Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Early life

Moltke was born in Parchim, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, son of Generalleutnant Friedrich Philipp Victor von Moltke (1768–1845), a German in Danish service. In 1805, his father settled in Holstein (then a possession of the King of Denmark). But the next year he was left impoverished when during the War of the Fourth Coalition of 1806–1807 French troops burned his country house and plundered his townhouse in Lübeck, where his wife and children were. At nine the younger Moltke was sent as a boarder to Hohenfelde in Holstein, and at age twelve went to the Royal Danish Military Academy at Copenhagen, being destined for the Danish army and court. In 1818 he became a page to King Frederick VI of Denmark and a second lieutenant in the Oldenburg Infantry Regiment. At twenty-one, Moltke decided to leave Denmark and enter the Prussian army, despite the loss of seniority. In 1822 he became a second lieutenant in the 8th Infantry Regiment stationed at Frankfurt an der Oder. At twenty-three he was allowed to enter the general war school (later called the Prussian Military Academy), where he studied the full three years, graduating in 1826.

Military career

Early career

For a year Moltke had charge of a cadet school at Frankfurt an der Oder, then he was for three years employed on the military survey in Silesia and Posen. In 1832 he was seconded for service on the general staff at Berlin, to which he was transferred in 1833 on promotion to first lieutenant. He was at this time regarded as a brilliant officer by his superiors, including Prince William, then a lieutenant-general.

Moltke was well received at court and in the best society of Berlin. His tastes inclined him to literature, to historical study, and to travel. In 1827 he published a short romance, The Two Friends. In 1831 he wrote an essay entitled Holland and Belgium in their Mutual Relations, from their Separation under Philip II to their Reunion under William I. A year later he wrote An Account of the Internal Circumstances and Social Conditions of Poland, a study based both on reading and on personal observation of Polish life and character.

He was fluent in English and a talented writer in German; in 1832 he was contracted to translate Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire into German, for which he was to receive 75 marks, his object being to earn the money to buy a horse. In eighteen months he had finished nine volumes out of twelve but the publisher failed to produce the book and Moltke never received more than 25 marks.

In 1835, on his promotion to captain, Moltke obtained six months' leave to travel in southeast Europe. After a short stay in Constantinople, he was asked by the Sultan Mahmud II to help modernize the Ottoman Empire's army and with permission from Berlin he accepted the offer. He remained for two years at Constantinople, learned Turkish, and surveyed the city of Constantinople, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. He travelled through Wallachia, Bulgaria and Rumelia, making many other journeys on both sides of the Straits.

In 1838, Moltke was sent as an adviser to the Ottoman general commanding the troops in Anatolia, who was to carry on the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) against Muhammad Ali of Egypt. During the summer Moltke made extensive reconnaissances and surveys, riding several thousand miles in the course of his journey. He navigated the rapids of the Euphrates and visited and mapped many parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1839 the army moved south to fight the Egyptians but upon their approach, the general refused to listen to Moltke's advice. Moltke resigned his post of staff officer and took charge of the artillery. In the Battle of Nezib on 24 June 1839, the Ottoman Army was beaten, but Moltke's actions were well-regarded.

In Prussia

On the suggestion of Edwin von Manteuffel, the new king appointed Moltke as Chief of the Prussian General Staff on 29 October 1857. He would hold the position for the next 30 years (though after the establishment of the German Empire, the Prussian General Staff's title was changed to "Great General Staff", as it would have direction of the various German armies during war.) As soon as he gained the position he went to work making changes to the strategic and tactical methods of the Prussian army: changes in armament and means of communication; changes in the training of staff officers (such as instituting staff rides); and changes in the method for the mobilization of the army. He also instituted a formal study of European politics in connection with the plans for campaigns which might become necessary. In short, he rapidly put into place the features of a modern general staff. By 1860, his reforms were completed.

