Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/253

 FIELD-MARSHAL COUNT VON MOLTKE 395 of liberating, " by force if necessar>%" his son-in-law, Canzio, who had been ar- rested as a plotter for the republic. But having obtained the man's release from the king's government as a favor, he once more sought the peace of his hermitage where he died, June 2, 1882. ^"Ol^p, FIELD-MARSHAL COUNT VON MOLTKE (1800-1891) SUDDENLY, but quictly and painlessly, on the evening of April 24, 1891, passed away one of the most remarkable men of the present century. Hellmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke was born, October 26, 1800, at Parshim, in Mecklenburg, where his father, previously a captain in the Prussian army, had retired, impoverished in circumstances, to an estate which he inherited. When little Hell- muth was three years old, his father. Baron Moltke, settled at the free town of Lubeck, the once famous head of the Hanseatic League. Here, in 1806, on the retreat from the disastrous battle of Jena, Mar- shal Blucher, who like Von Moltke was of Meck- lenburg origin, sought refuge with his shattered troops ; and little Moltke was a witness of the sack and plunder of the town by the troops of Napoleon, his father's house being one of those that suffered most severely. It is said that the incidents of this event made a lasting impression upon the mind of the boy. At the age of nine, with his elder brother Fritz, young Hellmuth was placed under the care of Pastor Knickbein, at Hohenfelde, near Horst, a scholarly man of a kindly and genial disposition, for whom he always retained a deep regard. His sense of indebtedness appears in the inscription which he wrote on the title- page when forwarding to him a copy of his first work, his " Letters from Tur- key ;" "To my dear teacher and fatherly friend to whom I owe so much, I send this, my first work, as a slight testimony of respect." The favorite recreation 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 com- manding 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 26