Moltke and the German Wars, 1864-1871

Military Review,  July-August, 2003  by Scott Stephenson

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Arden Bucholz, Palgrave Publishers, NY, 2001, 240 pages, $21.95.

What do modern militaries owe to old Prussia? According to Arden Bucholz, quite a bit. However, the unhappy memories associated with two world wars have warped our view of 19th-century Prussia and its remarkable army. Our associations tend to make the Prussian army a mythological demon. Bucholz writes that only when one gets past 20th-century images of storm troopers, Nuremburg rallies, and Stukas can a modern reader fairly appreciate the Prussian army's pioneering development of modern concepts of war planning, staff organization, and operational command and control, not to mention its extraordinary battlefield performance.

Bucholz, a history professor at the State University of New York, Brockport, is well qualified to reframe our view of the Prussians. He has written extensively on German military history. To offer a fresh interpretation of the three Wars of German Unification, he layers his own research for Moltke and the German Wars, 1864-1871, on that of Gordon Craig, Michael Howard, and the eyewitness accounts of Theodor Fontane. Using concepts taken from 21st-century information and organization theory, Bucholz offers an original analysis to create a synthetic history that reemphasizes the debt that modern armies owe to the Prussians.

The connecting thread throughout Moltke and the German Wars, is the role of a most extraordinary man, Helmuth von Moltke, of whom Bucholz writes, "He is one of the first of a new breed: the modern, self-made, technically educated, professional officer." More than anything else, Bucholz's book is a biography but it is military biography superimposed on the history of a warfighting institution--the Prussian army--and on narrative accounts of Prussia' wars with Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France (1870-1871). And it is as a biography that this book works best, as Bucholz convinces u that Von Moltke's role in creating modern military processes has been undervalued.

Brought up in an environment that immersed him in the world of ideas Von Moltke entered a Prussian army that Gerhard yon Scharnhorst and others had turned into a true learning organization. Von Moltke's broad education and indomitable self-discipline, coupled with the unique lessons he drew from serving with the Ottoman Turks, earned him the role of adviser to Prince Frederick Charles. The royal family recognized Von Moltke's talents, and after Prussia had botched the initial phases of the war with Denmark, Von Moltke's role as Chief of the General Staff was transformed from relative insignificance to battlefield command of the Prussian army. From this position, he led Prussia to victory after victory.

The key to these victories was the intellectual process that Von Moltke applied to the problem of preparing for war and his rigorous analysis of past failures while introducing the concepts of risk management to war planning. By emphasizing worst-case scenarios in developing his plans, he built a margin for error that grew steadily with every enemy mistake Von Moltke's plans were tested be endless war games and staff exercises, and by the time a conflict began, he had already envisioned the general course of the upcoming operation. His mind and method enabled him to look far beyond the time horizon of his less adaptive opponents.

Overall, Bucholz' combination of military biography, organizational description, and battle narrative works well. His narrative is stronger, when dealing with Von Moltke's generalship and the Prussian system. He suggests no criticisms of Von Moltke's personality and generalship, yet he convinces the reader that this is no hagiography.

Unfortunately, Bucholz's editor did a poor job, especially in the campaign chapters. The chapter on the Danish War, for example, is barely readable, suffering from sentence fragments, uncertain pronoun references, and irrelevant trivia. Also disappointing is a scarcity of maps. The editing lapses are genuinely distressing because they detract from an otherwise superb book. Still, the book earns a hearty recommendation. One hopes that future editions will be revised to bring a chapters up to a uniform standard e excellence.

LTC Scott Stephenson, USA, Retired, Ph.D., Leavenworth, Kansas

COPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Army CGSC
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning