The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Rüstow, Wilhelm

RÜSTOW, Wilhelm, a German military writer, born in Brandenburg, May 25, 1821. He joined the army in 1838, and became an officer of engineers. He was indicted in 1850 for a publication on the military condition of Germany and fled to Zürich, where he was employed as a teacher and a major in the army, In 1860 he joined Garibaldi in Sicily, and afterward returned to Switzerland. In conjunction with Köchly he has written Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens (Aarau, 1852), and translations and commentaries relating to Greek military writers (2 vols., Zürich, 1854-'5). He has also written on Julius Cæsar's military operations and Napoleon III.'s history of the same, on the first Napoleon's campaigns in Italy and Germany, on the Crimean war, and on the Franco-German war of 1870-'71. Prominent among his theoretical works are: Die Feldherrnkunst des 19. Jahrhunderts (Zürich, 1857; 2d ed., 1866); Geschichte der Infanterie (2 vols., Gotha, 1857-'8); Allgemeine Taktik (Zürich, 1858); Militärisches Handwörterbuch (2 vols., 1859; supplement, 1867); and Strategie und Taktik der neuesten Zeit (1872).—His brothers Alexander and Cäsar, Prussian officers, both killed in battle in 1866, were also authors of military works.