Moltke becomes Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army

On 2 August 1914, the first day of German mobilisation, General Helmuth von Moltke became Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army. This meant that the man who since 1906 had directed Germany’s preparations for war now took actual command of the army in wartime.

The change followed from the German system of command. In peacetime the Great General Staff dealt with planning and preparing the army. On mobilisation it became the staff of the field army, forming the Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung). Formally the supreme commander was Kaiser Wilhelm II, but in practice it was the Chief of Staff who issued orders in his name and directed military operations.

Moltke was the nephew of the famous Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, victor of the wars against Austria and France in the 19th century. He thus bore a name that in Germany was a symbol of military success. In the years before the war he modified the Schlieffen Plan inherited from his predecessor, among other things strengthening the defence of the border with France. He was not, however, convinced of his own abilities as a commander, and his health and nerves did not always hold up.

At the start of the war the Supreme Army Command remained in Berlin, and in the second half of August it moved closer to the front, to Koblenz, and then to Luxembourg. From there Moltke directed the great offensive in the west, with only limited contact with the commanders of the individual armies.

His command lasted little more than a month. After the defeat in the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, which dashed hopes of a quick victory over France, Moltke suffered a nervous breakdown. On 14 September the Kaiser entrusted the actual direction of the army to the Minister of War, Erich von Falkenhayn.