Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz

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. Goltz was born in Adlig Bielkenfeld, East Prussia (later renamed Goltzhausen; now Ivanovka, in Polessky District, Kaliningrad Oblast), 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. 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. Goltz entered the Prussian infantry in 1861 as a second lieutenant with the 5th East Prussian Infantry Regiment Number 41, in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). During 1864 he was on border duty at Toruń, after which he entered the Berlin Military Academy, but was temporarily withdrawn in 1866 to serve in the Austro-Prussian War, in which he was wounded at Trautenau.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.

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Related concepts (6)

Committee of Union and Progress

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Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz

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