Colmar von der Goltz (12 August 1843-19 April 1916) was a Prussian Field Marshal who served in the Austro-Prussian War, Franco-Prussian War, and World War I.
Biography[]
Colmar von der Goltz was born in Adlig Bielkenfeld, East Prussia, Prussia in 1843, and he joined the Prussian Army in 1861 and served in the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War. Goltz served as professor at the Potsdam military school and on the general staff after the war in France, and, in 1878, he was sent to help reorganize the Ottoman Army after its defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Goltz lengthened the Turks' period of study at military schools, added new curricula for staff courses at the War College, learned to speak fluent Turkish, was regarded as a "father figure" by Turkish cadets, and was given the titles "Pasha" and Field Marshal in 1895. Goltz became a lieutenant-general of the Imperial German Army in 1895 and a General der Infanterie in 1900, but he held contempt for the liberal, social democratic, and hedonistic young people of Germany while admiring the loyal Turkish soldiery. Goltz later hailed the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, and he was promoted to Field Marshal in 1911 and retired in 1913. Goltz founded the right-wing Young German League on the eve of World War I, and he served as military governor of Belgium during the war and oversaw the ruthless suppression of the Belgian resistance. In 1915, he became a military aide to Sultan Mehmed V, although he was disliked by both Liman von Sanders and Enver Pasha. He commanded the Ottoman 6th Army at the Battle of Ctesiphon before leading the Siege of Kut. In December 1915, Goltz threatened to resign his command if the Armenian Genocide was not halted; he had previously denied that the Turks oppressed their empire's Christian minorities. He died of typhus in Baghdad in April 1916; British general Stanley Maude died in the same house nineteen months later.