Von Moltke Quotes

No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

[Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions. HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, 1800–1891

No plan survives contact with the enemy." —Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke

Talk little, do much, and be more than you appear to be.

No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy

Die edelsten Tugenden der Menschen entfalten sich im Krieg!

Berlin. 25 June 1940. I have the impression that we are rushing for a common currency for the whole of Europe. That would be progress, of course, and, one would hope, of lasting significance. Letter from Helmuth von Moltke (military intelligence)1

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 assembly, 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

Lass dir’s gesagt sein, dass Freundlichkeit gegen jedermann die erste Lebensregel ist, die uns manchen Kummer sparen kann, und dass du selbst gegen die, welche dir nicht gefallen, verbindlich sein kannst, ohne falsch und unwahr zu werden. Die wahre Höflichkeit und der feinste Weltton ist die angeborene Freundlichkeit eines wohlwollenden Herzens. Wirkliche Bescheidenheit und Anspruchslosigkeit sind der wahre Schutz gegen die Kränkungen und die Zurücksetzungen dieser Welt. Wenn wir nichts anderes scheinen wollen als wir eigentlich sind, so kann weder Rang noch Geburt, noch Menge und Glanz uns wesentlich aus der Fassung bringen.

Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff[1] from 1857 until his retirement in 1888, often related a story to junior members of his staff that described the essence of the German system of command. Following a battle, Prince Frederick Karl took a major aside and proceeded to reprimand the young officer for a tactical mistake. The major responded that he was following an order issued to him from a superior officer, which constituted the word of the king himself. The prince responded in kind, “‘His Majesty made you a major because he believed you would know when not to obey his orders.’”[2]

In one area in Serbia two villages have been reduced to ashes. In Greece 220 men of one village have been shot. In France there are extensive shootings while I write. Certainly more than a thousand people are murdered in this way every day and another thousand German men are habituated to murder. May I know this and yet sit at my table in my heated flat and have tea? What shall I say when I am asked: And what did you do during that time? How can anyone know these things and still walk around free?

Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, the Chief of the Prussian General Staff during the Franco-Prussian War, defined Auftragstaktik as the actions a subordinate took in the absence of orders that supported the senior commander’s intent.

Twice Gen. Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz marched his First Army in front of Prince Frederick Karl’s Second Army while attempting to find and engage the enemy. Before the Battle of Spicheren, Steinmetz’s forces actually marched between Second Army and its reconnoitering cavalry force. At other times, subordinate commanders seized the initiative in the absence of orders based on a perceived or real weakness of the French forces opposite them. The opening battles of Weissenburg and Spicheren in August 1870 demonstrate both initiative and the disregard of Moltke’s orders. The Prussians seized the initiative and attacked across the Saar River earlier than Moltke planned. Even in the first few weeks, Moltke seemed receptive to feedback from the subordinate commanders and their chiefs of staff. He had even delayed the initial assault into France from 31 July to 4 August to allow the Third Army more time receive troops and sort out the train loads of supplies. Moltke did this, knowing that the delay would result in the French attacking first.[46]

Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke, the leading nineteenth-century Prussian strategist, was said to have laughed only twice: once when told that a certain French fortress was impregnable, and once when his mother-in-law died. Martin Heidegger, whom some regard as the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century but many find incomprehensible, was even more sparing of his mirth. He is recorded to have laughed only once, at a picnic with Ernst Jünger in the Harz Mountains. Jünger leaned over to pick up a sauerkraut and sausage roll, and his lederhosen split with a tremendous crack. Heidegger let out a shout of glee, but immediately checked himself, “and his facial expression reverted to its habitual ferocity.

von Moltke’s definition of victory: “the highest goal attainable with available means.

First ponder, then dare.  - Helmuth von Moltke

No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

As Prussian field marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke said, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

What has chance ever done in the world? Has it built any cities? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals? Was there any chance in Cæsar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylæ, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe to ourselves; our failures to destiny.

Von Moltke saw the tactical task as conceptually simple—destroying as much of the enemy force as possible—but practically challenging, which was why his preparations for battle were meticulous. Once battle was done strategy came back into play.

Von Moltke’s most radical innovation as a commander, which went against the textbooks of the time, was to divide his army so that both parts could be kept supplied until they would combine for the battle (“march divided; strike united”).

[T]otalitarian war destroys spiritual values. One feels that everywhere. If it destroyed material values, the people, whose thinking is mostly limited by their perceptions, would know how and against what to defend themselves. As it is, the inner destruction has no correlative in the perceived world of things, of matter. So they fail to grasp the process and the possible means of countering it or renewing themselves.

