MARSHAL VON MOLTKE. How the Great Soldier Passes His Last Days. A PEACEFUL LIFE IN SILESIA.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 194, 12 March 1887, Page 7 (Supplement)

MARSHAL YON MOLTKE. How the Great Soldier Passes His Last Days. A PEACEFUL LIFE IN SILESIA.

A Quiet Retirement -Mourning at the Grave of a Lost Love— The Affection tho Germans Bear the Aged General Recently Yon Moltke celebrated Lie eightyeixth birthday. Ho spent the day in his Silosian castle of Kreisau — n purchase from his princely reward after ISG6 -far removed from the din and roar of the metropolis and ostentatious homage ho distasteful to his simple soldier's heart. Ho is aware of the love borne him, certain of his Kaiser's respect, bub hies away to this Silesian retreat to escape open expression of both ani pa3B his birthday unmolested. The Kreifau caetle is to him a hallowed place. In the centre of the forest park which surrounds it stands a mausoleum, which, pince IS6S, has been hie! altar — the place of Communion with his "god of battles.' It ia the tomb of bis beloved wife. Moltke is alone in the world ; no children blessed the union. And annually, when the October day returns which gave him birth, he pilgrims to the silent, sombre edifice, and at midnight sits at "his Mary's grave" quietly mourning her loaa. There the people leave him. Eighty-six years ago on October 26, lSOOrilolmut Karl yon Molt^o was born at Parehim in Mecklenburg, the home of Blucher, the immortal -' Marshal Forward." His father, Baron yon Moltke, was on the retired list of tho Prussian army, and the owner of an estato iv the grand dukedom narked. Molbke'e mother was a daughter of Herr Passhem, " Councilor of Finance in Ilamburg." It is a fact worthy of notico that both Bismarck's mother - from whom ho inherited his superior talents -and Molfcke's ware not members of the nobility, but simple burghers' daughter?, whoee genius and worth alone had made them diainguiehecJ. In fact, in tho^e days— and it showed the calibre of each of tho fathers -it required no little moral courage on a noblemin's part to marry a "burgber-madchon " subject, as ehe inevitably was, to perpetual ostracism from the blue blcodei relation h. In 180G, the year of the French I supremacy, the family lived in Lubeck, that proud Hanseatic city. Napolean had humbled Prussia in the awful battle on the heights of Jena, and Blucher retreated to Lubeck at the head of 20,000 men and ! there took his final stand. Bub Waterloo day had not yet dawned, and the victorious French forcad the Marshal from bia position after storming the city, and ordered a general plunder, which lasted thrco days. I Baron Yon Moltke's housd was most severely sacked, his property ruined, and his valuables stolen. Wroth was young I Helmut, who then made his first aci quaintance with the hated French, and made his vow to deal vengeance upon their heads ; and it; seems an act of retaliatory destiny that he should live to revenge the disgrace his father'? house had suffered. The old Councilor of Finance had also lost hh fortune by the fall of the fatherland, and the Moltke family was thrown face to face with poverty. The father, unable to eupport his largo family longer in the wonted way, requisite to his rank, entered the service of the Danish king, whore, years afterward, ho rose to the rank of lieatenautgeneral. The Bohemian life of tho soldior being ■ unfavourable for tho education of his children, the Baron introduced his two eons, Fritz and Helmut, in 1811, into the house of Pastor Knickbein in the village of Hohenfelde. And here the boys found a charming home and profitable school. "Helmut has grown somewhat too fast," said Father Knickbein in a report of his pupi!a, "and lacks the vigour of his brother Fritz, but possesses superior talent?. He is silent, aad one cannot see his qualities at a glance, but he will one day be a groat savant." During hia whole lite Moltke has remembered with glee those days in the " old manse " In 1841, when his first book was published, fulfilling in a manner the prophecy of tho Hohenfelde cccr — fOi.- Moltke is an author as well as a soldier— he sent the prime copy to hia "dear teachorand fatherly friend, to whom ho wa3 indobted for so much, as a small token of his eternal love." The HohonfelJe house, because of the Moltke assojiations, ha^ become th 6 Mecca of many soldiers, and especial attent-ion is always given a little island in the centre of a lake in the pastor's garden callod "Moltke's Island," the scene of his first etrategic victory ; for it was here, as a child, ho '■plftyed soldier w th his schoolfellows, and succeeded by an admiral piece of strategy in capturing the island from his elder brother. It really prestgad, say military judges, hia future gfGafcaeee. But these ideal Jays in tbo country parsonage wero of short duration, and the sons exchanged its comforts for the bare walls of the military academy in Copenhagen, to enter upon their martial career. They were both mere striplings. The father was so poor that spending money waa out of the question, and they grew up in the academy friendless and accustomed to every de privation. It was a training which one day came to Helmut's good, but which saddened htm then, and made him, as a youth, what history has subsequently called him, the Silent One. Even as a hoary man be wrote of these sad days with bitterness and regret, and bewailed their having been. But they too passed, and shortly after his eighteenth birthday Moltke was able to pass his examination and receive his lieutenant's patent. But he was hindered .from immediate service by a potent reason. His cadet life was that of the ordinary German soldier and his advancement slow. " You make a mistake," he once wrote a prominent journal, " if you think my life suited for brilliant description, as the poets and public love. My career is co devoid of all episodes that one might almost call it tedious, and I do not sco what the biographers could write but dates and dates again." That was hia modest way of stating what he coneidared hia lack of brilliancy. At 32 Yon Moltke wa3 made lieutenant. With hia first promotion he was transferred to the general et«ff, and has since that day never served in the front. In 1885 he eecured leave of absence for a short oriental journey, but force of circumstances extended it to four yearn. He wa3 chosen by tbe Sultan— who seems first to have racognised his pdwers — to reorganise hia army, and spent nearly half a decade as a chief adviser and counsellor His letters during this period have been published, and surpass in interest and style all German literature, and are ranked even by come with Goethe's letters from Italy. Many of his adventures seem incredible, but Turkey and its provinces were then hardly licked by the tongue of European civilisation, and the Eastern question had not assumed the importance of later years Clad in the wide breeche?, blouse, and fez of the natives, followed in every town by hordes of veiled women and children who greeted him as «« the sod of the Prince of tho West, the bringer of sweete," he pressed on to the cradle oFoiyilieation and spread his tet>t at the source of the Euphrates. Tnat

