Helmuth Von Moltke The Elder - As A Young Officer

As A Young Officer

For a year Moltke had charge of a cadet school at Frankfurt an der Oder, then he was for three years employed on the military survey in Silesia and Posen. In 1832 he was seconded for service on the general staff at Berlin, to which he was transferred in 1833 on promotion to first lieutenant. He was at this time regarded as a brilliant officer by his superiors, including Prince William, then a lieutenant-general.

Max Boot says of Moltke in his War Made New:

Moltke loved music, poetry, art, archaeology, and theater. He knew seven languages (German, Danish, English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish). He was a prolific artist who filled sketchbooks with landscapes and portraits, as well as a popular author...his account of travels in Turkey, released after his return to Berlin in 1840 and illustrated with his own drawings, turned him into a literary celebrity, a role that he embraced by donning a Turkish and giving public lectures...For all his catholicity of interests, Moltke was no closet liberal. He was a nationalist to the core who was appalled by the liberal revolutions that swept Europe on 1848. He placed his faith in the king and the forces of the old regime.

Moltke was well received at court and in the best society of Berlin. His tastes inclined him to literature, to historical study and to travel. In 1827 he had published a short romance, The Two Friends. In 1831 he wrote an essay entitled Holland and Belgium in their Mutual Relations, from their Separation under Philip II to their Reunion under William I. 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. In his 'Poland. A historical sketch' (1885), von Moltke stated that Poland prior to her partitions was "the most civilized country in Europe". In 1832 he contracted to translate Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire into German, for which he was to receive 75 marks, his object being to earn the money to buy a horse. 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.