NationStates Jolt Archive

Just random musings that occurred to me, and apologies if this has been covered before.

General Grant may or may not have been a great tactician (comparing Wilderness and Cold Harbor with Vicksburg and Chattanooga - taking advantage of an enemy's weakness or a sudden change in the state of the field, as when Bragg's centre collapsed still counts), but he was a sound strategist. He may have overshadowed Meade with the Army of the Potomac, but with that command and his relentless advancing he pinned the strongest Confederate army and allowed Sheridan to rampage up the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman to, well, rampage around the South.

Helmuth von Moltke was Chief of the Prussian General Staff, that feared organization so quickly disbanded by the Allies at Versailles in 1919. While Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, started war with Denmark, then Austria, and finally France to unite all German speaking territories under Prussian rule (German Wars of Unification), it was von Moltke who had to make the plans to carry out the wars. His strategy - Napoleon's "March seperate, fight together", expanded with railways - was evolutionary considering the masses of men available through Prussia's conscription and the speed of mobilization with proper utilization of railroad networks. Yes, I say evolutionary, not revolutionary. Von Moltke seems to have trusted his field commanders, more openly in the war with Austria, but got burned at Königgrätz.

At this point, I will admit to all that I'm not nearly as well read on the American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification as I am, say, on World War II. Or even Vietnam (not the French one). I'm getting some of my ideas from Brian Holden Reid's "The American Civil War", which is part of Cassell's History of Warfare series. I love the books - namely because they're often cheap but really nice books with pictures, contemporary and otherwise, with maps describing the important battles.

There was a line somewhere, and I have lost it, about the size of the armies involved. Perhaps von Moltke was a better organizer, for in total in 1865 General Grant might have had, what, say 300,000, 400,000 troops? Spread across the United States, fighting in several scattered armies. Some 100,000 strong, some 30,000 strong. Von Moltke organized and unleashed 480,000 soldiers in four armies on the French in 1870.

A couple lines and point from "The American Civil War" might do:
"[von Moltke's] grasp of what was important in the higher level of the conduct of war is reminiscent of Ulysses S. Grant. Both Moltke and Grant were inferior to Lee as field commanders when it came to the sheer technique of command an army. But both had extensive experience of the highest command denied Lee until 1865, and thus should be judged the most consistently successful commanders of the age inaugurated by the Industrial Revolution."
"Grant co-ordinated operations over much greater distances than did Moltke, though he never brought a quarter of a million men to a battlefield as the latter did. On the other hand, the calibre of the generals facing Grant was consistently higher than those defeated by Moltke - especially in 1864-65 when he eventually defeated Lee."
- Holden Reid, Brian. "The American Civil War." Cassell & Co, London. 2000, p201-202

Suggesting an outcome if these two faced each other is somewhat ridiculous, so I won't do it. Each one had his own difficulties to solve, and each was, in the end, successful. Who was better at his job?

I'd argue Grant. Grant, prior to attaining his ultimate command, took the Mississippi and Vicksburg and laid the groundwork for Shermans campaign. When Sherman began his campaign, Grant knew he had to hold Lee and prevent Lee from dispatching reinforcements. A number of Confederate forays were beaten without losing sight of the goal of defeating not merely Lee but the entire Confederacy. Similarly, Grant kept his soldiers well provisioned - "In 1864 Grant gave the Army of the Potomac forty wagons per thousand men, and never advanced more than ten miles per day for more than five days." (Holden Reid 202) Grant's planning in 1864 and 1865 suggest the ability to hope for a quick end to the war while not letting the imagination run wild and forgetting about the long run. As Holden Reid says, Grant prepared for a war of attrition.

Von Moltke, however, seems to have aimed for quick victories. Certainly smashing the French at Sedan and Metz were great victories, but Holden Reid notes that immense quantities of supplies were wasted, left to rot on the railway tracks (18,000 tons in the war against Austria, nearly 17,000 tons in the war against France, p 183 and 195 respectively). In addition. von Moltke had his own Cold Harbor at St Privat, where the victorious Prussians could applaud themselves for losing over 20,000 men to the French 13,000.