[Strategy] is more than a science: it is the application of knowledge to practical life, the development of thought capable of modifying the original guiding idea in the light of ever-changing situations; it is the art of acting under the pressure of the most difficult conditions. HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, 1800–1891

No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Helmuth von Moltke

official edition of his papers omitted) and had only tenuous claims to the uniforms he always wore—to the embarrassment or fury of ‘real’ soldiers. As one of the so-called ‘demi-gods’ on General Moltke’s staff, Lieutenant Colonel Bronsart von Schellendorf, wrote in 1870, ‘The civil servant in the cuirassier jacket becomes more impudent every day.’2 He had a ‘von’ in his name and came from a ‘good’ old Prussian family but, as the historian Treitschke wrote in 1862, he was apparently no more than a ‘shallow country-squire’.3 He had the pride of his social rank but understood that many occupied higher rungs than he. One of his staff recalled an instance: Most

- Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus. - Erst wägen, dann wagen

Eternal peace is a dream—and not even a beautiful one.

If war should break out no one can estimate its duration or see when it will end. The greatest powers of Europe, which are armed as never before, will fight each other. None can be annihilated so completely in one or two campaigns that it would declare itself vanquished and be compelled to accept hard conditions for peace without any chance, even after a year’s time, to renew the fight. Gentlemen, it might be a seven, or even a thirty years’ war – but woe to him who sets Europe alight and first throws the match into the powder-barrel!4 General Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of General Staff, Imperial German Army

Instead of directing a business according to a detailed . . . strategic plan, Welch believed in setting only a few clear, overarching goals. Then, on an ad hoc basis, his people were free to seize any opportunities they saw to further those goals. . . . [Planful opportunism] crystallized in his mind . . . after he read Johannes von Moltke, a nineteenth century Prussian general influenced by the renowned military theorist Karl von Clausewitz [who] argued that detailed plans usually fail, because circumstances inevitably change.

Planning is everything. Plans are nothing." —Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke

Implicit Communication The German organizational climate encouraged people to act, and to take the initiative, even during the terror and chaos of war. Within this climate, the principles of mutual trust and intuitive competence make much of implicit communication, as opposed to detailed, written instructions. The Germans felt they had no alternative. As the Chief of the Prussian General Staff in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, observed in the mid-1800s, the greater risk is the loss of time that comes from always trying to be explicit.61 Or as General Gaedcke commented about his unit in WW II, if he had tried to write everything down, “we would have been too late with every attack we ever attempted.”62

First Ponder,,,,, Then Dare.........

Hew Strachan advertía con mordaz perspicacia del peligro que podía tener el nivel operativo entendido como una «zona libre de política», y que se hablara de maniobras y de la maniobrabilidad utilizando «un vocabulario egoísta, casi metafísico y cuyas interioridades solo tienen sentido para aquellos que están iniciados en sus significados».[42] Rastreó el interés en el nivel operativo hasta el general Erich Ludendorff. Antes de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el ejército alemán se centró rígidamente en los problemas de su propio dominio militar, excluyendo a los civiles de sus deliberaciones y mostrándose completamente indifererente a las consecuencias políticas de sus actos, dando por hecho que no importaba lo que se deseara desde el punto de vista político, porque podía obtenerse ejecutando una exitosa «guerra de aniquilación». Ludendorff prefería culpar de la derrota de su país en 1918 a las «puñaladas traperas» de los civiles antes que hablar de sus errores en el campo de batalla. Fue un firme defensor de la guerra total, en la que todos los recursos de la sociedad deberían estar destinados a lograr la victoria. En vez de que la guerra sirviera a los políticos, los políticos deberían servir a la guerra. Su visión estratégica, en sí misma, no era más que una continuación de la de Von Moltke y reflejaba hasta qué punto se había concentrado en el aspecto operativo durante la guerra anterior. Jamás aceptó que su perspectiva hubiera contribuido a la derrota de su país. Esta visión explica la carencias de ideas estratégicas innovadoras en la Alemania de entreguerras.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder: “First ponder, then dare.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. HELMUTH VON MOLTKE, FIELD MARSHAL

The aim, as would have been understood by the great nineteenth-century Prussian generals, such as von Moltke, was to encircle and physically annihilate the enemy in a kesselschlacht (cauldron battle) and through this achieve a vernichtungsschlacht (the annihilation of the enemy’s armed forces through a single crushing blow). Blitzkrieg, therefore, presented Hitler with the means for a swift, efficient and decisive military victory, which avoided the protracted, bloody and resource-sapping fighting that he had experienced during the Great War.

Gentlemen, I notice that there are always three courses open to the enemy, and that he usually takes the fourth.