tion of the two brothers while here at school was
playing at war, as perhaps was natural at such a period. They were
accustomed to collect the peasant boys of the village and divide them
into two rival armies, Fritz commanding the one, and Hellmuth the
other. Once, when the mimic warfare was at its height, the weaker
force of Hellmuth was routed, and some were taken prisoners. Called
upon to surrender, Hellmuth cried out, "All is not lost!" and hastily
rallying his men he marched them straight to a pond in Pastor
Knickbein's garden, and hurried them to a little island which the boy
himself had constructed with great labor, and accessible only by a
single plank. Facing the enemy with a few of his strongest men, he
kept them at bay until all his troops had passed into the fortress, he
himself being the last to enter. Then the drawbridge was raised and
the victory won. The island, preserved by the good pastor, long since
gone to his rest, still exists, and is pointed out with great pride by
the villagers to curious visitors as the scene of one of the early
exploits of Germany's greatest strategist.

His experiences at the Royal Academy at Copenhagen, to which he was
sent at the age of twelve, were not of the happiest. Relating his
reminiscences of that period, in reply to the question, "Do you retain
pleasant recollections of cadet life?" he remarked, "I have little
reason to do so. Without relations or acquaintances in a strange city,
we spent a joyless youth. The discipline was strict, even hard, and
now, when my judgment of it is unprejudiced, I must say that it was
too strict, too hard. The only benefit we received from this treatment
was that we became accustomed to deprivations."

Passing over the period of his service in the Danish army, and his
entrance into that of Prussia, we find him, after making heroic
efforts on his scanty pay to acquire foreign languages, in which he
attained in after-life so remarkable a proficiency, attached to a
commission for topographical surveys in Silesia and the Grand Duchy of
Posen.

Consolidating and extending his knowledge of military science and of
foreign peoples, as in the case of his visits to the East, Russia,
Rome, and elsewhere, Moltke rose steadily in his profession. In 1845,
he became aide-de-camp to the invalid Prince Henry of Prussia, uncle
of the king; and subsequently, after holding commands of increasing
importance, he was made first aide-de-camp to the Crown Prin