In the Franco-Prussian War, Lieutenant Colonel Count Waldersee, recognized for his military prowess and recent analysis of the adversary's armed forces, proved a most useful assistant to the "supreme War-Lord."

[2] At the end of the war, Waldersee received the Iron Cross, First Class, and was entrusted with the difficult post of German representative at Paris, in which his tact and courtesy were marked.

[3] Mary had previously been created Princess of Nöer by the Emperor of Austria and her elder sister, Josephine, was the wife of Baron August von Wächter, the Württembergian Minister of Foreign Affairs.

[3] In 1882, Waldersee was chosen by Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder as his principal assistant on the General Staff at Berlin with the rank of Generalquartiermeister.

[5]: 200  In another diary entry, Waldersee wrote "The ghost of socialism is beginning to show a very earnest face" while he called the Zentrum a gang of "hypocritical blackguards without a Fatherland, intent on the collapse of Germany and the destruction of Prussia".

[5]: 200–201  Waldersee's view of the international situation was equally bleak with democracy established in France, Italy and Britain and autocracy faced with challenges in Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empire.

Waldersee, officially still second under Moltke, had been elevating the military attachés at the Imperial embassies into "a virtually independent diplomatic service", often managing to bypass the Foreign Ministry.

[6]: 405  After one such breach of protocol was detected at the Vienna embassy, Waldersee was subsequently "hauled over the coals" by Bismarck in person, to demonstrate to the military establishment who was in charge of foreign affairs.

Field Marshal Moltke finally retired in August 1888, and Waldersee's appointment to succeed him was a foregone conclusion:[2] the newly crowned 29-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm II gave his consent.

Waldersee thus lost the confidence of his sovereign and was relieved of his duties and reassigned to command IX Army Corps at Hamburg-Altona, a clear demotion but still an assignment of importance.

As Kaiser Wilhelm II’s minister to China, Baron Clemens von Ketteler, had been murdered by the Boxers, the Germans "claimed a certain priority in the crusade against Chinese barbarism.

[8]: 105  The now semi-retired, sixty-eight-year-old, but for the occasion the newly promoted Field Marshal Alfred Count von Waldersee was officially proposed by the Tsar of Russia, and seconded by the Japanese, as the first Allied Supreme Commander of modern times.

Waldersee who had dreams of winning a glorious military victory in China was greatly disappointed that the main fighting was over after he arrived in Beijing on 17 October 1900, where he installed himself in the bedroom of the Dowager Empress in the Forbidden City.

[8]: 109  In his own words, Waldersee went to work with "feverish activity" by ordering 75 punitive expeditions in the countryside around Beijing, in which thousands of people, mostly women and children were slain.

"[7]: 253  It is probable, however, that "if his appointment had not existed, or if it had been filled by a less positive personality, the animosities which ceaselessly embittered the [international] contingents in North China would have assumed serious proportions.

[9]: 423  Ying Hu wrote that "Legend has it that in their "dragon bed" of the Empress Dowager, which Sai and Waldersee shared, she tried and sometimes succeeded in curbing the brutality of the troops.

[10]: 53 Count Waldersee understood that the conduct of the conquerors was unbecoming: their soldiery was idle and bored, venereal disease was rampant, and after looting was curtailed, the rank-and-file remained gullible enough to be swindled with "Chinese art" of all descriptions.