VON MOLTKE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 208, 3 September 1877, Page 4

VON MOLTKE.

The following very interesting sketch of Von Moltke is the work of a Frenchman, and of course should be taken cum grrno salts :— Von Moltke was bora in Mecklenburg, and is of just the same &$e aa the present century. Of Danish origin, he has been instrumental in the cutting down and humiliation of Denmark. la 1824 he entered the service of Prussia. Without fortune, and although a gentleman by birth, having no aristocratic connections, ho served for many log yeats in the inferior grades. But he commenced at onoe a system of observation which led in time to create, through a pure eclecticism, from the beat materials and systems afforded by every country, the enormous military edifioe of Prussia. The recent publication of the works of the chief of the staff, and the private letters of the Fi@ld Marshal complete the labors of Von Moltke, and enable the world to estimate his, exact value. . Having been sent to the Orient to organise the Turkish army, he addresaed from thence a series of letters to Mrs Bute, his sieter, who was married to aa Englishman — the series whose publication has achieved a grand success. In the case of the present publication, it is probably the fact that the Field-Marshal has revised and corrected the work of the Captain. Nevertheless, people can recognise in theee early efforts, his keen, unemotional glance, and the vigorous sobriety of his manner. After having seen his first efforts evolving brightness through the crudity of the Orient, he went to Holßtein to rest, for awhile at the house of his siater. .He there met a young girl not yet quite sixteen years old, the daughter of a former marriage of Bute, the husband of his sister. She already loved blindly and from afar, the soidier who had penned such interesting letters from the Orient. Until then Von Moltke, had never seen among women any who could influence the even tenor of hie methodic life. But when a man of more than forty years is loved by a young girl of sixteen, he finishes by falling in love. When such a one comes be is lost. ' " It can be said of him that he lias been a man of but one woman, as he has been of but one idea. When Countess Von Moltke, nee Mary Bute, djed f the Field-Marshal could aay that his life as to woman was ended. From | that time there remained only the | soldier. It wae the latter ..whom we j saw two years later in France, Lard, dark, bitter, cold, taciturn. He interred hie wifa in his park, in Siberia. Upon the white marble is chiseled iv black letters the sentence, " Love is the fulfilment of the law." This word " love," at the end of this military life, makes itself heard like the giant of a nightmare at evening, from a field of battle. The war broke out between us and him. Von Moltke had ben ready for it two years. However, he was not J the man sure of victory that was conspicuous in 1866. He had visited ou foot what he believed would be the future field of battle. It was upon Prussian soil ! He calculated that the French army, badly balanced, would march rapidly, like a man who runs because he is too light to walk. He counted upon a system which consisted in reviewing the same battle. He said " The French have not breath enough to beat us three times the same day." All this was given in a conversation j which he had at that time with an English statesman. At the outset he ! mauceuvred behind a curtain, which remiuds one of those tapestries of the harem behind which the women can see I without being seen. He above all estimated us supreme the value of the moral effect. Against alt military principles, the great strategist wished at the outset to receive the attack. King William opposed. Ha labored for victory at the beginning. That was everything, as ha well kuew. If we j had gained the first battle we would also have gained the last. It has been said that our army couid ' no longer inarch, because it had no military music. It w«.s then (but Frauce catered upon the real current of the maelstrom. But what came as victor will bo signed in hietory to these results? Will it be that of Von Moltke ? No ; because he was only the manager of. the gre^t war-making firm. The conqueror of France is a collective and impersonal being. It was the stature of King William, the luuga of Biduiarck, the arms of the Prince Imperial and Prince Frederick Charles, and the head of Von Mokke, This epoch of blaughiur for so many of our people shalf ' not be charged to any singly German name. Von Moltke oaunofc aloue aubacritjd to ft victory, aa Wopoleon could to Austerlitz. Even Bismarck caunot subscribe to this Prussian accomplishment, as eorneille signed " The Old." Surely, no oce more than myselr feels the common wouud. It op«us yet every time that the armies jj&hs beueuth my windows. However, I believe that I should be engaged iv petty work were I to endeavor to dwarf Von Moltke because he was a conqueror. One should not hida a heart wounded wiiLx patriotic griei'a aay more than he should conceal tt standard which has been ]cut aud torn by the thunderbolts ot an honorable battle. £ Sake it to be a more exact estimate to say that Von Mot ike resembles less Cseaar than the Famous Ltihourdoaaaid, who could play live games of chess at oaoe without seeing

iany one of the boards. lie had neither jthß oversight nor the swiftness necessary for an actual battle. He is not ao improvisator of war. The slowness of his late victories will astonish history muoh more than will the rapidity of his early ones. The siege of Paris reflected do more honor upon him than did its defence upon the city, which, although badly directed, preserved intact the national genius. Victor Eraanuel was right when he said of Von Moltke. «He is tho topography of genuis." I will add that he is superior to Bismarck in the weight of his temperament. Never has there been any one who united in himself so intimately (be synthetic force and that of analysis. But he is not of that " divine race of commanders " spoken of by Bossuet. The colossal Krupp guns found in him an artillerist who was competent to handle them. One saw him last winter at Berlin, tall aud bent, placing alooe Uoter den Linden. Clad in a Jong military overcoat, whose high collar came up to his eara, with his bauds locked behind hia back, he astonished strangers, who saw officers aud soldiers stop and salute respectfully this curious being. One would have said he was some genius wboae glance transformed men into wood. In the morning, at his own house, he gives audience to hisaoldiery, of whom like Caesar, he knows the names. At the Reichstag he listens. If anyone attacks the army or its discipline he spesks. Then his voice, hollow and distinct, breaks with rugged monotony on the ears of hia auditory — like a sledge-hammer upon a post — hurling weighty aphorisms of that contemporary logic Force. During the summer he becomes a gentleman farmer, as wbb Cavour. His private modus vivendi is identical with that of Gortchakoff and Thiere. Next, closely buttoned in his uniform, which he never lays aaide; loving his superb horses, which he visits each mornin* in their elegant stables, above everything a soldier. Bismarck seems more a statesman than a soldier. The iron face of the Chancellor strikes the observer with force. That of the FieldrMarshal is one which ha retains without losing. Von Molike h»e preserved a grievance against France. It is my tack to explain this grievance. When before Paris he selected a point of observation of which no one baa ever spoken. It was at Mootretoul, near the location of a battery. At the junction of the main route was a small cross road which descends to Versailles. Thia point, which was under the fire of Mount Valerian, was abandoned by both parties. The FieldMarshal went there often. He examined often and at great length the city which was extended before him. Behind him, to the left was Mount Valerian, the lightning rod of Paris. Below hisi was the cupola of the Invalides, which, said Bismarck, resembles the gilded Prussian helmet, la the distance were occasional cannon shots, which were lightly borne to the ear by the echo, like the barking of some enormous dog which dreams. In the same way Meyerbeer selected an extreme arm-chair, in the third floor of the old Opera, in order to listen to the performance of his works. It was thus also that Moses, from a high mountain, looked over the promised land. Von Moltke could not enter this promised land. He had to stop his horse before the obelisk of Luxor, which rose before him like a boundary of chalk. He has never forgiven the ill-fortune which prevented him from entering the glorious city whose sunrises and sunsets he had watched from the heights of Montretoul.