Max Graf von Montgelas

Max Graf von Montgelas
General of the Infantry (ret.) Dr. h. c. Max Graf von Montgelas (c. 1928)
Birth name	Maximilian Maria Karl Desiderius Graf von Montgelas
Birth date	23 May 1860(1860-05-23)
Place of birth	Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Death date	4 February 1938 (aged 77)
Place of death	Munich, Bavaria, German Reich
Allegiance	Kingdom of Bavaria German Empire
Service/branch	Royal Bavarian Army Imperial German Army
Years of service	1879–1918
Rank	General of the Infantry
Battles/wars	Boxer Rebellion (de) World War I
Awards	Red Eagle Order Military Merit Order (Bavaria) Iron Cross
Relations	∞ 1897 Pauline Gräfin von Wimpffen
Other work	Diplomat, politician, author

Maximilian "Max" Maria Karl Desiderius Graf von Montgelas (23 May 1860 – 4 February 1938) was a German officer of the Bavarian Army and the Imperial German Army, finally a honorary General of the Infantry during in WWI, as well as diplomat, politician, and historian.

Life

Lieutenant-General Count Montgelas as Commander of the 4th Royal Bavarian Infantry Division.

Count von Montgelas 1929 in Berlin with Marie Julia Mathilde Mumm von Schwarzenstein, née von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen, and Hedwig Gräfin Schaffgotsch

After attending the Royal Bavarian Pagery, a Bavarian educational institution for young nobles, which also trained officer candidates, and graduating from the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Munich with Abitur in 1878, Max joined the Royal Bavarian Army in March 1879 and served with the Royal Bavarian Infantry Life Guard Regiment in Munich. He became personal adjutant to Prince Ludwig of Bavaria in 1886 and to Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria in 1887. From October 1888 to 1891, he attended the Royal Bavarian War Academy. He then became a general staff officer.

Graf von Montgelas received leave on 8 May 1900 to serve with the East Asian Expeditionary Force (Ostasiatisches Expeditionskorps) during the Boxer Expedition (Boxeraufstand) to Imperial China as commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th East Asia Infantry Regiment. As of 6 June 1901, he served on the staff of the 2nd East Asia Infantry Regiment with the East Asian Occupation Brigade. As of 19 November 1901, he was military attaché (Militärattaché) in Peking until 31 August 1903.

In 1908, he became commander of the 7th Royal Bavarian Infantry Brigade in Würzburg. From 1910 to 1912 he was posted to Berlin. In 1914, during the early phases of World War I, he commanded the 4th Bavarian Infantry Division (from 22 March 1912 until 5 November 1914) of the 6th Army but was given special leave on 8 April 1915 to devote himself to careful study of the matters relating to the outbreak of the war and responsibility for it. On 25 January 1917, he would receive the honorary rank Charakter als General der Infanterie.

In that capacity, he was official adviser to the Reichstag Committee of Enquiry set up to investigate the question of responsibility for the war, having been a member of the Commission sent to Versailles by the new German Government in 1919. He was one of the four signatories to the Memorandum, presented on 29th May that year in reply to the allegations made by the Commission appointed by the Allied and Associated Governments, and he was jointly responsible, with Hans Delbruck, for the Memorandum replying to the "Allied Note" of 16th June 1919.

Academic works

He and Professor Walther Schücking edited The Outbreak of the World War - German Documents collected by Karl Kautsky, commonly known as The Kautsky Documents. The English-language edition was published by the Oxford University Press in 1924. The following year Montgelas's own famous book The Case for the Central Powers: An Impeachment of the Versailles Verdict, was published in English by George, Allen & Unwin Ltd., in London.

Death

Count von Montgelas died 1938 and was buried in the Alter Nordfriedhof cemetery in Munich, where there is an inscribed white marble gravestone.

Family

Max originally came from the noble Savoy line "de Garnerin de la Thuille" which immigrated to Bavaria in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and in 1810 would receive the title "Graf". His grandfather, also named Maximilian, served as Bavaria's Foreign Affairs Minister (Bavarian Head of Staff) from 1799 to 1817. His father, Royal Bavarian Chamberlain Ludwig Max Joseph Evaristus Graf von Montgelas (1814–1892), had been the Bavarian Government’s Ambassador in St. Petersburg, where Max was born. Max was the first of five children. His siblings were:

• Theodor Maria Maximilian Franz von Paula Ferdinand (b. 30 May 1862 in Berlin), Royal Bavarian Colonel, Chamberlain, Honorary Knight of the Order of Malta
• Maria Ernestine Anna Amélie Beate (b. 22 December 1864 in Berlin)
• Amalia Maria Anna Kunigunda Kasimira Franziska (b. 4 March 1867 in Berlin)
• Adolf Maria Maximilian (b. 18 November 1872 in Munich)

Marriage

Hauptmann Count von Montgelas married on 3 July 1897 his fiancée Pauline Mathilde Sophie Gräfin von Wimpffen (b. 28 February 1874 in Rome; d. 10 May 1961 in Rottach-Egern). She was active in the Roman Catholic women's movement, lady chairman of the Social Section of the "Bavarian State Association of the German Roman Catholic Women's League", lady chairman of the "National Commission in the Roman Catholic German Women's League" and a publicist. The marriage remained childless.

Pauline traveled to Imperial China at the end of 1900 to be with her husband. His wife used this time to travel to Mongolia, to the German leased area of ​​Kiautschou (Tsingtau), to Shanghai and up the Yangtze River to Hankou, as well as to China's southern provinces, where she visited Canton, Macau and Hong Kong. Contrary to the prevailing Zeitgeist, she had an understanding for the Chinese people and the behavior of the Imperial government. In 1905, she published in München her book Ostasiatische Skizzen. In her article Das Reich (in: "Die Christliche Frau 1933", pp. 278–284), she proclaimed her joy that Adolf Hitler would lead Germany to greatness once again.

