[5] During 1864 he was on border duty at Toruń, after which he entered the Berlin Military Academy, but was temporarily withdrawn in 1866 to serve in the Austro-Prussian War, in which he was wounded at Trautenau.

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.

[6] 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.

[6] 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 Volkskrieg [de] ("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.

[7] 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.

The ideas that Goltz first introduced in Léon Gambetta und seine Armeen were further expanded in The Nation in Arms, where he argued: "The day of Cabinet wars is over.

"[7] 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.

"[7] 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.

During his time in the Ottoman Empire, Goltz had a very negative view of Abdülhamid II, writing: "The Stambul Efendi, whose father held a well-paid sinecure, reward by Sultan Hamid for his faithfulness, and who enjoyed to the fullest the good life, now knowing the struggle for existence, could not be a great leader on the battlefield.

"[8] 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.

[11] In an 1899 letter to Colonel Pertev Beyone, one of his protégés, Goltz wrote: "All the hopes of Turkey rest on her youth, the generation to which you belong, and which can save the country, once it reaches the top.

[12] By contrast, Goltz had nothing but contempt for the young people in Germany, who he charged were being "corrupted" by hedonism, urbanization, industrialization, prosperity, liberalism and Social Democracy, something that he believed was rendering the next generation of Germans increasing unfit for the test of war.

[13] In articles he published in Germany on the Macedonian Question in the early 20th century, Goltz was very pro-Ottoman, saying that the Ottomans had every right to remain in Macedonia.

[13] In his letters to his Ottoman protégés, he often urged them to invade Bulgaria to punish the Bulgarian government for its support of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

[14] Goltz also believed that the European era of dominance would come to a close in the 20th century, pointing to the rise of new powers like the United States, Japan and eventually China.

[15] In contrast to the anti-Asian racist "Yellow Peril" propaganda being offered by his own government, Goltz had considerable respect for Asian peoples, and wrote in 1905 to Pertev: "The East is beginning to awake; once it is awakened, it will not go to sleep again.

"[16] Stressing that these were his own views, not those of the German government, Goltz speculated that sometime in the future a war would begin between the "yellow race" of the Japanese, Chinese and Mongols against the "Anglo-Saxon" powers, the United States and Great Britain.

In an article on 24 July 1908, Goltz denied the charge often made in the West that the Ottoman authorities had oppressed the Christian population of Macedonia and were committing systematic human rights abuses.

"[20] Goltz further added that the purpose of education of youth was "the formation of the patriotic sense, love of the fatherland, soldierly virtues and the toughening of the body, less so the technical preparation of the growing generation.

On 5 October, he was even clearer when he ordered: "In the future, villages in the vicinity of places where railway and telegraph lines are destroyed will be punished without pity (whether they are guilty or not of the acts in question).

Goltz' actions were praised by Adolf Hitler, who in September 1941 linked Nazi atrocities in Eastern Europe with those in Belgium during World War I.

Despite the mutual dislike, in mid-October 1915, with the British under General Townshend advancing on Baghdad, Enver Pasha put Goltz in charge of the Sixth Army (see the Mesopotamian campaign).

From the 1870s until World War I, Baron von der Goltz was more widely read by British and American military leaders than Clausewitz.

[citation needed] In addition to many contributions to military periodicals, he wrote Kriegführung (1895), later titled Krieg und Heerführung, 1901 (The Conduct of War [lit.