Helmuth Von Moltke The Elder - Service With The Ottoman Empire

Service With The Ottoman Empire

In 1835 on his promotion as captain, Moltke obtained six months leave to travel in south-Eastern Europe. After a short stay in Constantinople he was requested by the Sultan Mahmud II to help modernize the Ottoman Empire army, and being duly authorized from Berlin he accepted the offer. He remained two years at Constantinople, learned Turkish and surveyed the city of Constantinople, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. He travelled through Wallachia, Bulgaria and Rumelia, and made many other journeys on both sides of the Strait.

In 1838 Moltke was sent as adviser to the Ottoman general commanding the troops in Anatolia, who was to carry on a campaign against Muhammad Ali of Egypt (for details see Ali's rebellion.) During the summer Moltke made extensive reconnaissances and surveys, riding several thousand miles in the course of his journey. He navigated the rapids of the Euphrates and visited and mapped many parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1839 the army moved south to fight the Egyptians, but upon the approach of the enemy the general refused to listen to Moltke's advice. Moltke resigned his post of staff officer and took charge of the artillery. In the Battle of Nezib (modern-day Nisibis) on 24 June 1839, the Ottoman army was beaten (Muhammad Ali was defeated only once or twice in his lifetime). With great difficulty Von Moltke made his way back to the Black Sea, and thence to Constantinople. His patron, Sultan Mahmud II, was dead, so he returned to Berlin where he arrived, broken in health, in December 1839.

Once home Moltke published some of the letters he had written as Letters on Conditions and Events in Turkey in the Years 1835 to 1839. This book was well received at the time. Early the next year he married a young English woman, Maria Bertha Helena Burt, the daughter of John Heyliger Burt esq of the West Indies, who married his sister Augusta. It was a happy union, though there were no children.

In 1840 Moltke had been appointed to the staff of the 4th army corps, stationed at Berlin and he published his maps of Constantinople, and, jointly with other German travellers, a new map of Asia Minor and a memoir on the geography of that country. He became fascinated by railroads and he was one of the first directors of the Hamburg-Berlin railway. In 1843 published an article What Considerations should determine the Choice of the Course of Railways?.

In 1845 Moltke published The Russo-Turkish Campaign in Europe, 1828-1829; this book was also well received in military circles. Also in that 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). In 1848, after a brief return to the great general staff at Berlin, he became chief of the staff of the 4th army corps, of which the headquarters were then at Magdeburg, where he remained seven years, during which he rose to lieutenant colonel and colonel.

In 1855 Moltke served as personal aide to Prince Frederick (later Emperor Frederick III). He accompanied the prince to England (for his marriage), as well as to Paris and to Saint Petersburg for the coronation of Alexander II of Russia.