strange, romantic country taught hini the enjoyment of a cigar, now the invariable aid to hid reflections, "Formerly I could: not smoke," ha write?, " but when I made my vioifc at the War M inisi er's and i he inevitabio pipe was handed mo. thoooming^easicknej?e frightened mo. Butlbavobecomeaccuetomed toit now, and find mi fl'fibleploasureattting under adatetreoin view of mountttinandt ocean and forming linglets of emoke." .After the lapae of four >ea« Moltko bepaa his Inmeward journey. When he beheld the Black Sea again— grown strange io the interval— he cried with Xenopbon's Greeks : " ThalaUa ! Thalatta !" Long absence in that land of deprivation hid made him eveat torgiv Ihe uso of many thing?, and tha miserable vessel in which he embarked, with its excuf-e3 for tables, chair?, books, koives anJ forke, seemed more desirable than Mohammed's heaven. He returned to Berlin and was reinstated in his old position, receiving only (he order "Pour le merit" for bravery in the Turco-Egyptian war and permission to the Pultan's decoration. fcSoon afterward, though forty-two years of age, Moltke "sailed into the uncertain harbour of matrimony." The courting of the bashful Moltke wa3 ha\f done when he fell in love with the beautiful and feminine girl who made it oaey to lead her to the altar in the following winter after his promotion to the rank of major. They lived together a quarter of a century, when on Christmas evening, 1868, she died, not having lived to see her husband's greatest glory and leaving him a saddened man. His gallant services in the war with Austria are too well known to need repetition. From that time Yon Moltke'a popularity was unbounded. But he did not rest upon his sword in the daya o£ peace following Sadow3. Persuaded that Prance would look with envious eye upon the laurel-leaved march of the hated Prussians, be believed war inevitable in the near future, and the winter of 1868 9 drew up the plan of the French campaign. Masterful work was that, worthy of the maeterful mind. He studied the topography of the country till every tree, hill and houeo stood marked in that famous red building of Berlin. Every contingency was oaet and the plan of operations so thoroughly lad that it was posaibia, as in no other war to direct from "a four-walled office" the directions of a "heavy" army. Orleans, Metz, and Paris were as clear to Moltke'a mind before the French Embaesador bad left Berlin as after poor, sick Napoleon had surrendered hia sword on the field of Sedan, and the Princes of United Germany had 1 proclaimed his beloved ruler Emperor of Germany. Grand days were those wbichfollowed the unparalleled success, and evea Moltke accepted the homage of a grateful people on that glorious day in '71, when the laurel-crowned troop returned through the Brandenburg gate, with himself, Biemarck, and the King at their head. *' Our hero " wa3 created a Count and givea i $500,000 from the war debt of France, with which headded to hia beautiful estate where he recently celebrated his eighty sixth birthday. In all the intervening time the greatest j strategist of the world's history his remained in Berlin at the head of the staff* an honoured citizen of the Capital. It is & common sight to meet him slowly walking; about the city clad in his brilliant uniforn?, with the highest order of the " Iron Cross* about his neck, the moat honourable distinction in thegift of hh sovereign. Children, follow the "old schoolmaster," a^ the "junker" of Berlin have baptized him, as they once did Father Wrange.l, eager for the pennies which* ho threw, Eignty-aix >*eara of age. He is stooped now ; the ontse upright, soldierly bearing has succumbed to years and time, though he i 3 still a marvel of preservation. In the Houee of Lords, where the Emperor called him as a life member, or in the Reichstag, hi* finelychiselled, clean-shaven face, with the thin, determined lips and Roman nose, blue eyes and iron-grey hai**, form a cyno3uro for all occupants of the galleries. Ho is an ardeafc attendant of Parliamentary sessions, and rarely consults the more iavitiwg comforts of the lobby rooms and corner sofa?. And despite h«s a^e, when a military question ia on the boards, he throws off his mantle of silence, and in the role of the "old man eloquent" inspires his colleagues with an enthusiasm which Bismarck alone ia able to rival. Refp.cted by Conservative and Democrat, by high and low alike, he begins his eighty-seventh year. And to the multitude of gooi wi-hes that he has received, we add oars, tbat he may be spared for years as the Exuevor's friend and chief of staff.