Sedan was not Petersburg. The surrender of the Emperor should have spelt the end of French resistance, but it did not. The French fought on and the brilliance with which the war began faded in the grim siege of Paris.

The two look remarkably similar, but there is a conclusion not drawn by Holden Reid that I would like to - namely, the ability of Grant to trust his subordinates. Sheridan was given his orders in the Shenandoah. Did Grant interfere with Sherman's three armies? When Sherman peeled off George H Thomas' Army of the Cumberland, Holden Reid notes that the President and Grant were pleased enough to agree to Sherman's plans of marching into Georgia to the sea (p165). This suggests to me a supreme trust in his army and district commanders, at least those who played important roles.

von Moltke, meanwhile - "All the non-Prussian corps received the same allocation of general staff officers as Prussian corps, three at corps and one each at division; these officers were Moltke's representatives and owed their prime allegiance to him and not to their respective commanders." (p 195) 'nuff said?

I realize these two figures aren't easily comparable, and my views (expressed terribly and at length) maybe not as coherent as I would like. But, the thought occurred to me, we have two industrial war commanders who were (in essence) supreme commanders. Which one did better?

Any thoughts?

You can't overlook Sherman's own value in regards to the success of the Union campaign. The concept for the march to the sea was entirely of his invention, and he had a tough sell convincing Lincoln and Grant of its merit. On his way down through Tennessee and towards Atlanta, Sherman regularly outfoxed a very canny General Johnston, who regularly found himself withdrawing to save his army from certain destruction. When Johnston was replaced by Hood, Sherman was able to take large bites out of the army before him, ultimately breaking it and gaining Atlanta.

Then, once he departed Atlanta, he began making things up as he went along, throwing away centuries of tried and true military strategy. Deep in hostile territory, far from the sea, with his supply lines hopelessly strung out, and with another formidable army still in the vicinity, Sherman easily handled the enemy forces in a situation in which it could easily have gone the other way, as he was forced to divide his armies so they could adequately live off any supplies they could plunder. Paling beside the tactical victory was the logistical victory... not only did Sherman manage to keep his men well fed, but he did so while keeping their depredations remarkably low for the situation. The fact that the array of crimes normally committed by a marauding army were so rare on the march is a credit to their commander.

By targetting rail lines, food supplies, war industries, etc., Sherman invented the concept of "total war" that would become the very essence of WWII, and remains an integral part of campaign strategy today.

While I certainly agree that Grant deserves a lot of credit for his accomplishments, I believe that his star was brilliantly outshone by his junior officer, Sherman.

I'll concede that unhesitatingly. Sherman, for all the cruelty that his total war concept might be accused of, was still a brilliant commander.

Though could he have succeeded in the way Grant did, were he in Grant's position?

I didn't mean to portray Grant as the saviour of the Union cause, or as being superior to all other Union generals. I just believe his position (as military commander of all US forces) was unique and he handled it well, and got the idea to compare it with a contemporary who also succeeded.

the Union Army had close to a million men under arms in 1864, with main armies facing Lee in Virginia (nearly 200,000 men between the Army of the Potomoc and the Army of the James), plus another 150,000 troops in Tennessee and Georgia (Sherman and Thomas). In addition, about 200,000 troops were holding the Mississippi, pressing the Confederates in Texas and western Louisiana, and another 100,000 were involved along the North and South Carolina coasts. The rest were in garrison, training, or dealing with the Indians (about 100,000 from the Mississippi to California all told dealing with Indians or garrisoning California). In short, when Grant became the top general, he controlled armies across an entire continent.

Moltke was no slouch, but he never had to control more than one theater at a time and the entirety of France is smaller in area (although not population) than the principal eastern theater in the Civil War (running from Pennsylvania to South Carolina).

