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THE
FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
OF
1870--71
BY
FIELD-MARSHAL
COUNT HELMUTH VON MOLTKE
TRANSLATION REVISED BY
ARCHIBALD FORBES
_WITH A MAP, NOTES, AND ORDERS OF BATTLE_
LONDON
JAMES R. OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO.
45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1893
[_All rights reserved_]
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 noble 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, "Maenner
und Thaten, vaterlaendische Balladen" (_Men and Deeds: Patriotic Songs_),
which the poet presented to the Field-Marshal, there is a poem entitled,
"_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 Koeniggraetz. 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.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
PAGE
Preparations for War 2
Combat of Weissenburg (4th August) 12
Battle of Woerth (6th August) 14
Battle of Spicheren (6th August) 19
Right-wheel of the German Army 26
Battle of Colombey-Nouilly (14th August) 29
Battle of Vionville--Mars la Tour (16th August) 34
Battle of Gravelotte--St. Privat (18th August) 49
New Distribution of the Army 64
The Army of Chalons 66
Battle of Beaumont (30th August) 76
Battle of Sedan (1st September) 87