Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1886-03-13
HELMUTH Won MOLTKE
Greatest and Most Successful of Living
Soldiers.

Count Helmuth Won Moltke, Chiel
Marshall of the German Empire, and
chief of the general staff, was born in
Hecklenburg on October 26, 1900. He
belongs to ali old family who had their
seat for centuries in the place where he
was born. While he was boy his faith
er settled on an estate Holster, then In
Denmark. He and brother were sent
to Copenhagen to receive military educ
alton, and in 1922 he entered the Prus-
sian army as a cornet after period of
study in the Prussian Military Acadmy.
About this time he was left to his own
resources, his parents having lost all their
fortune. By the utmost frugality he
managed, however, on only to live on
his slender stipend as an officer in the
Prussian army, but to save the cost of
instruction in the modern languages,
thus acquiring what has proved to lie of
great use to him.
AS member of the general staff he
passed seven years in Turkey, where he
served in one campaign. He returned to
Prussia in 1915, when he was appointed
adjutant to Prince Henry. Several works
from his pen, descriptive Of what he saw
in Turkey, were published about this time,
anonymously, and provoking consider
able interest After rapid promotion
in the subordinate offices, in 1858 Won
Moltke was made chief of the grand
general staff of the Prussian army. The
next year he became lieutenant gen.
eral.
In the successful wars with Denmark,
1S63-64, with Austria, 1866, and France
1S7O-71, Won Moltke's strategical powers
were of the greatest service to the side
he served. He not only sketched the plan
of these campaigns, but assisted in carry
ing them out. For his services against
Austria in 1866, especially as holding the
chief command at the decisive battle of
Sadowa, he was decorated with the order
of the Black Eagle. His title of Count
was given him in 1870, the same year in
which he was decorated with the order
of st. George, the highest military de-
coration of Russia. The year following,
1871, the Emperor of Germany conferred
on him the grand cross of the order
of the Iron Cross, and made him chief
marshal of the German Empire.
Won. Moltke is very tall, thin man,
with light yellowish hair, and a sallow,
beardless, wrinkled face, out of which
shine pair of stony gray eyes. AS seen
abroad, he is wrapped long, dark mill
tary coat, cap on his small head, and
faultlessly dressed in a generals uniform.
He walks slowly and noiselessly and
alone, unaccompanied even by a servant.
Every one who meets him looks at him
attentively. If the passer-by is a soldier
he stands on one side and salutes. The
old general returns the salute slowly
and deliberately, but apparently without
seeing to whom.
His wife died some years ago, he
never had child, and his nearest rela-
tions, with the exception of nephew and
a niece, seem to be kept at distance by
him. He is known as Moltke, the Silent,
and his appearance is SO mysteriously
quiet and cold that he seems to be the
incarnation of concentrated thought.
No one, it is said, has ever seen Count
Won Moltke excited, not even at Sedan,
where the greatest victory of modern
times decided the fortunes of the two
most powerful empires of the continent.
On the battlefield his cold, clear eye
passed slowly from one point to the 9th
er, and his cold, clear mind weighted the
chances of victory and defeat with the in
tensity and serenity of mathematician
bordering over the solution of some
grave problem.