Grant was very skilled at maneuver as well.... he outflanked and then took Vicksburg in a brilliant campaign that compares very favorably with some of Lee's moves in the east. In 1864 though he knew the real way to end the war was to defeat Lee and crush the Army of Northern Viriginia and the only way to do it was to bleed it dry.

Another argument in favor of Grant is that, at the time, the logistics of moving an army by railroad were very much experimental. European military attaches were all over America, with both armies, passing on all they could from the lessons of the Civil War. Therefore, it can be fairly said that von Moltke stood so tall because he was standing on the shoulders of Grant, and the other US generals on both sides of the conflict.

Von Moltke was a great tactician, and a decent Strategist.
Grant was a great Commanding General. The key difference, is knowing how to choose and support your subordinates. It's the Henry Ford principle: Henry Ford sat in a courtroom and asserted he had the right to all those patents under his name-because he employed the men who made those patents possible-and knew how to let them do their jobs.
If you can't trust your subordinate officers to use their own judgement, you're not going to win a continent-wide war, and that's the role U.S.Grant was keyed to play, it was also the main and defining difference on the Union side between U.S. Grant, and most of the other senior leadership in the Union Cause. Grant knew the all-important art of delegating authority and the art of choosing men worthy of that delegation-then backing them to the hilt.

I agree that it is hard to compare Grant and Moltke, both being good military leaders. I do think Lee is generally overrated, he was a good commander but no Napoleon. Of course it is hard to compare Lee and Napoleon too...

If you just for easier comparison assume that both armies are the exact same in training and equipment(I am sure the Prussians were superior to the Americans at the time of Moltke and Grant). Moltke managed to defeat two great powers in two seperate wars by quick movements. Grant did have material superiority, plus more manpower to waste than his enemy.

I won't speculate who was the better general, but generally speaking Moltke commanded better troops.

Just random musings that occurred to me, and apologies if this has been covered before.

General Grant may or may not have been a great tactician (comparing Wilderness and Cold Harbor with Vicksburg and Chattanooga - taking advantage of an enemy's weakness or a sudden change in the state of the field, as when Bragg's centre collapsed still counts), but he was a sound strategist. He may have overshadowed Meade with the Army of the Potomac, but with that command and his relentless advancing he pinned the strongest Confederate army and allowed Sheridan to rampage up the Shenandoah Valley and Sherman to, well, rampage around the South.

Helmuth von Moltke was Chief of the Prussian General Staff, that feared organization so quickly disbanded by the Allies at Versailles in 1919. While Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, started war with Denmark, then Austria, and finally France to unite all German speaking territories under Prussian rule (German Wars of Unification), it was von Moltke who had to make the plans to carry out the wars. His strategy - Napoleon's "March seperate, fight together", expanded with railways - was evolutionary considering the masses of men available through Prussia's conscription and the speed of mobilization with proper utilization of railroad networks. Yes, I say evolutionary, not revolutionary. Von Moltke seems to have trusted his field commanders, more openly in the war with Austria, but got burned at Königgrätz.

Bismarck didn't start the war with Denmark. Denmark illegally annexed Schleswig and Holstein in violation of the London protocols.
Napoleon III declared war on Prussia.
And how was von Moltke burned at Königgrätz? The Prussians won that battle.

Bismarck didn't start the war with Denmark. Denmark illegally annexed Schleswig and Holstein in violation of the London protocols.
Napoleon III declared war on Prussia.


Bismarch did provoke a war with France(to make France look bad and get support from the southern German States). Bismarck was a really smart guy. All the three wars for unification were started to strengthen Prussia(finally making it supreme ruler of Germany)

But to get back to Moltke vs Grant: I didn't get the Koniggratz either. Prussia won, it was basically THE battle of the war with Austria. I think Grant was more like Eisenhower, a good diplomat and political soldier. Moltke was, I think, more a militarist Prussian. Like many ww2 German generals. His strategies did defeat two great powers. Grant defeated one confederacy.

