Helmuth Von Moltke The Elder - Moltke's Theory of War

Moltke's Theory of War

A disciple of Carl von Clausewitz, whose theory of war was more an effort to grasp its essential nature, rather than of Jomini, who expounded a system of rules, Moltke regarded strategy as a practical art of adapting means to ends, and had developed the methods of Napoleon in accordance with altered conditions of his age. He had been the first to realize the great defensive power of modern firearms, and had inferred from it that an enveloping attack had become more formidable than the attempt to pierce an enemy's front.

Moltke had pondered the tactics of Napoleon at the Battle of Bautzen, when the emperor brought up Ney's corps, coming from a distance, against the flank of the allies, rather than to unite it with his own force before the battle; he had also drawn an inference from the combined action of the allies at the Battle of Waterloo.

At the same time Moltke had worked out the conditions of the march and supply of an army. Only one army corps could be moved along one road in the same day; to put two or three corps on the same road meant that the rear corps could not be made use of in a battle at the front. Several corps stationed close together in a small area could not be fed for more than a day or two. Accordingly he inferred that the essence of strategy lay in arrangements for the separation of the corps for marching and their concentration in time for battle. In order to make a large army manageable, it must be broken up into separate armies or groups of corps, each group under a commander authorized to regulate its movements and action subject to the instructions of the commander-in-chief as regards the direction and purpose of its operations.

Moltke's main thesis was that military strategy had to be understood as a system of options since only the beginning of a military operation was plannable. As a result, he considered the main task of military leaders to consist in the extensive preparation of all possible outcomes. His thesis can be summed up by two statements, one famous and one less so, translated into English as "No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength" (or "no plan survives contact with the enemy,") and "Strategy is a system of expedients."

However, as can be seen from the descriptions of his planning for the war with Austria and the war with France, his planning for war was very detailed and took into account thousands of variables. It is a mistake to think that Moltke thought war plans were of no use (which a simple reading of "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" may indicate).

Moltke originated the use of the colors blue for friendly forces and red for hostile forces in strategy or wargaming. Hence the term blue on blue fire in friendly fire situations.