Part 1 (1/2)

The Franco-German War of 1870-71.

by Count Helmuth, von Moltke.

NOTE.

The translation has been thoroughly revised for the sense as well as in regard to technical military terms and expressions. To the name of every German general officer mentioned in the text has been affixed, within brackets, his specific command, a liberty which the reader will perhaps not resent, since the interpolation is intended to facilitate his clearer understanding of a narrative condensed by the author with extreme severity.

In further aid of elucidation there has been occasionally inserted, also within brackets, a date, a figure, or a word.

A few footnotes will be found, which may perhaps be excused as not wholly irrelevant. In the Appendix have been inserted the ”Orders of Battle” of both sides, as in the first period of the war.

A. F.

PREFACE.

Field-Marshal von Moltke began this history of the War of 1870--1 in the spring of the year 1887, and during his residence at Creisau he worked at it for about three hours every morning. On his return to Berlin in the autumn of that year, the work was not quite finished, but he completed it by January, 1888, at Berlin, placed it in my hands, and never again alluded to the subject.

The origin of the book was as follows. I had several times entreated him, but in vain, to make use of his leisure hours at Creisau in noting down some of his rich store of reminiscences. He always objected, in the same words: ”Everything official that I have had occasion to write, or that is worth remembering, is to be seen in the Archives of the Staff Corps. My personal experiences had better be buried with me.” He had a dislike to memoirs in general, which he was at no pains to conceal, saying that they only served to gratify the writer's vanity, and often contributed to distort important historical events by the subjective views of an individual, and the intrusion of trivial details. It might easily happen that a particular character which in history stood forth in n.o.ble simplicity should be hideously disfigured by the narrative of some personal experiences, and the ideal halo which had surrounded it be destroyed. And highly characteristic of Moltke's magnanimity are the words he once uttered on such an occasion, and which I noted at the time: ”Whatever is published in a military history is always dressed for effect: yet it is a duty of piety and patriotism never to impair the prestige which identifies the glory of our Army with personages of lofty position.”

Not long after our arrival at Creisau, early in 1887, I repeated my suggestion. In reply to my request that he would write an account of the Campaign of 1870--1, he said: ”You have the official history of the war.

That contains everything. I admit,” he added, ”that it is too full of detail for the general type of readers, and far too technical. An abridgment must be made some day.” I asked him whether he would allow me to lay the work on his table, and next morning he began the narrative contained in this volume, and comparing it as he went on with the official history, carried it through to the end.

His purpose was to give a concise account of the war. But, while keeping this in view, he involuntarily--as was unavoidable in his position--regarded the undertaking from his own standpoint as Chief of the General Staff, and marshalled results so as to agree as a whole with the plan of campaign which was known only to the higher military authorities. Thus this work, which was undertaken in all simplicity of purpose, as a popular history, is practically from beginning to end the expression of a private opinion of the war by the Field-Marshal himself.

The Appendix: ”On a pretended Council of War in the Wars of William I.

of Prussia,” was written in 1881. In a book by Fedor von Koppen, ”Manner und Thaten, vaterlandische Balladen” (_Men and Deeds: Patriotic Songs_), which the poet presented to the Field-Marshal, there is a poem ent.i.tled, ”_A German Council of War at Versailles_” (with a historical note appended), describing an incident which never occurred, and which, under the conditions by which the relations of the Chief of the Staff to his Majesty were regulated, never could have occurred. To preclude any such mistakes for the future, and to settle once and for all the truth as to the much-discussed question of the Council of War, the Field-Marshal wrote this paper, to which he added a description of his personal experience of the battle of Koniggratz. It is this narrative which, shortly after the writer's death, was published in the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ of Munich, in the somewhat abridged and altered form in which the Field-Marshal had placed it at the disposal of Professor von Treitscke, the well-known historian.

COUNT HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, Major and Adjutant to his Imperial Majesty.

Berlin, June 25th, 1891.

THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.

PART I.

The days are gone by when, for dynastical ends, small armies of professional soldiers went to war to conquer a city, or a province, and then sought winter quarters or made peace. The wars of the present day call whole nations to arms; there is scarcely a family that has not had to bewail lost ones. The entire financial resources of the State are appropriated to military purposes, and the seasons of the year have no influence on the unceasing progress of hostilities. As long as nations exist distinct one from the other there will be quarrels that can only be settled by force of arms; but, in the interests of humanity, it is to be hoped that wars will become the less frequent, as they become the more terrible.

Generally speaking, it is no longer the ambition of monarchs which endangers peace; but the impulses of a nation, its dissatisfaction with its internal conditions, the strife of parties and the intrigues of their leaders. A declaration of war, so serious in its consequences, is more easily carried by a large a.s.sembly, of which no one of the members bears the sole responsibility, than by a single individual, however lofty his position; and a peace-loving sovereign is less rare than a parliament composed of wise men. The great wars of recent times have been declared against the wish and will of the reigning powers.

Now-a-days the Bourse possesses so great influence that it is able to have armies called into the field merely to protect its interests.

Mexico and Egypt have had European armies of occupation inflicted upon them simply to satisfy the demands of the _haute finance_. To-day the question is not so much whether a nation is strong enough to make war, as whether its Government is powerful enough to prevent war. For example, united Germany has. .h.i.therto used her strength only to maintain European peace; while the weakness of a neighbouring Government continues to involve the gravest risk of war.

It was, indeed, from such a condition of relations that the war of 1870--71 originated. A Napoleon on the throne of France was bound to justify his pretensions by political and military successes. Only temporarily was the French nation contented by the victories of its arms in remote fields of war; the triumphs of the Prussian armies excited jealousy, they were regarded as arrogant, as a challenge; and the French demanded revenge for Sadowa. The liberal spirit of the epoch set itself against the autocratic Government of the Emperor; he was forced to make concessions, his internal authority was weakened, and one day the nation was informed by its representatives that it desired war with Germany.

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.