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Wilhelm Leopold Colmar
Freiherr von der Goltz
(12.08.1843 - 19.04.1916)
place of birth: Bielkenfeld, Ostpreußen (Ivanovka,
PL)
Königreich
Preußen: Gen-Gouv von Belgien, OBH, Generalfeldmarschall
German baron and military theorist,
Freiherr von der Goltz was one of Germany's ten active duty field
marshals during the Great War. Born the second son
of an impoverished Prussian landowner and former military officer,
Colmar von der Goltz was commissioned as a lieutenant at the age of 18.
His initial military engagement was during the Second Schleswig War of 1864,
where he served with Ludwig von Falkenhausen in the 1. Garde-Regiment zu Fuß. He
later served in both the Austro-Prussian War (wounded
at Trautenau) and the Franco-Prussian
War, where as a general staff officer he saw action at
Mars-la-Tour and Le Mans. Baron
von der Goltz was married to Therese Dorguth, with whom he had five
children.
Colmar von der Goltz spent much of his post-1871 career in
staff positions, taking this time to also serve from 1878 to 1883 as a
history lecturer at the Military Academy, and to pen the military
histories noted for their scholarly analysis: "Roßbach und Jena" and
"Das Volk in Waffen" (A Nation in Arms). He thereafter was
promoted to major and in his restlessness was sent to Turkey as
military advisor to the Ottoman Empire (1883-1895), where he helped
modernize the Turkish Army. Upon his return to Germany, Lieutenant
General von der Goltz served as a divisional commander before being
selected as Chief of Combat Engineers and Inspector General of
Fortresses.
At the turn of the century, von der Goltz
consistently warned of an impending military conflict with England. His
attitude ruffled some feathers at Great General Staff, and so in 1902
he was brushed off to the province of East Prussia where he commanded
I. Corps. He had been in line to succeed von Schlieffen as
Chief of General Staff, but instead remained in Königsberg
until 1907. Goltz was then transferred to Berlin as Inspector General of the Sixth Army Inspectorate, simultaneously
serving as commander of all troops based in East Prussian. In early
1911, he was promoted to general field marshal but retired
from military service two years later.
As Germany marched to war, Field Marshal von
der Goltz returned to active duty in 1914 to serve as military governor
of Belgium. In November 1914, he transferred back to
Constantinople as Sultan Mehmed V's senior military advisor and
eventually replaced General Liman von Sanders as commander of the
Bosporous Army in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.
Later, as commander of the Turkish Sixth Army, he fought Sir Charles
Townsend's Anglo-Indian forces at Ctesipon and supervised the
five-month siege of Kut-al-Amara. On 19 April 1916,
a few days before the garrison surrendered, von der Goltz died in
Baghdad due to complications from typhus; he was also (falsely) rumored
to have been poisoned by the so-called Young Turks.
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