Promotions

• 2.3.1879 Portepée-Fähnrich (Officer Cadet)
• 13.11.1880 Sekonde-Lieutenant (2nd Lieutenant)
• 1.10.1890 Premier-Lieutenant (1st Lieutenant)
• 22.2.1895 Hauptmann (Captain)
• 10.7.1900 Major
• 18.12.1903 Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel)
• 7.5.1906 Oberst (Colonel)
• 18.11.1908 Generalmajor (Major General)
• 25.5.1911 Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General)
• 25.1.1917 Charakter als General der Infanterie (Honorary General of the Infantry)

Awards, decorations and honours (excerpt)

Awards and decorations

Rangliste (rank list) 1914

• Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, Knight's Cross (IMuL4) on 5 May 1893
• Order of Saint Anna, 3rd Class (RA3) on 15 October 1895
• Baden Order of the Zähringer Lion (Orden vom Zähringer Löwen), Knight's Cross I. Class (BZL4/BZL3a) on 9 January 1899
• Military Merit Order (Bavaria), Knight's Cross I. Class with the Crown on 6 April 1901
• China Commemorative Medal (China-Denkmünze) in Bronze for combatants on 10 May 1901
• Red Eagle Order (Roter Adlerorden), 4th Class with the Crown (RAO4mKr) on 9 October 1901
• Swords to his Red Eagle Order 4th Class with the Crown (RAO4mKr⚔) on 24 October 1901
• Swords to his Military Merit Order (Bavaria) Knight's Cross I. Class with the Crown on 12 April 1902
• Württemberg Order of the Crown, Knight's Cross with Swords (WK4m.Schw.) on 12 April 1902
• Order of the Sacred Treasure, 4th Class / Officer's Cross (JpHS4) on 12 April 1902
• Order of the Double Dragon, Third Class, Second Grade (ChDDIII2)
• Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, Officer's Cross (IMuL3) on 21 April 1903
• Prussian Long Service Cross (Königlich Preußisches Dienstauszeichnungskreuz) for 25 years in 1904
• Prinz-Regent-Luitpold Jubiläums-Medaille für die Armee in 1905
• Red Eagle Order, 3rd Class with Swords on Ring on 15 November 1905
• Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown, Knight's Cross 12 October 1906
• Südwest-Afrika Denkmünze in Steel on 19 March 1907
• Military Merit Order (Bavaria), Officer's Cross on 24 October 1908
• Orden der Eisernen Krone (Österreich), Knight II. Class (ÖEK2) on 22 November 1908
• Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav, Commander I. Class (NO2a) on 15 May 1909
• Red Eagle Order, 2nd Class with the Swords on the Ring on 8 September 1909
• Military Merit Order (Bavaria), 2nd Class on 17 September 1909
• Crown to his Red Eagle Order 2nd Class with the Swords on the Ring on 9 October 1911
• Star to his Military Merit Order (Bavaria) 2nd Class on 1 March 1912

WWI

• Swords to his Military Merit Order (Bavaria), 2nd Class with Star on 11 September 1914
• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
  • 2nd Class on 16 October 1914
  • 1st Class on 14 November 1914
• Military Merit Order (Bavaria), 1st Class with Swords on 8/9 April 1915
• Military Order of Max Joseph, Knight's Cross on 8 February 1916

Honours

• Royal Bavarian Chamberlain in 1895
• Title of Exzellenz on 25 May 1911
• Honorary doctorate from the University of Munich in 1928

Gallery (China)

• 

  Graf Montgelas (2nd from right) with officers and military attachés of other nations in Peking.

• 

  The German Legation in Peking.

• 

  Graf Montgelas (second from left) with others in front of the German Embassy in Peking.

• 

  East Asian memorabilia.

Writings

• Die deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch, Charlottenbrug 1919 (together with Karl Johann Kautsky and Prof. Dr. jur. Walther Max Adrian Schücking; published at the request of the German Foreign Office; 60 editions published between 1919 and 1928)
  • Documents allemsnds relatifs à l'origine de la guerre : collection complète des documents officiels rassemblés avec quelques compléments
    • 23 editions published in 1922 in French and other languages
  • Outbreak of the World War: German Documents collected by Karl Kautsky, edited by Max Montgelas and Professor Walther Schücking. Translated by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, Oxford University Press, American branch, New York, 1924.
• Beiträge zur Völkerbundfrage, Verlag Der Neue Geist, Leipzig 1919
• Glossen zum Kautsky-Buch, Charlottenbrug 1920
• Französisch-Deutsche Diskussion über die Kriegsursachen und über den Wiederaufbau Europas, Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft, Berlin 1922 (together with Ernest Renauld and Hermann Lutz)
• Leitfaden zur Kriegsschuldfrage, De Gruyter, Berlin 1923
  • The Case for the Central Powers – An Impeachment of the Versailles Verdict, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1925; Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1928 (altogether 47 known editions in four languages)
• Russland und der Weltkonflikt, Verlag für Kulturpolitik, Berlin 1927 (together with Friedrich Stieve)
• British Foreign Policy Under Sir Edward Grey, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1928
• Frankreichs Rüstung, Historisch-politischer Verlag R. Hofstetter, Leipzig 1932
  • France's Armor
• Militärische und politische Geschichte des Weltkrieges, 1933
  • Military and Political History of the World War

Further reading

• Heinrich Kanner: Der Schlüssel zur Kriegsshuldfrage ... Nebst polemischen Artikeln von General Graf Max Montgelas, 1926