Hard to compare. The wars were fought very differently, since the Civil War was fought on a much larger area there was much more moving around each other and outmaneuvering the enemy. In the Franco-Prussian war there was a small land area and while movement was important it was not like the Civil War.

Two completely different wars, armies, and foes. I can only say that you won't be able to get a definate answer. Would Alexander the Great have been a great military commander if born in the 20th century? Would Napoleon be a good commander with a motorised army rather than an army relying on horses and marching feet? We cannot say, we can only guess.

Well Grant did one other thing Moltke didn't have too.... he started the Civil War training his very own brigade of troops fresh from civilian life with almost no experienced soldiers to act as cadre, and then went on to command armies in the field that got better as he did. By 1863 both the CSA and USA had around a million troops in the field at any given time, most of whom had been shot at at least in one battle and many had been in several. So by the time Grant did his best work (Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain and the campaign against Lee) he had troops as good as the US has ever produced.

Moltke started with trained troops (although mostly without experience) against the Danes, and had a much larger trained officer cadre to build on (which helped a lot), fought a second rate power to begin with, then beat the Austrians (who were substantially less effective than the Prussians) and had a clear numerical advantage against the French (and a vastly superior staff of capable and experienced officers as far as actual method and technique is concerned).

both Generals had similar advantages against their primary enemy (numbers and weapons), but Grant had more experienced troops (but fought equally experienced troops under a gifted commander) while the Prussians and allied German states fought a relatively small regular French Army (the colonial troops had lots of small war experience, but limited big war experience), and a larger reserve French army that was less effectively trained than the Prussian reserve army.

So I think Moltke had a bigger advantage. Both suffered extremely heavy casualties though, but that was the nature of warfare in that period. At least they could manuever, something not possible 40 years later once troop density made flanking moves like the Battle of Sedan impossible.

I apologize for not being completely clear, at least in some respects.

Just because I believe von Moltke was burned at Königgrätz doesn't mean I think he lost, or his tactics were in err. I meant for the comment to come in context of his relationship with officers in the field.

Prince Frederick Charles, commander of the Prussian 1st Army at Königgrätz, exceeded his orders - in Holden Reid's words, " the ardent Frederick Charles was not one to play second fiddle and transformed this holding action [ordered by von Moltke] into a decisive, frontal assault on Benedek's line." (p191) Also, Holden Reid notes that Frederick Charles, as a result of his disobedience, informed von Moltke that he might have to withdraw when the Prussian 2nd Army appeared on the flank.

To me, this suggests von Moltke was burned by his field commanders taking initiative in a bad way. The Prussians won the battle, but if 2nd Army had tarried any longer might 1st Army have withdrawn and the battle be known as a Austrian victory? Revisionist history, maybe, but it seems the (belated) arrival of 2nd Army saved Frederick Charles from having cost the battle.

Regarding Denmark and France - Bismarck may not have directly started it but he wanted those wars.

I'm not sure von Moltke was such a great tactician. To me, he seems better as a strategist - or operationist, if such a term be coined. His skills seemed to be getting his troops where he wanted relatively when he wanted.

For example, at St Privat the Prussians hardly showed great tactical ability. The Prussian Imperial Guard charge is reminiscent of Pickett's Charge.

Finally, I do concede that it's very difficult to compare the two and in the end probably moot. The differences in situation make comparison extremely difficult, if not impossible. But I think both men, as commanders of armies, fought largely good (strategically/tactically/no moral judgement) wars in their own ways and, as I said in the beginning, this thought popped in my head.

In case the thread dies here I'd like to thank everyone for contributing. If people have a point to contribute then please don't take this as a sign that I want to drop the topic - I just want to thank posters for their time and thoughts while I have the chance.

