THE

INTERNATIONAL CYCLOPÆDIA.

MR

OLTKE, HELLMUTH CARL BERNHARD, Count von, was born, October 26, 1800, at Parchim, in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Having entered the Danish Service as a cadet at an early age, he sought and obtained a discharge as soon as he was of age, and at once entered the Prussian army (1822), being assigned to duty on the staff in which he remained until 1835, when the Sultan Mahmud asked the temporary assistance of Prussian officers in the reorganization of the Turkish Army, and Moltke was one of those who were appointed to this service. By the Sultan's request he was allowed to remain in Turkey till 1839, when, on Mahmud's death, he returned to the Prussian staff. In this interval he had advised and directed the improvement of the Turkish fortresses in Bulgaria, and the intelligence with which this had been done was very significantly acknowledged by the Russians during the Crimean War in 1854. On his return home he published in 1841 a memoir on the condition of Turkey, which is still an authority. For some time after this, his life presents no striking incidents, since the long peace which followed the downfall of the first Napoleon continued unbroken, and though all the great Powers kept up their immense standing armies, there was little for the ambitious staff officer to do but to perfect the administration of the peace establishment and train himself in the theory of his art. At forty-two, Moltke was only major in the staff, though noted as an officer who was reported to have mastered and well digested everything that had been written on the art of war, ancient or modern. He had practical familiarity and easy use of seven languages, and was a clear-headed and indefatigable student who had the genius of system, and the rare faculty of enforcing his own ideas of order and accuracy without losing the character of amiability and comradeship. His talents were recognized, and for the thirteen years preceding 1859 he was for the most part the military adjutant of one of the royal princes, or chief of staff of a corps. At the last-named date he was made Chief of Staff of the Army with the rank of Lieutenant-General, and then, as he was entering his sixtieth year, an age at which the majority of men have finished the important portion of their life's work, his great career may be said to have begun.

The thorough reorganization and perfection of the Prussian army as a great military engine was the task on which Moltke brought to bear all the powers of his wonderfully comprehensive intellect. Since 1850, when the so-called Olmütz incident" showed the weakness of the Prussian military preparation, this work was pressed steadily forward. A succession of energetic and able war-ministers, among whom the last and greatest was von Roon, succeeded in bringing the organization to a high pitch of accuracy and harmony, and Moltke's pre-eminence consists in his being the man to direct and handle the great army in actual war, with a systematic skill in strategy and a strength of grasp in the multitudinous details, which should be worthy of the splendid organization itself. King William doubtless spoke from his own complete knowledge of the fact, when in the banquet after the surrender at Sedan, he toasted Gen. von Roon as the minister who had whetted the sword of Germany, and Gen. von Moltke as the arm that had wielded it.

Moltke's method of wielding it, however, was only possible by reason of his having prepared the way for it by a long course of education and discipline of the officers who were to carry out any plan of campaign. He was himself a lucid and attractive lecturer, and succeeded in inspiring the staff schools with an enthusiastic interest in their work. He systematized the knowledge efficient officers should possess, put them in the way of getting at it in every department, and taught them how to make it practically available. A constant interchange of line and staff duties kept the staff at ease in the actual discipline, drill, and handling of troops, and in the administration of the business of each corps and division. Special talents were marked and recognized wherever they appeared. He made a study of the cause and cure of the common discrepancy between the nominal and actual numbers in an army. The detailing of men from the ranks for

administrative duties was practically abolished. Teamsters were enlisted for that duty, and formed a corps by themselves, including a certain number of train guards. Stretcherbearers and ambulance men were organized in the same way. So were hospital attendants and the like. The battalion must mean so many effective men under arms whenever a campaign should open.

Nothing was left to chance; little to the invention or the inspiration of the moment. It was intended that the arms of the Prussian soldier should be, if possible, better than those of his enemy-at least they should be as good. It was intended that his drill, equipment, physical condition, and mental and moral forces should all be superior. It was intended that a superior number of these equally brave, equally strong, equally armed men should meet the enemy at the critical points. The means of locomotion by railway or on foot, the scientific use of these means, the capacity of trains, the endurance of men's bodies, were all calculated as the physicist calculates forces and resistances in the laboratory, and were perfected with a scientific care which should make the practical campaign in the field as certain to realize the plan as the skillful professor's experiment in public realizes the theory elaborated in his study. In all this Moltke was the professor of the art of war; the army, the staff, the telegraph, and all the tremendous military engines of modern warfare were the apparatus by which he exhibited to the world the startling demonstration of the scientific distinction of a dynasty and a great military power. He did not appear with dazzling decorations at the head of the army in the field; a plain, thoughtful man in his cabinet, out of sight of the troops and out of hearing of the guns (for the most part), manipulated the wires which carried orders as they might have carried an explosive spark to a mine or a torpedo.

