Karl Freiherr von Müffling

Friedrich Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Müffling, called Weiss (12 June 1775 – 10 January 1851) was a Prussian Generalfeldmarschall and military theorist. He served as Blücher's liaison officer in Wellington's headquarters during the Battle of Waterloo and was one of the organizers of the final victory over Napoleon. After the wars he served a diplomatic role at the Congress of Aix-la-Chappelle and was a major contributor to the development of the Prussian General Staff as Chief. Müffling also specialized in military topography and cartography.

Born in Halle, Müffling entered the Prussian army in 1790.

In 1799 Müffling contributed to a military dictionary edited by Lieutenant W. von Leipziger, and in the winter of 1802-1803, being then a subaltern, he was appointed to the newly formed general staff as quartermaster-lieutenant. He had already done survey work, and was now charged with survey duties under the astronomer Franz Xaver, Baron Von Zach (1754–1832). In 1805, when in view of a war with France the army was placed on a war footing, Müffling was promoted captain and assigned to the general staffs, successively, of General von Wartensleben, Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher.

In 1806 Müffling served under Hohenlohe, Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and Blücher, and was included in the capitulation of the latter's corps at Ratekau on 7 November 1806, the day after the Battle of Lübeck. After this he entered the civil service of the Duke of Weimar. He rejoined the army on the outbreak of the War of Liberation in 1813, and was placed on the headquarters staff of the army of Silesia. His business qualities and common sense were greatly valued, though the temperamental differences between Müffling and August von Gneisenau often led to friction, especially as the former was in a measure the representative of the antiquated topographical school of strategists, to whom (rightly in the main) the disaster of the Battle of Jena was attributed. In the interval between the first occupation of Paris and the Hundred Days, Müffling served as chief of the staff to the Russian General Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly and to General Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorf. He was Prussian commissioner at the Duke of Wellington's headquarters in the Waterloo campaign, and was involved in the various controversies which centred round the events at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

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