German Observations and Evaluations of the U.S. Civil War: A Study in Lessons Not Learned

Helmuth von Moltke's alleged statement the U.S. Civil War was an affair in which two armed mobs chased each other around the country and from which no lessons could be learned underlines a grave misjudgment of this war in contemporary Germany. Today, however, the American Civil War is recognized as the first modern war. It produced a number of lessons across the strategic operational and tactical levels that shaped the face of war. But the German observers failed to draw significant conclusions at the time. A wide variety of reasons inhibited a ...