The Forum.

JUNE, 1891.

VON MOLTKE AND FUTURE WARFARE.

WAR is wont to be associated with the physical rather than the intellectual or moral qualities. The idea of youth and strength and ardor is coupled with the military profession. Alexander at the Granicus, Scipio at Zama, Napoleon in '96, McClellan in '62, represent to the popular fancy the typical soldier. But war, from the standpoint of the captain, is primarily an intellectual process. The successful conduct of a campaign requires, first, exceptional mental powers; next, moral qualities of high order; and, last, a physique to withstand the drain of unremitting mental and nervous tension. The gladiatorial courage which prompted the little Roman legionary to close in upon the burly Teuton with the sword, or the prize-fighting pluck which carried the Guards through the day at Waterloo, are not as essential to the captain as the moral force which on the broad strategic field helps him to push his own scheme home despite the threatening maneuvers of his opponent, which on the narrower field of battle enables him to risk the lives of thousands of his men upon the result of a calculation, or to watch with equipoise the compromising movements of his adversary, or to hold back his battalions for the supreme moment; are not as essential as that self-reliance which prompts him to great undertakings and sustains him through their performance.

Copyright, 1890, by the Forum Publishing Company.

Though there have been notable examples of great achievement by men under middle age, they are rather the exception than the rule. The most brilliant work is not usually done early in life. Alexander destroyed the Persian Empire at twenty-six; but Hannibal was in the forties when he held head against Fabius, Marcellus, and Nero; Cæsar was in the fifties when he defeated Pompey and his lieutenants; and Frederick was of equal age at the close of the Seven Years' War. Intellectual activity in peace is sometimes exhibited at an age which saps the physical powers to the core. But this is not the power called for by the kaleidoscopic changes of the drama of war. While the greatest military feats have as a rule been performed in middle life, it is rare that strength-mental, moral, and physical-is preserved to the biblical limit of years; and in military annals there is perhaps no one who has shown the ability to handle vast problems, to conceive and execute perplexing operations, to so great an age as the distinguished German captain who has recently passed from among us.

Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke was born in the first year of the century which was to make Prussia a great power and to erect upon a sound pedestal the structure of the German Empire. His father had been in the Prussian army, but when the pride of Frederick's kingdom was humbled at Jena, he had entered the service of Denmark. Helmuth's youth was one of poverty. Without the assistance of the government he could not have accomplished his studies at the Copenhagen Military Academy, and his genius might have been lost to arms. At the age of twenty-two von Moltke entered the service of Prussia, and ten years later he was assigned to the general staff with rank of first lieutenant. Here he remained, affording the spectacle, natural enough to the student of war but strange to him who associates war only with the clash of arms, of a man who never commanded troops, was never in a great battle until past sixty, who devoted himself solely to the administrative part of the profession, and yet who became one of the greatest strategists of modern times, and is perhaps the father of the coming system of war. From 1835 to 1839 von Moltke was given leave to serve in Turkey, where the army was being reorganized on a Prussian

basis. During this period he exhibited great engineering and administrative talent and wrote a volume on oriental matters which is still an authority.

For many years succeeding the desolation of the Napoleonic wars, the nations of Europe lay fallow to recuperate from the drain to which, for either attack or defense, the great Corsican had put the entire civilized world. During all this time, which covered the period of Moltke's life from early manhood well into middle age, the Prussian staff officer was unremitting in his labors. He had become an adept in all the details of his profession, had assimilated the lessons of history, had utilized in arms the modern talent for invention, had mastered the language of every country of Europe and learned its capacity for war; and though at forty-two he was only a major of the general staff, he was known as one of the most accomplished men of the Prussian service. Still no one gave him credit for the wonderful resources that he was to be called on to display at a period of life when in our army an officer has long been retired for age.

In 1845 von Moltke had the opportunity of going to Italy on the staff of Prince Henry, who resided in Rome for several years, but on the death of the prince he returned to his former duties. In 1858 his abilities finally earned him the position he had honestly won. He was made chief of the grand general staff, and a year later he was promoted to be lieutenant-general. What he has done as such is the history of the man, of Prussia, and of Germany.

Field Marshal von Moltke was of slender build and appeared taller than he really was. Unlike the heavily-muscled Teuton, he more nearly resembled an American Anglo-Saxon-spare, but active and alert and of great endurance. His habits were simple, his dress was plain, his manners were quiet and reserved. He was "silent in seven languages." Nothing could excite him or throw him off his equipoise. Of the numerous decorations conferred upon him, he habitually wore only the Iron Cross. His habits were methodical, and he was able to apply himself continuously for a great number of hours. No man was ever more familiar with every detail of the service than he. His one work in life was to make the Prussian army perfect as a fighting.

machine, and every study, all accumulated knowledge, tended to this end. He was married in 1843, and his happiness centered in his home life until his wife died in 1868. He then sought labor as a relief from sorrow, and the result of his retirement was shown in the mobilization of 1870.

arms.

Moltke was the legitimate successor of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The astonishing victories of Frederick and the efficient army he left behind him were mainly due to the genius of this "Last of the Kings." The splendid army inherited from his father had been ground into powder during the Seven Years' War. What he left was not a Prussian army, but an aggregation of all nationalities organized and disciplined to an exceptional state of effectiveness. When the lamp of Frederick's genius went out, the army was left in darkness, and it was speedily disintegrated. Half a generation later the national movement of France gave the world the keynote of the modern system of war; Bonaparte appeared and carried it forward to perfection, and at Jena showed the world that Frederick's army without Frederick, albeit governed by his rules, was powerless against the mighty blows of a new genius backed by a people in After repeated disasters, the Treaty of Tilsit limited the army of Prussia to 42,000 men. But the bitter lesson proved of use. The great minister, Stein, began to evolve financial order from the wreck, and Scharnhorst conceived the system by which each recruit entered service for a short instead of a long enlistment, and, once made a soldier, was sent back to the plow or the counter, ready in case of need. The patriotism and homogeneity of the Prussian people, stung to the quick by humiliating defeats, admirably seconded this plan, and such men as Gneisenau and Clausewitz carried forward the work. In six years a complete transformation had been effected, and the Prussian armies, which in 1813-15 contributed to the overthrow of Napoleon, were national to the pith. Thenceforward the organization of the Prussian army ripened. Compulsory personal service of three years with the colors and further terms with the reserve and landwehr became and remained the law. To this day there has been no cessation of army discipline, and the campaigns of 1866 and 1870 show the legitimate outcome.