Alfred von Waldersee Quotes

A war is essentially the most dreadful and ruthless thing imaginable, therefore one's object should be so to conduct it as to bring it to an end at the earliest possible moment, and to this end one should give the enemy a distaste for it as quickly as one can; and it is more humane if I do this by burning down houses than by shooting down quite innocent soldiers.

There can be no doubt as to the measureless shamelessness of the English in combating our really modest colonial efforts.

Either we are tremendously clever or the French strategists dreadful bunglers.

Prince William is very keen on the idea of war and regrets that things seem now to look more pacific. He was pleased when I expressed to him my opinion that the enlargement of our army will soon set the stone rolling.

A good many men will be killed, however, as long as no man can prove to me that a man can die more than once, I am not inclined to regard death for the individual as a misfortune.

I know ... only one peril, that of Socialism, and I hope that all the Christian Churches would find a common aim in fighting against it.

I pray to God that I may not have to live through what I see coming.

I hear I am being attacked both in Prussian and American papers for being too hard on the Chinese and thus delaying the conclusion of peace. This is the outcome of ill-will and ignorance of the conditions ... One can advance things here only by taking as strong and as relentless measures as possible.

Prince Wilhelm seems to have a good deal of his grandfather about him. If his parents have aimed at training him to be a constitutional monarch ready to bow to the rule of a parliamentary majority they have failed.

How rare it is for a woman to support her husband aright in his position in the world, and for husband and wife to work together in complete harmony! During these last seven years Marie has won esteem and affection from high and low alike by her friendly bearing, her sincerity of character and her beneficence; spiritually she has exercised a stronger influence than have the clergy over many ladies and women.

Prince Wilhelm has taken up an attitude strongly against England, a quite natural reaction for the most part against the efforts of his mother to make Anglomaniacs of her children.

It is wonderful that certain people and circles still believe I have the aspiration to become Chancellor and receive nightmares from this thought. How often I have declared that I would have to be a fool if I wanted to strive for this really unenviable position! I have already achieved some time ago everything a soldier can achieve, I hold a post that involves little work and no agitation or anger, and I know the position of a Chancellor under Kaiser Wilhelm II only too well that I would have to be mad to desire it.

[Wilhelm I’s] venerable personality, known throughout the world for the conscientiousness and devotion to duty he showed until his dying day, with all his past, and the fact that he never gave any reason for malicious tongues to wag, was for us a bulwark against the tide of revolution. The present Kaiser, on the other hand, positively cultivates Social Democrats.

Unfortunately I must state the fact that the rank and file will not return better men than they were when they started. They have seen too much of ruthlessness, brutality, robbery, executions etc., and have come into contact with altogether too many bad characters in the foreign contingents.

We are living although the majority of the people do not realize it, in the midst of an immense revolution. What is radically wrong with our condition lies in the harsh contrast between rich and poor. This cannot go on forever, as we are human beings with human differences. No use is being made of religion, the only way towards alleviation and compensation; on the contrary, attempts are being deliberately made to excite the masses into asserting their equality with the middle and upper classes. The State contents itself with attempts to improve the material circumstances of the workers, with the only result that their covetousness has been intensified. The possibility of acquiring great sums of money by speculation has developed a fondness for luxury and enjoyment which has taken hold of wide circles. German family life is going to the dogs. Unfortunate marriages, divorces, youthful corruption, pleasure-seeking, the anxiety to seem richer than one is–all this is increasing terribly. In the lower classes of the great cities the demoralization has already reached a high degree ... The unequal distribution of wealth with all its consequences must lead in the end to a catastrophe.