Modernization and westernization in the urban morphology of Istanbul during the late Ottoman period has frequently been presented by Turkish scholars in a linear process, linking urban development plans and later changes to the influence of historic figures, such as Helmuth von Moltke, a Prussian military adviser of the 1830s. A more holistic reading of this phenomenon based on primary sources, including letters in German by von Moltke, reveals a complex array of forces, responses and reactions, and simultaneously, a more modest and less seminal role for von Moltke in the development of the historic city.