Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (German: [ˈhɛlmuːt fɔn ˈmɔltkə]; 26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) was a Prussian field marshal.

But the next year he was left impoverished when during the War of the Fourth Coalition of 1806–1807 French troops burned his country house and plundered his townhouse in Lübeck, where his wife and children were.

At twenty-three he was allowed to enter the general war school (later called the Prussian Military Academy), where he studied the full three years, graduating in 1826.

A year later he wrote An Account of the Internal Circumstances and Social Conditions of Poland, a study based both on reading and on personal observation of Polish life and character.

[3] In eighteen months he had finished nine volumes out of twelve but the publisher failed to produce the book and Moltke never received more than 25 marks.

After a short stay in Constantinople, he was asked by the Sultan Mahmud II to help modernize the Ottoman Empire's army and with permission from Berlin he accepted the offer.

[7][8] In 1838, Moltke was sent as an adviser to the Ottoman general commanding the troops in Anatolia, who was to carry on the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) against Muhammad Ali of Egypt.

In the same year, he served in Rome as personal adjutant to Prince Henry of Prussia, which allowed him to create another map of the Eternal City (published in 1852).

[7][8] On the suggestion of Edwin von Manteuffel, the new king appointed Moltke as Chief of the Prussian General Staff on 29 October 1857.

He thought the difficulty would be to bring the war to an end, as the Danish army would, if possible, retire to the islands, where, as the Danes had the command of the sea, it could not be attacked.

His war plan was mismanaged, and the Danish army escaped to the fortresses of Dybbøl and Fredericia, each of which commanded a retreat across a strait to an island.

On June 29, battalions (part of Herwarth von Bittenfeld's army corps) crossed to Als in boats, landed while under fire from the Danish batteries, and quickly seized the whole island as far as the Kekenis peninsula.

Days later, Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein's corps crossed the Limfjord and occupied the remaining parts of Jutland while the Austrians seized the various islands.

[17] In contrast to Antoine-Henri Jomini, who expounded a system of rules, Moltke was a disciple of Carl von Clausewitz and regarded strategy as a practical art of adapting means to ends.

[16] Moltke also realized that the expansion in the size of armies since the 1820s made it impossible to exercise detailed control over the entire force (as Napoleon or Wellington had done in battle).

The Army of the Elbe consisted of three divisions, two cavalry brigades and 144 guns in the cantonments around Torgau (General Karl von Bittenfeld).

During the negotiations, Otto von Bismarck opposed the king's wish to annex the Kingdom of Saxony and other territory beyond what was actually taken; he feared the active intervention of France.

[26] The successes of 1866 had strengthened Moltke's position, so that when, on 5 July 1870, the order for the mobilization of the Prussian and South German forces was issued, his plans were adopted without dispute.

If the French disregarded the neutrality of Belgium and Luxembourg, and advanced towards Cologne (or any other point on the Lower Rhine), the German army would be able to strike at their flank.

Moltke expected that the French would be compelled by the direction of their railways to collect the greater part of their army near Metz, and a smaller portion near Strasbourg.

Three army corps were held back in north-Eastern Germany, in case Austria-Hungary should make common cause with France.

The intention of the great right wheel was to attack the principal French army in such a direction as to drive it north and cut its communications with Paris.

The fortress of Metz was to be only monitored, and the main German forces, after defeating the chief French army, would then march against Paris.

The Battle of Wörth was brought on prematurely, and therefore led, not to the capture of MacMahon's army, which was intended, but only to its defeat and hasty retreat as far as Châlons.

But these unexpected victories did not disconcert Moltke, who carried out his intended advance to Pont-Mousson, crossed the Moselle with the First and Second Armies, then faced north and wheeled round, so that the effect of the battle of Gravelotte was to drive Bazaine into the fortress of Metz and cut him off from Paris.

MacMahon's right wing was attacked at Beaumont while attempting to cross the Meuse, his advance necessarily abandoned, and his army with difficulty collected at Sedan.

[26] From this time Moltke's strategy is remarkable for its judicious economy of force, for he was wise enough never to attempt more than was practicable with the means at his disposal.

[30] Moltke's remains were interred in the family mausoleum on the Kreisau estate, which however was plundered after World War II, when Silesia was annexed by Poland.

She was the daughter of John Heyliger Burt, of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies, a member of a wealthy slave-owning planter family.

[...] There's a wonderful irony here: Moltke's nickname was 'der große Schweiger' (the great silent one), because he had a reputation for speaking very little; and yet, of all the hundreds of millions of people born in the 18th century, his is the only voice we can hear today."