A WELLINGTON MAN UNDER MOLTKE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1026, 16 January 1911, Page 6

A WELLINGTON MAN UNDER MOLTKE.

+ AN INTERESTING PART. THE GATHERING OF THE HOSTS. I [Dy Gyro.] fin previous issues of/ THE DOMINION there appeared the reminiscences o£ a Wellington man (Mr. H. Wollcrman) touching the terrible conflicts at Mare-la-Tour-and Gravelotte. In tho following article, there is given r. very interesting account of. the mobilisation of tho huge German hosts for the war of 1870."] They Get the News of War; Ono is hardly prepared even by extensive previous reading, for the somewhat astonishing story of the mobilisation of Moltke's hosts as Mr. AVollerman remembers if. It is not tho "mathematical precision" (cr run' of the other harmless moonshine of the War correspondents) which .strikes ono as he listens to .the story, so much as the quietness, the absence of fuss and . popular demonstrations, tho nonchalance, with .which what was probably tho finest army in the world's history, was set down like a ring of iron at tho front. ! And what is rather more wonderful is the fact that brigades and divisions never mot as such till they met on the battlefield. They went to the front by battalions, and the field officers picked up all 'these seemingly scattered units and 'brigaded. them literally at. tho months of the French cannon. How matchless tho'staff work must have been .may bo imagined. ; Mr. Wollerman states that his company was practising tho bayonet exercise in their own littlo garrison town when the news that war. had been declared arrived at 9 o'clock on tho morning of July 10, 1870! The men were told- to put on their c&afcs, and were called 'to attention. Then the captain read out tho brief telegram: "Franco has declared war.*' Tho men gave the German "Hourra!" three times, and the parade was dismissed. _ It was Sunday, July 24, before Mr. AVollermau's battalion moved. Tho whole country was so quiet that war seemed the last and least-likely contingency on earth. The,battalion took their seats for Berlin, and the train rolled into that city fome tinio in tho afternoon. Everything was very quiet—no. evidence of troops on. the move to bo seen no one apparently stirring except themselves. In those placid summer days oven the leaves on the linden trees hardly stirred; and the whole thing seemed more liko Arcadia than anything else. Where all the- others were—l'oseners,' East Prussians, Pomeranians, Saxons, Bavarians, Hessians, Westphalians, Hamburgers—they did not even guess 01- think about. As to special emergency training they had had none, except a littlo extra practico in marching. Comrades on the Railway Station, At Potsdam they saw tho Guard corps, which a week or "two later' received <uch a stunning blow at Gravelotte. Members of the Guard brought cider and lager beer to the carriage windows, and they and the Brandenburgers talked j for a while. Orders for tho Guard to movo had not yet been received, and presently they shook hands and said good-bye,_ not to meet again until the ordeal at Gravelotte. ' '■ * The route followed by the train is interesting, as it. shows that, in 1870, Moltko had not tho same 'fine choice of strategic railways which German commanders would'have now. Titers; was, first of all, a huge bend to the . north before they finally turned south along the valley of the Rhinfc. The route embraced Spandau, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Hanovor, Mindcn, and.then south past Cologne. Coblentz, and. Bingen. It was still all very peaceful—no other troops in sight, and.-just tho broad blue Rhine flowing past tho train, rippling and .bubbling :on to' the sea. Here, for instance, was the celebrated castlo of Bishop Hatto .over-, looking the river, tlier.e some big white German city, elsewhere a silent fortress, lihrcnbreitstien, for example, and, over everything, tho genial spirit of summer. A Story of Moltke. If there was lack of' noiso on: tho German sido of the frontier during thoso days, things were humming in France. The war correspondents from England and elsewhere were gathering at Paris, military bands were playing, the music halls in "the evenings were the scenes of tremendous popular outbursts of feeling, and music hall patriotism was plentiful. And among these vastenthusiasms tho French armies—formidable troops and by no means ill-prepared for war as tho popular opinion has always been—were getting ready too. But their movement was largely in masses. An army corps (with some exceptions) went forward as a corps, as complete as might be, whilo here, over tho frontier-in Germany, the-movement must liayo resembled tl\e (low of innumerable tiny rivulets, not to be united until some undivulged time known only to .the heads of tho armies. - And then, of course, with great suddenness. ' It . has been often stated that when Moltke got tho news that the French had declared ho was playing whist, and. that he left tho room, issued the few instructions which were sufficient to set the Fatherland o-inqyo, and, returning, took up his cards, and went on with tho game. It .is doubtful- if tho story has any foundation in fact, or is anything more than tho picturesque imagination of some war correspondent, but it is by no means improbable. It would have been very like the. quiet strategist who had years before done everything' v for the army which human wisdom could foresee. • They Quit the Train. On theso matters' our informant ex-' presses no opinion, limiting his story to those things which ho saw. Tho battalion spent two days and . five hours in tho train, and then took up .their march by road. This was at Kreuznach. They were 'getting closo up, but wore still, as far as they could see, nlone. The beginning of August came, and far away to the south of where these lonely Brandenburgers were plodding on the Crown Prince sat down to write the famous order beginning, with the memorable words: "It is my intention to advance to'tho'Lauter to-morrow, and to placo vanguards across it." ' He was apparently concentrated by this time, and it was.this order which brought on' the battle of Weissenburg. But north of where this host had come together, in the mighty . Second Army to which' Mr. Wollorman belonged, it was still . Arcadia as far as. could be seen. It was the samo peaceful summer, the. same rustic landscapes, the same well-remembered violot.hazcs which adorned tho evenings. They had tho road to themselves apparently, but tho reality was very different, for hundreds of thousands of men were now inarching in their near neighbourhood. The dramatic denouement which followed was coining liko a flash of light ning. That Dramatic Denouement. On Saturday morning, August 0, at 10 or 11 o'clock, they slogged into Neinkirclien (Nine Churches). A train was waiting for them, and they "wero told to take it. "Train for Saarbruclcen! Quick!" was the order, and at 2 o'clock they were swalup in tho smoke of tho Battle of Spichcven, and they struggled on till dark. Who their right and left hand neighbours were, where the rest of their own army.corps, was, or who. was directing their attack they did not know, but tho general and corps stall's had taken the reins now, and they were safe enough. Nest day, on tho battlefield, they found that the other fivo battalions of their brigade wero there, the divisions .of the corps wero there, and the corps artillery and cavalry wero there, complete to the last detail. That is Mr. Wollerman's recollection of the mobilisation of tho army corps of . General Constantin von Alvensloben—ouo of tho most celebrated corps of .tho army. The timing and precision with which it was brought together must liavo becu wonderful. There is nothing like it iu history.