The first test of von Moltke's qualities as a soldier in the field, and of the efficiency of the great military machine that he directed and controlled, was given in the petty war between Denmark and the Austro-Prussian alliance in the conquest by the latter in 1864 of the Schleswig-Holstein provinces of Denmark. This was but a small matter, however, as the Danes were overwhelmingly outmatched from the outset. The first grand display of the Prussian commander's genius was in the so-called Seven Weeks' War between Prussia in alliance with Italy, on the one hand, and Austria and the SouthGerman States on the other, terminating in the great battle of Königgrätz or Sadowa, in which von Moltke defeated the Austrian general, Benedek so completely as to put an end to the war. For this splendid feat of arms, he was decorated with the Order of the Black Eagle, and received from the Prussian parliament a grant of 500,000 marks. The Franco-German war of 1870–71 (q.v.) was the occasion of the crowning triumph of his career. The war had been expected, and every detail had been carefully studied out by the great general. The story is told that after the French emperor had telegraphed his declaration of war, Moltke was awakened by an aide, and informed of the news. Open the third drawer on the left, and you will find the plan for the campaign," returned Moltke, and turning over, fell asleep again. And so he did not enter France until the victories at Wörth and on the heights of Spicheren had been won; till the armies of Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles were under the walls of Metz, and the army of the Crown Prince was turning the line of the Moselle by the south. Yet in a strategic point of view, the campaign was already decided; the French were put upon a passive defensive, and the blows followed each other with such relentless continuity and force that no opportunity was given for new combinations or for reorganization. The French Emperor had thought that he was ready and could seize the initiative as the first Napoleon had done. Gen. Leboeuf, his chief of staff, had assured him that all was prepared, to the last gaiter-button," but a single month taught him a sad lesson as to the true meaning of military preparation.

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The entire war, from Wörth to Sedan, and from Sedan to the capitulation of Paris was, as is well known, a succession of brilliant victories for the German arms. Moltke's combinations were carried out with a certainty and a precision that seemed almost miraculous. For these services he was rewarded in September, 1871, by promotion to the rank of Marshal; a second grant of money, and the title of Count was conferred upon him in 1872. The Czar of Russia also decorated him with the Order of St. George; and the German Emperor gave him the Grand Cross of the Order of the Iron Cross.

Von Moltke retired from active service in August, 1888, being succeeded by Count von Waldersee; but the Emperor made him President of the National Defense Commission. It was a singular tribute to his powers, that when almost ninety years old, the whole world as well as his own countrymen looked to him to conduct a new campaign, if war should occur, without a thought as to his age or a doubt that his action would be as vigorous as if he were but forty.

In October, 1890, his ninetieth birthday was celebrated by an immense torchlight procession in Berlin in which more than 10,000 persons took part, and by general rejoicings throughout the empire. Soon after, Count von Moltke retired to his estates, where some months later he died, on the 24th of April, 1891.

Count von Moltke was physically slight, of an unassuming appearance, with smooth face and a slight stoop. His demeanor was one of a natural reserve, and his taciturnity was proverbial, so that the Germans, in addition to the more affectionate title of "Vater Moltke" gave him the name of der grosse Schweiger," while the French called him "le Danois muet." It was said of him epigramatically that "he knew how to be silent in seven languages." Count von Moltke was married to an English lady, Miss Mary

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Burt, with whom he lived most happily, and whose death in 1862 was to him an affliction for which he never ceased to sorrow.

His writings are as follows: The Campaign of the Russians against the Turks (1835); Letters on the Situation of European Turkey (1841, French trans., 1872); The Italian Campaign of 1859 (1863); The German Army (1871); Letters written to Mine. von Moltke in 1856 (1870); The Franco-German War (1872); Instruction on the Service of the General Staff (1873). In June, 1891, after the general's death, Prof. von Treitschke, the historian, made public an interesting paper by von Moltke on the campaign of Königgrätz, that is full of invaluable information to the student of that masterpiece of generalship. See Max Brewer's Bismarck, Moltke, und Goethe (1889), the desultory Memoirs and Memoranda collected and published in 1891, and biographies by Müller-Bohn (1893), Jähns (1894) and Buchner (1894).

MOLUCCAS, or SPICE ISLANDS, an archipelago in the Dutch East Indies, including in its broadest sense the region between 5° n. and 9° s. lat., and 124° e. and 136° e. long. They lie e. of the island of Celebes, stretching from thence to New Guinea or Papua, and from the Philippines toward the northern coast of Australia, and they include all the territories formerly ruled over by the sultans of Ternate and Tidore. Both geographically and administratively they are divided into two groups, the northern group, comprised within the residency of Ternate, and the southern group in the residency of Amboyna. Their total area is 43,864 sq. miles, and the population at the close of 1894 was estimated at 402,053. In geological structure they resemble the island of Celebes. Many of the smaller islands are of volcanic formation throughout, and on Ternate, as well as in Makian, Banda, and Tidore, there are active volcanoes. The highest altitude in the archipelago is reached by the mountain Gunong Tomahu, in the island of Buru, with a height of over 9,800 ft. The climate is hot, but as a rule not unhealthful.

The Moluccas are not so well watered or rich in vegetation as the more westerly islands in the Dutch East Indies, but the production of spices, from which they derive their name, is very abundant. The betel-nut, nutmeg trees, and various other spiceproducing plants are here indigenous. Coffee, cacao, tobacco, indigo, and rice are cultivated with success, and the sage tree yields the staple fruit for native consumption. In regard to the fauna, the islands resemble the other parts of the Australasian region. Besides species of marsupials, there are wild hogs, civet cats, apes and an indigenous species of goats. These animals, as well as many varieties of birds, resemble the species found in the countries to the east. Birds of bright plumage abound in the forests. Among the insects, the butterflies are remarkable for their size and the brilliancy of their colors. As to minerals, porcelain and clay abound, especially in the Uliasser islands and Amboyna; petroleum, tin, and coal are found on the south coast of Ceram; gold and coal, and to some extent iron, limestone, and alum are found in Batjan.

The industry is chiefly confined to the raising of spices and food products. While the clove-tree and the nutmeg occur in all the islands, clove-culture is carried on especially in Amboyna and the Uliassers, and the cultivation of the nutmeg in the Banda islands. Until 1824 the Dutch prohibited the planting of these trees in other parts, and caused those of native growth to be rooted out, in order to prevent smuggling and to retain the supply of these spices for the European market.

The natives of some of the islands are Alfoers; of others Malays on the coast, and Alfoers in the interior. The Alfoers are the original inhabitants of the islands and are to be found in greatest numbers in the interior of the larger islands, especially in Halmahera, Buru and Ceram. The Malays are immigrants and their racial character has been greatly modified by amalgamation with Chinese, Arabs, and Europeans.

Trade is for the most part confined to Ternate, the Banda islands and Amboyna. It includes spices, sago, wax, coffee, cacao, tobacco, tortoise-shell, and trepang. Macassar, on the west shore of the island of Celebes, exports to the United States considerable quantities of cassia, cloves, gum copal, coffee, nutmegs, and mace. The imports of the islands include cattle, horses, rice, salt, pottery, and textiles.

The residency of Ternate includes the northern part of the Moluccas together with parts of Celebes and the Sulu islands. The population of the residency proper was estimated in 1893 at 107,147. To it belong also the dependent kingdoms of Ternate, Tidore (including the western part of New Guinea), and Batjan. The island of Ternate is one of the largest in the groups, and consists of a volcanic mountain nearly 5,400 feet high, with plains at its base. The town of Ternate is on the e. side and is the seat of the Dutch resident. It contains also the sultan's palace and a fort. It has a harbor, and its population numbers about 6,000. Tidore is also a large island of volcanic formation. It is under the government of a sultan who is subsidized by, and subject to, the Netherlands, exercising his authority under the control of the resident. His palace is in the city of Tidore on the east coast. Batjan, or Batshan, is another dependent kingdom, subject to the residency of Ternate. It lies to the s. w. of Halmahera and is mountainous, well wooded, and well watered. Some of its mountain peaks rise to a height of 4,000 feet. Valuable timber trees abound in its forests. Its flora is said to be the richest in the Moluccas and it is remarkable for the numerous species of birds and insects. Few mammals are found in the island, but there is a species of baboon. Copper, gold, and coal are found to some extent. The island is the home of the clove-tree. The natives, or Alfoers, are the most numerous element in the population, which numbers between 12,000 and 13,000. They are for the most part of Mohammedan faith, but there are some

native Christians, living chiefly at Labuha and Fort Barneveld. There are besides some Europeans, Chinese, and Arabs. The native sultan has his residence at Amasang. The Obi group also belongs to the residency of Ternate. It comprises Great Obi, and a group of ten smaller islands. They are all well wooded and abound in nutmeg trees, but the climate is unhealthful, and the islands are chiefly peopled by fishermen, and are the resort of pirates.

The residency of Amboyna comprises the Southern Moluccas, the Banda group, Ceram, Buru, the Arru, the Key, the Tenimber and other islands, with a total population of 103,200, in 1890, of whom only a small portion were Europeans. The resident has his seat at Amboyna, the capital, and there are 19 Dutch stations in the residency, including a military post on the island of Ceram. The island of Amboyna (q. v.) is the largest in the residency. It is mountainous, well watered and fertile. The cultivation of the clove-tree is the most important industry. The Banda group lies between 3° 50' and 4° 40′ s. lat., and is divided by the meridian 130°. It includes, besides the two chief islands, Great Banda and Neira, the smaller islands of Ay, Rhun, Rozingain, Pisang and others. The principal island of the group is Neira, lying s.e. from Amboyna and separated by narrow straits from the volcanic island of Gunong-Api on the w., and Great Banda on the e. Its chief town is Neira on the s. side of the island. The Banda islands have a rich soil and derive considerable wealth from the cultivation of the nutmeg trees. Pineapples, the vine, bananas, cocoanuts and other fruit trees thrive and are abundant. There are wild cows, hogs, and deer, and in the surrounding waters an abundance of sea-carp and mackerel, which last are dried, and form, with sago, the food of the natives.

In 1512 the Portuguese discovered the Moluccas, and in 1521 Antonio de Brito appeared to take possession of them in the name of the king of Portugal; but after a long period of violence, intrigue, and perfidy, the Portuguese were driven out by the Dutch and natives at the beginning of the 17th century. The change was of no advantage to the natives, for the Dutch, having obtained the exclusive right of buying all the cloves at a nominal value, a series of wars ensued, which resulted in the subjugation of the Spice islands. The Dutch confined the cultivation of the clove-tree to Amboyna and the neighboring islands, and the cultivation of the nutmeg-tree to the Banda group, and allowed these trees in the other islands of the group to perish. New sultans of Ternate and Tidore have been appointed, with less power than their predecessors; and the wars with the Alfoers of Ceram, in 1859 and 1860, have brought them more fully under Dutch rule. The cultivation of the clove-tree was made free in 1863. See J. J. de Hollander, Handleiding bij de Beoefening der Land-en Volkenkunde von Ned. Oost. Indië (Breda, 1877 and 1882); Bastian, Indonesien (1884); Bokemeyer, The Moluccas, etc. (1888), and Martin, Travels in the Moluccas, etc. (1894).

MOLY, a fabulous plant, said to be a panacea for all diseases, given by Hermes to Odysseus as a protection against the magical charms of Circe. It was supposed to be a variety of garlic. There is a kind of garlic still called "sorcerer's garlic," probably a reminiscence of the Circe legend.

MOLYBDENUM (sym. Mo; equiv. 48-new system, 96; sp. grav. 8.62) is a rare metal, which, in a state of purity, is of a silvery white color, has a strongly metallic luster, is brittle, and very difficult of fusion. It never occurs native, and its principal ore is the bisulphide, which much resembles graphite. It is also occasionally found oxidized, in molybdate of lead. The metal may be obtained by roasting the bisulphide in a free current of air, when the sulphur goes off oxidized as sulphurous acid, and the molybdenum is also oxidized into molybdic acid (MoO3), and remains in the vessel. By the action of charcoal, the reduced metal is then obtained from the acid.

Molybdenum forms four compounds with oxygen-the protoxide, MoO, the binoxide, MOO1, the sesquioxide, Mo,O,, and the trioxide, also called molybdic acid, MoO,. The trioxide alone has any practical value. It is a white, crystalline powder, which is almost insoluble in water, fuses at a red heat, and unites with bases to form well-marked salts, the molybdates, which are either colorless or yellow. A solution of molybdate of ammonia is one of the most delicate tests for phosphoric acid.

Molybdenum forms various compounds with sulphur, chlorine, etc., none of which are of any practical importance, except the native bisulphide.

MOLYNEUX, WILLIAM, LL.D., 1656-98; b. Ireland; educated at Trinity college, Dublin, and afterwards a member of the middle temple, London. He had been instructed in mathematics by his father, Samuel Molyneux, who had written a work on gunnery, and he soon turned his attention from law to mathematics and optics. He was one of the founders and the first secretary of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Two years later he was made a member of the London Royal Society, and was sent by the English government to examine the fortifications in the Netherlands. In 1688 he was forced to leave Ireland on account of the political troubles there, but he came back after the battle of the Boyne. In 1692 he represented the Dublin university in the Irish parliament. His main work, the first in English upon the subject, is a treatise on optics, called Dioptrica. This book was revised by Halley, who included in the appendix his theorem for finding the foci of optic glasses. He also published a Translation of the Six Metaphysical Dissertations of Descartes, and numerous papers in the proceedings of the Royal Society. One of his