The brevity and simplicity of these instructions find a counterpart in the orders issued by the army commanders. Moltke's note sent off from Gitschin at midnight on Monday was delivered at the Crown Prince's headquarters at Königinhof at four on Tuesday morning. At five General von Blumenthal, the chief of the general staff of the second army, sent out an army order of some twenty lines:—
"According to information received here it is expected that the enemy will to-day attack the first army which is at Horsitz, Milowitz, and Cerekwitz. The second army will advance to its support as follows:—
(l) "The first army corps will march in two columns by Zabres and Gr. Trotin to Gr. Burglitz." ...
And so on for the other corps. In this way an army of 115,000 men (four army corps and a cavalry division) was directed by five sentences of two lines each. This was sufficient. The details were arranged for each army corps by the corps commander with the assistance of his staff officers.
[[1]] In 1866 the first army was composed of divisions not combined into army corps. The second army was worked by army corps.
CHAPTER IV
PRELIMINARIES OF A CAMPAIGN
The movements of an army during a campaign after the first serious engagements can rarely, if ever, be settled in detail before the war. They must needs depend largely on those of the enemy, which cannot be accurately foreseen. But before war is declared, before the fighting begins, while the troops are still in their own territory, a well-conducted government can make its preparations without hindrance. The army can be placed on a war footing, and assembled at whatever point or points are judged most advantageous. These preparations in Prussia fall in different degrees within the domain of the general staff.
The changes by which the army is placed on a war footing, known collectively as mobilization, include the calling out of the reserves of men and horses; their distribution among the various corps and their equipment; and the creation and completion of the staffs and of the different services of supply. All these proceedings in Prussia the general staff had perfectly arranged and regulated down to the minutest detail, so that the order needed only to be issued, and the whole operation would take place as if by clockwork within a given number of days.[[1]] The process of mobilization is in essentials the same whatever be the frontier on which the war is to be fought. It places the troops ready at their ordinary headquarters, and in Prussia no regiment leaves its headquarters except in perfect readiness to take the field.
On the other hand, the collection of the army on the frontier is the first stage of the actual operations, resembling the opening of a game of chess, and it is of the greatest importance that the points selected should be those best suited for the beginning of the particular campaign in prospect.