The Irish standard., 1906-01-13

I Reports. Department of Con
x ~ copyright 1906 by the
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
One day Danish army lieutenant
longing for life in the large arena O.
empire building, wrote out his resig.
nation and handed it in at the head.
quarters of the Danish army. The
commander-in-ch chief wrote on the bacl
Of the resignation, before submitting
it to the king, who had to decide, this
significant sentence: The loss of this
young man will in no way affect the
Danish army" The king consented
the resignation was accepted. The
young lieutenant was Won Moltke.
A few years later, when Denmark
and Prussia were at war over Schles-
wig-Holstein, it was Won Moltke that
led the victorious legions that beat
Denmark at every point in that, for
Denmark, most disastrous war.
How much of madness and folly was
in that foolish army chiefs action the
world has never measured, for the
world has never taken time to look be-
hind that marvelously simple, yet
marvelously momentous act. The game
put up by the powers a few weeks ago
to browbeat Turkey into yielding up
it's control over Macedonia was met
and frustrated by Abdul Hamid's re-
fusal. Behind Abdul Hamid were the
legions trained by and under a system
invented by the Danish lieutenant Won
Moltke.
This seemingly trivial incident in the
life of young lieutenant and an arti-
Gle in an American magazine upon the
Germanization Of the world led the
writer to prepare this article, drawing
attention particularly to the piece Of
splendid work that marks the progress
of the empire from Leipsig or rather
IL Jill SAS AOAA4AAdS4446 AOu1S "uC4A
Prussia and Austria, beaten into the
dust by the Corsican, conquered, pill
LACED and Frustrated, looked about and
longed for the hand of a liberator.
That was in 1913. The humilia-
ton and degradation had come in 1907
and the bitter years preceding 1907.
Prussia had lost half her territory by
the treaty of Tilsit and was allowed a
standing army of only forty-two thou
sand men. To Father jain and Prus-
sia's greatest minister, Stein, the lay
ing of the foundations of the new era
was given. They did their work well.
They were well named, at least the
great minister, Stein, for he was in
deed the foundation stone upon which
Bismarck was to build later.
jain and Stein laid the foundations
for the future deep and solid in what
has been called the Jugend bund by
some and the Tugend bund by others.
BY either name it is worthy Of being
known. No pen can ever paint its
power. Father jain put gymnastics
into the schools. He it was, this most
wonderful Of Prussia's great school
STEMS most valiant and
trusted lieutenant, who forged the
that Won Moltke and Freder-
lex were to WELD later. A sword that
was to have the combined virtues of
Saladin's and Richards weapons.
When marching with his pupils out
under the great Brandenburg gate,
from which Napoleon had torn a mag
nif1cent Quadriga or four horse char
lot, Father jain would say to the boys
What are you thinking Of now?" If
the boy said he did not know, the
teacher boxed his ears, telling him,
Think Of the time that is coming
when you will be expected to aid in
bringing the chariot and four horses
back to Berlin" They ornament the
gate. Father Jahn's work
was we'll done.
Here In the Jugend or Tugend bund,
for both words are worth using, we
have the beginning of empire building.
Jahn's gymnastics. Arundt's patriotic
sayings, Steamboats, splendid work
in recruiting his army, turning out his
trained troops for raw material that
he soon saw trained into the thunder
bolt whose resistless power was to be
seen later in schleswig at Sadowa and
Sedan.
Behind them all, guiding them all.
was the Bismarck of that day, the
patriotic, superb statesman, Stein. But
long before Stein. Schamhorst and
Father jain had laid the foundations
Of the mightiest empire of the modern
world, Lieutenant Henry Won Bulow,
a retired Prussian officer, the greatest
genius of Germany at that
time. but maligned and much misun-
derstood man, had predicted Prussia's
downfall. Although far from a very
religious man, he assigned as the cause
of the national ignorance the atheism
and Decentralization produced by the
government of Frederick the Second
"The enlightenment" he said, 80