Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-09-06
THE PRUsSIAN SYSTEM OF AN
OVERWHELMING FORCE AND
A SINGLE CAMPAIGN.

II =
OVERWHELMING FORCE AM
A SINGLE CAMPAIGN.
In the examples of Prussia in her We
of 1866 against Austria, and in her pres
ent war against France, the New for
HerGld says modern warfare, in one re
spect at least has returned to the SISTER
which prevailed among the nations o
Western Asia nearly three thousand year
sgo-that is, Che arning and marching t
the field of the able-bodied men of tn
nstien en- 1sosse, and the settlement o.
the dispute involved in single campaign
Thus in Holy Writ, in the first book O
the Jewish Chronicles in a campaigI
of that nation against the Syrians, whel
King David was informed of their move
ments che gathered all Israel, and passe,
over Jordan, and came upon them, AM
set the battle in array against them. S,
when David had put the battle in ARA,
against the Syrians, they fought with him
But the Syrians fled before Israel; ant
David slew of the Syrlans seven thous
and men which fought in chariots, ant
forty thousand footmen, and killed Shop
bach, the captain of The host. And wher
the servants of Hadarezer saw that they
were put to the worse before Israel, they
made peace with David, and became hi:
servants. 1s..
As David, in that decisive campaign
against the Syrians, gathered all Israel,
and passed over Jordan" SO King
William, in this campaign against
France, has gathered all Ger
many and passed over the Rhine.
Thus, with all our modern improvements,
we find that modern warfare is returning
to the system which prevailed some thirty
centuries ago in Western Asia, when
Europe, as far as known to the civilized
world of that day, was known only as a
wilderness of savages. But the modern
revival of this ancient system of march
ing the able-bodied men of the nation
en- n1dS8e to battle does not belong to
Prussia; for in our late stupend0us
civil war it was found that, with
the overthrow of the Rebel
Confederate States, the loyal States of the
Union had eleven hundred thousand armed
men in the field They were there be-
cause the national administration had at
last adopted the wish of the loyal States
TO make the war short, sharp, overwhelm-
ing and decisive.
Prussia followed this example in her
short and decisive campaign against Aus
tria, says the Herald, and in this war
against France she has only, with larg er
area to draw upon, followed the same
plan of operations. With half a million
of men on the soil of France she has
dwarfed the grandest campaigns of Ma
poleon the First and overthrown all
the calculations of Napoleon the
Third. He went into this war, no doubt,
suppOsIng that French army of two or
three hundred thousand men would be
ample for all the requirements Of victo-
riOus march to Berlin. The uncle had
overrun the continent with an active force
in his immediate command seldom ex-
ceeding a hundred thousand men, and
why, with French soldiers, armed with
their superior modern weapons, could not
the nephew do the same thing2 Had he
not seen, from their achievements in Alge-
ria, in the Crimes, in Italy and in Mexico.
that the soldiers of France were
as invincible under the second as
under the first empire. While we
see, however, that in these estimates
Napoleon was wide of the mark, we know
that Prussia had expected this thing, that
from the day of her treaty of peace with
Austria she had been preparing for war
with France, and was ready. at a mo-
ment's warning, with an overwhelming
force, to ''carry the war into Africa"
So sure, meantime, was Napoleon of
the perfection of his plans for the march
to Berlin, that when Mcmahon, with his
splendid army column of fifty thousand
men, moved out of Strasbourg, the En-
peror awaited at Metz the expected news
of the crossing of that column over the
Rhine by pontoons at some favorable
point between Snasbourg and Woerth.
But from the disastrous rout of that col
umn at WOerth the overwhelming Ger
man army doubled up the whole French
line and changed at once its forward
march from Berlin backward to Paris.
From that day the whole French army
has been pushed back until the original
left and center under Bazaine are shut up
in the fortress of Metz, and the original
right under Mcmahon after being pushed
northward against the Belgian frontier,
has been captured at Sedan.