As I recall (& if I've recalled incorrectly my apologies! ^_^; ), Von Moltke was not merely the one headed the Prussian General Staff but was more or less the man who developed it along with the concept of staff warfare in the first place. If this memory is correct I would say that counts as a major military innovation and a point in his favor as having done the better with what he had. I wouldn't hold his being burned at Koggigratz, if burned he was, against his abilities as a tactician. If you are the sort of commander who trusts his subordinates you will get burned by bad initiative sooner or later but if you are the sort of commander who doesn't then sooner or later you'll get burned by a bad *lack* of initiative. No matter what form it takes a subordinate's errors will come into your life and the only thing that matters is how you can handle it *if* you can handle it. Compared to the way Custer was stuck with having 2/3s of his army sit out the Battle of Little Big Horn for no apparent reason I'd say Von Moltke had it easy. ^_^;

OTOH, I'd say there is one important point in declaring Grant the one to have done better with what he had - I don't recall that Von Moltke had anyone of Lee's caliber to fight against.

The one thing I'd add is that you are very right in saying that Von Moltke was the better organizer. That'd be another point in Von Moltke's favor since I've heard it said that "In matters of warfare amateurs talk tactics and strategy while professionals talk logistics". The American general who comes closest to Von Moltke is that regard would be George McClellan who did a pretty good job of building up the Union military.

I struggled with your post it seemed a bit untidy around WWI and The Unification issues.

But id say Von Moltke
Id say Grant had no Strategic or 'Tactical Grace'(LOL)he was just a bludgener.
He showed there is no need for a classy General of Lee's type for the Union just a big bad with a lot of guns and a lot of Irish to expend!

Von Moltke was said to have smiled only twice in his life.
Once on seeing some inferior Swedish Defensive positions and after hearing his mother-in-law had died! :)

Id say Grant had no Strategic or 'Tactical Grace'(LOL)he was just a bludgener.

A common claim. But Vicksburg was not the work of a man who was just a 'bludgener'. :)

For Grant vs McClellan, I think I'd still prefer Grant. In the Wilderness, after being rebuffed and somewhat outmaneuvered, Grant could have withdrawn - but he did not. McClellan probably would have, given his track record in command of the Army of the Potomac. Grant however knew that he needed to keep up the pressure on the Army of Northern Virginia, lest some of it be detached to fight Sherman. That said, building up the Union forces was very necessary and for all his faults supporters of the Union would have to be at least somewhat grateful for what McClellan did. I just think, when Grant took charge, he didn't ignore what had been done and may (according to some of the works I've read) have improved on them - though most importantly, he kept his troops supplied in a way that von Moltke (for no reason I've been able to find) suffered massive waste in supplies and occasional hunger throughout entire armies.

Grant may well have been a brutal tactician, and this is ignoring some of his tactical successes, but it was his grasp of strategy that concerns me because running the Army of the Potomac he could have left to Meade (whether he did or not remains unclear to me - surely there was some reason Meade was there?)

And I would dispute the assertion that he could have just thrown lives at the action. As always, the draft had horrible holes in it; desertion was rife; and volunteers weren't filling in the gaps. The Union may have had a manpower advantage over the Confederacy, but that doesn't mean Grant could afford to throw away lives indefinitely.

I do believe Königgrätz was a burn for von Moltke, but it seems to me that it revealed him as a man who trusted his subordinates and didn't at the same time. Maybe it was because he didn't have full control over the military? I'm not sure what the status of the General Staff was at this time - though it seems, from Holden Reid, that von Moltke didn't like Frederick Charles and, after Königgrätz, would probably have preferred to replace him. He could not, and so sent General Staff representatives to each corps and division to "enforce" his will.

A common claim. But Vicksburg was not the work of a man who was just a 'bludgener'. :)
And ill stick with it go Robert E Lee!
Edit im well aware of Where Vicksburg is and its Relation to Bobby! ;)