the First World War. Its use of recently released German sources held in the Soviet Union since the Second World War sheds new light on German ideas about attrition before and during the First World War.
2005
Road to Königgrätz: Helmuth von Moltke and the Austro-Prussian War 1866
This book by Quintin Barry follows Moltke's part in the course of the campaign at the end of which his name had become a household word. It traces his rise to the position of Chief of the General Staff, against the background of the political situation of Prussia in the middle of the 19th Century, and the way in which he developed the functions of the General Staff. Moltke's contribution to the allied campaign of Prussia and Austria against Denmark in 1864 was an important part of his own development, before the inevitable war between the successful allies in 1866.
2010
Blood and Iron: From Bismarck to Hitler the von Moltke Family’s Impact on German History
The von Moltke family played a critical role in every major crisis of more than a century of turbulent German history, starting with the Franco-Prussian War and then World Wars I & II. By viewing the country through the von Moltkes, Otto Friedrich created an historical perspective that is fresh and vital to understanding modern Germany. The book begins in the Franco-Prussian War when Field Marshal von Moltke defeats the Austrians, besieges and conquers Paris in 1871, and proceeds to make the German Empire the dominant power in Europe. The story continues with the Field Marshal’s nephew, Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von Moltke, Chief of Staff of the German armies in 1914. This von Moltke, with his armies on the Marne only twenty miles from Paris, suffers a nervous breakdown and is removed from command. The story then arcs to World War II, with the great, great nephew of the Field Marshall, Count Helmuth James von Moltke, a leader of the underground resistance to Hitler, who is arrested by the Gestapo and executed for treason in the last months of the war.
November 29, 1839; with Oak Leaves, February 17, 1871; Grand Cross, March 8, 1879; with Crown and in Diamonds, November 29, 1889 (military); May 24, 1874 (civil)
November 29, 1839; with Oak Leaves, February 17, 1871; Grand Cross, March 8, 1879; with Crown and in Diamonds, November 29, 1889 (military); May 24, 1874 (civil)