Wilhelm Leopold Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz (12 August 1843 – 19 April 1916), also known as Goltz Pasha, was a Prussian field marshal and military writer.
Early life and ancestry Goltz was born in Adlig Bielkenfeld, East Prussia (later renamed Goltzhausen; now Ivanovka, in Polessky District, Kaliningrad Oblast),Google Maps at maps.google.com into the impoverished noble Von der Goltz family, as the son of Erhard Wilhelm Otto Freiherr von der Goltz (1802-1849) and his wife, Palmine Schubert (1815-1893). He grew up at the manor house of Fabiansfelde near Preußisch Eylau, which had been bought by his father in 1844.Horst Schulz, Der Kreis Pr. Eylau, Verden/Aller 1983 His father spent some nineteen years in the Prussian Army without rising above the rank of lieutenant, and his efforts at farming were similarly unfruitful, and he eventually succumbed to cholera while on a trip to Danzig (now Gdańsk) when Colmar was six years old.Hermann Teske (1957), 9-10
Military career Goltz entered the Prussian infantry in 1861 as a second lieutenant with the 5th East Prussian Infantry Regiment Number 41, in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad).Hermann Teske (1957), 14 During 1864 he was on border duty at Toruń, after which he entered the Berlin Military Academy, but was temporarily withdrawn in 1866 to serve in the Austro-Prussian War, in which he was wounded at Trautenau. In 1867 he joined the topographical section of the general staff, and at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 was attached to the staff of Prince Frederick Charles, commanding general of the Prussian Second Army. He took part in the battles of Vionville and Gravelotte and in the siege of Metz. After Metz fell he served under Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia in the campaign of the Loire, including the battles of Orleans and Le Mans.
Goltz was appointed professor at the military school at Potsdam in 1871, promoted to captain, and placed in the historical section of the general staff. It was then that he wrote Die Operationen der II. Armee bis zur Capitulation von Metz (The Operations of the Second Army until the surrender of Metz) and Die Sieben Tage von Le Mans (The Seven Days of Le Mans), both published in 1873. In 1874 he was appointed first general staff officer (Ia) of the 6th Division, and while so employed wrote Die Operationen der II. Armee an der Loire (The Operations of the Second Army on the Loire) and Léon Gambetta und seine Armeen (Léon Gambetta and his armies), published in 1875 and 1877 respectively. The latter was translated into French the same year, and is considered by many historians to be his most original contribution to military literature.
Goltz stressed how, despite the rapid initial victory against the Imperial French forces at the Battle of Sedan, the new French Republic had been able to mobilise national will for a ("War of the People") which dragged on for many more months (the Siege of Paris, the campaign of the Loire and the partisans behind German lines, the latter tying down 20% of German strength), the implication being that it was therefore unrealistic to expect a quick victory over France in any future war. Goltz, who wrote with open admiration about Léon Gambetta's efforts to raise new armies after September 1870, argued that the French "people's war" might have been successful had Gambetta been able to better train his new armies.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22 Goltz argued that henceforward a new age in war had begun, that of the "nation in arms," where the state would seek to mobilize the entire nation and its resources for war, what today might be called total war.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22 The views expressed in the latter work were unpopular with the powers that be and led to Goltz's being sent back to regimental duty for a time, but it was not long before he returned to the military history section. In 1878 Goltz was appointed a lecturer in military history at the military academy in Berlin, where he remained for five years and attained the rank of major. He published, in 1883, Roßbach und Jena (new and revised edition, Von Rossbach bis Jena und Auerstadt, 1906) and Das Volk in Waffen (The Nation in Arms), both of which quickly became military classics. The latter also became the theoretical handbook of the Argentine Army, and in 1910 Goltz headed the German diplomatic mission to the Argentina Centennial. During his residence in Berlin, Goltz contributed many articles to military journals.
The ideas that Goltz first introduced in Léon Gambetta und seine Armeen were further expanded in The Nation in Arms, where he argued: So to win war in the future would require that "the great civilized nations of the present bring their military organization to ever greater perfection."Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22 To that end, Goltz thought society needed to be militarized in peacetime on an unprecedented level, and what was required was "the full amalgamation of military and civilian life."Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22 Goltz was a militarist, Social Darwinist and ultra-nationalist who believed war was necessary, desirable and inevitable.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22 In Goltz's Social Darwinist perspective, just as "survival of the fittest" prevailed in nature, the same principle applied to international relations with "strong" nations rightfully devouring "weak" nations.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22 Goltz, who saw the carnage of war as the most beautiful thing in the world wrote: "It [war] is an expression of the energy and self-respect which a nation possesses.... Perpetual peace means perpetual death!"Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 22
Service with the Ottoman Empire Defeated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Sultan Abdülhamid II, of the Ottoman Empire, asked for German help to reorganize the Ottoman Army, so that it would be able to resist the advance of the Russian Empire. Baron von der Goltz was sent. He spent twelve years on this work, which provided the material for several of his books. During his time in the Ottoman Empire, Goltz had a very negative view of Abdülhamid II, writing: Goltz achieved some reforms, such as lengthening the period of study at military schools and adding new curricula for staff courses at the War College.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 23 From 1883 to 1895, Goltz trained the so-called "Goltz generation" of Ottoman officers, many of whom would go on to play prominent roles in Ottoman military and political life.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 24 Goltz, who learned to speak fluent Turkish, was a much admired teacher, regarded as a "father figure" by the cadets, who saw him as "an inspiration." Attending his lectures, in which he sought to indoctrinate his students with his "nation in arms" philosophy, was seen as "a matter of pride and joy" by his pupils. As a result, it was the Ottoman army rather the German army which first embraced Goltz's "nation in arms" theory as the basis of its understanding of war.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 25 After some years he was given the title Pasha (a signal honor for a non-Muslim) and in 1895, just before he returned to Germany, he was named Mushir (field-marshal). His improvements to the Ottoman army were significant. It is noteworthy that in the Greco-Turkish War (1897), the Turkish army stopped just before Thermopylae, only after Czar Nicholas II of Russia threatened the Ottoman Sultan that he would be attacking the Ottoman Empire from eastern Anatolia unless the Ottoman Army stopped their advance at that point.
On his return to Germany in 1895 Goltz became a lieutenant-general and commander of the 5th Division, and in 1898, head of the Engineer and Pioneer Corps and Inspector-General of Fortifications. In 1900 he was made General of Infantry and in 1902 commander of the I. Army Corps. After returning to Germany in 1895, Goltz was in close contact with his students, and offered them his advice.Akmeșe, Handan Nezir The Birth of Modern Turkey The Ottoman Military and the March to World I, London: I.B. Tauris page 26 In an 1899 letter to Colonel Pertev Beyone, one of his protégés, Goltz wrote: