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ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1885, BY

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY,

IN THE OFFICE of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.

COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.

$5.4.38.g. M. Robinson

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NAVAL VESSELS: THE U. S. CRUISER “PHILADELPHIA,'

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THE INTERNATIONAL CYCLOPEDIA.

MOLTKE, 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 "Ölmütz 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

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