In 1859, the Austro-Sardinian War in Italy caused the mobilization of the Prussian army, though it did not fight. After the mobilization, the army was reorganized and its strength was nearly doubled. The reorganization was the work not of Moltke but of the Prince Regent, William, and the Minister of War, Albrecht von Roon. Moltke watched the Italian campaign closely and wrote a history of it in 1862. In an act that was yet another first in military affairs, this history was attributed on the title page to the historical division of the Prussian staff.

In 1860, "[Moltke] added a Railway Section to the military council. A contemporary would write that von Moltke never made an important decision without consulting the German railway timetables." Moltke had been following developments relating to the railroad ever since his return from Egypt, at which time he wrote that: “Every new railway development is a military benefit, and for national defence, it is far more profitable to spend a few million on completing our railways than on new fortresses.”

In December 1862, Moltke was asked for an opinion on the military aspect of the quarrel with Denmark. He thought the difficulty would be to bring the war to an end, as the Danish army would, if possible, retire to the islands, where, as the Danes had the command of the sea, it could not be attacked. He sketched a plan for turning the flank of the Danish army before the attack upon its position in front of Schleswig. He suggested that by this means its retreat might be cut off.

Later career

Moltke again planned and led the Prussian armies in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), which paved the way for the creation of the Prussian-led German Empire in 1871. The aspects of such a war had occupied Moltke's attention almost continuously since 1857; documents published after his death show the many times he considered such a war and the best arrangement of the Prussian or German forces for such a campaign. The arrangements for the transport of the army by railway were revised annually to suit the changes in his plans brought about by political conditions and by the growth of the army, as well as by the improvement of the Prussian system of railways.

The successes of 1866 had strengthened Moltke's position, so that when, on 5 July 1870, the order for the mobilization of the Prussian and South German forces was issued, his plans were adopted without dispute. Five days later he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Army for the duration of the war. This gave Moltke the right to issue orders which were equivalent to royal commands.

Moltke's plan was to assemble the whole army south of Mainz, this being one district in which a single army could secure the defence of the whole frontier. If the French disregarded the neutrality of Belgium and Luxembourg, and advanced towards Cologne (or any other point on the Lower Rhine), the German army would be able to strike at their flank. At the same time the Rhine itself, with the fortresses of Koblenz, Cologne and Wesel, would be a serious obstacle in their path. If the French should attempt to invade south Germany, an advance by the Germans up the Rhine river would threaten their communications. Moltke expected that the French would be compelled by the direction of their railways to collect the greater part of their army near Metz, and a smaller portion near Strasbourg.

The German forces were grouped into three armies: the First of 60,000 men under Von Steinmetz, on the Moselle below Trier; the Second of 130,000 men, under Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, around Homburg (with a reserve of 60,000 men behind them); and the Third of 130,000 men under the Crown Prince Frederick William, at Landau. Three army corps were held back in north-Eastern Germany, in case Austria-Hungary should make common cause with France. He reported this to the King on 17 April 1870.

Moltke's plan was that the three armies, while advancing, should make a right wheel, so that the First Army on the right would reach the bank of the Moselle opposite Metz, while the Second and Third Armies should push forward, the Third Army to defeat the French force near Strasbourg, and the Second to strike the Moselle near Pont-à-Mousson. If the French army should be found in front of the Second Army, it would be attacked in front by the Second Army and in flank by the First or the Third (or both). If it should be found on or north of the line from Saarburg to Lunéville, it could still be attacked from two sides by the Second and Third Armies in co-operation. The intention of the great right wheel was to attack the principal French army in such a direction as to drive it north and cut its communications with Paris. The fortress of Metz was to be only monitored, and the main German forces, after defeating the chief French army, would then march against Paris.

Later life

In October 1870, Moltke was made a Graf (count) as a reward for his services during the Franco-Prussian War and victory at the Battle of Sedan. In June 1871, he was further rewarded by a promotion to the rank of field marshal and a large monetary grant. He 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).

