GREAT MEN'S BODIES
the esteem and admiration of the service. He was acknowledged to be a bold and perceptive strategist; an excellent military adviser, and a most accomplished linguist. His proficiency in languages was so extraordinary, and his reserve and modesty so marked, that he was proverbially known throughout the Prussian army as 'The man who is silent in seven languages.' In the war with Austria over the newly acquired Elbe duchies, in 1866, he combined three Prussian armies, and used the military field telegraph so freely that he exposed the Austrian forces to simultaneous attack front and rear.
"He swept away the Austrians with his breech-loaders, and soon Königgratz was won, and the Austrian army so utterly defeated that Benedek telegraphed immediately to his sovereign, 'Sire, we must make peace.' The war was practically ended, and the unity of North Germany secured. Then came the treaty of Prague, in 1866. August 6, 1866, France demanded the fortress of Mainz from Prussia, under threat of war. Moltke's answer was a rapid march of sixty thousand men to the Rhine; then France excused herself because of the Emperor's illness. The French army was unprepared for war; was not armed with breech-loaders nor complete with men. But France was steadily arming, and Moltke knew it. He had the fullest information from France, and when the war came he was ready. France was buying corn in England for forage. On the tenth day after mobilization was ordered, the first troops were descending from the railway-carriages close to the French frontier; and on the thirteenth day, sixty thousand combatants were put there in position; and on the eighteenth day this force would be swelled to three hundred thousand men. Iron discipline knit the Prussian soldiers; previous victories gave entire confidence in their leaders; and a high sense of duty and self-denial pervaded the ranks. The French had enthusiasm and gallantry, but less discipline. Luxuriant ideas prevailed; many officers were wanting in high military education; but France had the Chassepot rifle, which was superior in range and accuracy to the needle-gun, which was, like it, a breech-loader."
Naturally delicate, till his friends feared consumption, he educated his body, too.
The London Times says: "Moltke's iron constitution,
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