The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-04-26
HOW Won MoLTKE won VICTORIES.

Two features in the life of the late Gen
eral Won Moltke were conspicuous. He did
not show the stuff that was in him till long
after he had passed middle age. Other great
soldiers have ripened late. Caesar was 80
when he established his fame by his CAM
paign in Gaul. Marlborough was IS when
he won the battle of Blenheim. But Won
Moltke was Co at Sadowa, and up TO that
time he had only been known by the public
as painstaking staff officer. The range Of
his capacity had been only OWNED by Bis
marck and a few others, who discovered
below the surface OF him who was silent
in seven languages" an executive power
that amounted to genius.
In the next place, Won Moltke never
showed at any period of his life that fash
ing fire, that meteOric inspiration which
marked the strategy of Napoleon ana Han
nibal. He organized victory by an intricate
network of calculations, which were ba ed
on the axiom that Providence is always on
the side of the heaviest battalions. There
was no divine affiatuS in his tactics. They
were cold arithmetical calculations. He
took the private, saw that he had his arms
and accOuterments within reach, his car
trldge-belt full of cartridges of the right
caliber, and his rifle in serYiceahle order,
and he knew how many minutes it took to
turn him out ready for action. Then
he figured, to a minute, how long it
would take to collect a whole company
of such privateS on a given spot, and how
much time would be consumed in cOnceu-
trating tour such companies into battalion,
three such battalIons into regiment, two
regiments into brigade, two brigadeS into
a division. His division mustered on one
spot, he knew to an hour how long it would
take him to fling it upon threatened point,
or to move it TO the spot where it would
unite with other divisions to form army
corps and an army. He knew the roads the
separate parts must take, how fast, and by
what cOnveyances other than marching, it
could be moved This knowledge involved
an acquaintance with details which no other
great General ever possessed. Napoleon
was master Of detail, but he did not ap-
pTOach Won Moltke in minute accuracy.
His calculations were so exhaustive in
1870 that he knew to within a mile or two
where the two armies must meet. and he
also knew that at the point Of contact there
would be three Germans TO two Frenchnien.
1t could not be otherwise. He knew TO
battalion how many men he could concen-
trate at the point on the day set; and he
assumed that his enemy would collect every
available man at the same point If he had
made any mistake, the battles of Woerth
and Gravelotte would have been won by
the French, and the Germans would have
been thrown back on the Rhine; for the
French heart was deeply engaged in the
strife. With him the result was a game at
chess: he predicted checkmate in a given
number of moves, with the absolute conf
dence of a player who has worked out all
the possible combinations, and knows that
there is no error in his calculations.
His conduct Of the siege of Paris showed
that he understood the practical side of war.
Though the French capital was hermeti-
cally sealed, people could roam the fau-
bourgS up to a certain line without seeing
besIeger. The German ritle-barrels were
carefully creased, so that they did not reflect
the sunlight, and the sentres we're hid in
cottages, barns and bushes. When the wan
derer reached a certain point he was chal-
lenged by an unseen sentry. If he parleyed
a corpora's guard turned out to investigate.
If he became troublesome company sud
denly confronted him; if it appeared that
he was picket a regiment turned out, and
within a few minutes a brigade, a division,
with a park of artillery, were on hand,
ready to try conclusions with n party at
tempting a sortie. Won Moltke's policy was
to secure the utmost degree of effectiveness
with the least demonstration.
Contemporary soldiers, studying the art
of war by the Light of his methods, are
sometimes inclined to think that MOD ern
improved weapons of precision are going to
put an end to battles in the field. The
secret of success in modern warfare is mo-
6lization-swift, complete, thorough mohil-
Zati0n The nation which can place 100000
men at the inevitable point of contact can
with modern weapons inevitably win a
battle over en- enemy which can only place
100000 men at that point. Then why fight
the battle2