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Count Alfred von Waldersee
ALFRED LUDWIG HEINRICH KARL GRAF VON WALDERSEE (1832-1904) was a German field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) who became Chief of the Imperial German General Staff. Born on 8 April 1832 in Potsdam i...view moreALFRED LUDWIG HEINRICH KARL GRAF VON WALDERSEE (1832-1904) was a German field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) who became Chief of the Imperial German General Staff. Born on 8 April 1832 in Potsdam into a prominent military family, von Waldersee saw distinguished service as an artillery officer, and became Prussian military attaché at the Paris embassy in 1870. This gave him insight into the French defences that would prove crucial in the upcoming Franco-Prussian War, in which he played a significant role. Later, as principal assistant to Field-Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, von Waldersee gained influence with the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, who promoted him Chief of Staff on his accession. In 1898, he was appointed inspector-general of the Third Army at Hanover. When the Peking legation compound was besieged by the Boxer insurgents in 1900, von Waldersee was appointed as head of an 8-nation relief force. Although he arrived too late to take part in the fighting, he conducted punitive expeditions which succeeded in pacifying the Boxers. At the end of the campaign, he resumed the duties of inspector-general in Hanover, which he performed almost until his death there on March 5, 1904, aged 71.
FREDERIC WHYTE (1867-1941) was an English editor, reviewer and translator. He worked for the British book publishing houses Cassell & Co. and Methuen Publishing and was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Born in 1867 and educated at Stonyhurst, he moved to Sweden during World War I, where he married Karin Lilja, of Jönköping, in 1916. In 1925, he published The Life of W.T. Stead, followed by a memoir on publishing house founder William Heinemann (1928), A History of the Queen’s Bays (The 2nd Dragoon Guards) 1685-1929 (1930), and the autobiographical A Bachelor’s London: Memories of the Day Before Yesterday, 1889-1914 (1931). He died at Djursholm, outside Stockholm, in 1941.view less