Under his supervision, the German General Staff wrote studies about the Second Italian War of Independence, the Second Schleswig War, the Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War. William I recognized the cultural achievements of Moltke by awarding him the civil class of the Pour le Mérite on 24 May 1874.

Moltke superintended the preparation of the official history of the Franco-Prussian War, which was published between 1874 and 1881 by the German General Staff. After the war, he became a national hero and celebrity. More than 50 monuments to Moltke were erected throughout Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; some were destroyed during or after World War II, but many remain.

When Moltke retired in 1888 as Chief of the General Staff, he was succeeded by Alfred von Waldersee. (His nephew, Helmuth Johann Ludwig von Moltke, was chief from 1906 to 1914.) Moltke officially retired from active military service on 9 August 1888. His 90th birthday on 26 October 1890 was declared a national holiday with public celebrations held nationwide. Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke remained in good health until he died at his home in Berlin on 24 April 1891 after a short illness. He received a state funeral where his body lay in state surrounded by military honours and thousands paid their respects, including Kaiser Wilhelm II. However, Bismarck (who resigned as chancellor the previous year after a falling out with Kaiser Wilhelm) did not attend the funeral. Thousands of troops, led by the Kaiser, escorted his casket to Berlin's Lehrter Railroad Station, from which it was transported to Silesia.

Moltke's remains were interred in the family mausoleum on the Creisau estate, which however was plundered in the last months of World War II, most probably by Red Army. No trace of his remains is known to exist.

The Creisau estate (later Kreisau) remained the Moltke family seat until 1945, when Moltke's great-grandnephew Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was executed for headquartering the eponymous Kreisau Circle at the manor. Surviving dedications to Moltke the Elder at the manor include two stairway frescos painted on his 100th birthday in 1900; The Shame, depicting the fall of Lübeck in 1806, and The Revenge, depicting the victorious capture of Paris in 1871.

Personal life

In April 1842, aged 41, Moltke married his 16-year-old step-niece Bertha Maria Wilhelmine Burt, known as Marie. She was the daughter of John Heyliger Burt, of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies, a member of a wealthy slave-owning planter family. Burt had married Moltke's sister Auguste after the death of his first wife, who was also a German. It was a loving union and they remained married until Marie's death on 24 December 1868, although they had no children. Moltke never re-married. He was devoted to his wife, and long after her death still daily visited the chapel where she and her sister were buried to meditate.

History of sound recording

On 21 October 1889, Moltke, then aged 88, made two audio recordings with Adelbert Theodor Wangemann, a German native who worked with Thomas Edison and had been sent to Europe with Edison's newly invented cylinder phonograph. Moltke recorded a line from William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 3, "Dein Ohr leih jedem, wen'gen deine Stimme" – "Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice"), as well as a passage from Goethe's Faust, both of which were engraved onto two wax cylinders. These recordings were then lost until their rediscovery in 1957, though they remained unidentified for decades after. On 30 January 2012, they were among a number of recordings revealed by the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. The two record cylinders made by Moltke are the only known surviving voice recordings of a person born in the 18th century.

Dates of rank

From the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia

Danish Army

1 January 1819: Second Lieutenant (Sekondløjtnant)

Prussian Army

19 March 1822: Second Lieutenant (Sekonde-Leutnant)

30 March 1833: First Lieutenant (Premierleutnant)

30 March 1835: Captain (Hauptmann)

12 April 1842: Major (Major)

26 September 1850: Lieutenant Colonel (Oberstleutnant)

2 December 1851: Colonel (Oberst)

9 August 1856: Major General (Generalmajor)

31 May 1859: Lieutenant General (Generalleutnant)

8 June 1866: General of Infantry (General der Infanterie)

16 June 1871: General Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall)

Honours, awards and arms

Granted the noble title of Count (Graf), October 1870

Honorary Citizen of the City of Hamburg, for "meritorious achievements for the unified, reborn German fatherland" (Verdienste um das zur Einheit wiedergeborene Deutsche Vaterland), 1871

German orders and decorations

Foreign orders and decorations