We see, therefore, that Moltke made two separate inventions, and combined both in his machine. Both inventions were condemned and ridiculed, but both succeeded. The result was that, when war was declared in 1866 between Prussia and Austria, a reputedly greater nation, the Prussian machine started smoothly but quickly when the button was pressed, advanced into Austria without the slightest delay or jar, collided at once with the Austrian machine, and smashed it in one encounter. This encounter was near Sadowa and Königgrätz, and took place only seventeen days after war began. The most important single invention that Moltke had utilized was the breech-loading "needle gun," a weapon far better than the Austrians had, not only in speed of loading, but in accuracy. The two armies were not very different in point of numbers: so that, even if von Moltke's other measures had not been taken, the superiority of the Prussian musket over the Austrian must of itself have caused the winning of the war, though not so quickly as actually was the case. But in the war with France, Moltke's machine demonstrated its effectiveness even more completely, because its task was harder. For France was esteemed the greatest military nation in the world; it was the France of Napoleon the Great, then ruled by his nephew Napoleon III. In the usual sense of the word, the French were a more "military" people than the Prussians. The Empire of Napoleon III was much more splendid than the poor little Kingdom of Prussia, the army was more in evidence, there were more military pageants, the people were more ardent. But the military leaders of the French included no such inventor as von Moltke, there was no one who conceived any such ideas as were pictured in Moltke's imaginative brain; and consequently it never occurred to anyone to utilize strenuously all the new inventions, or to train officers like school boys, in the practical problems of war. The result was that Moltke's machine got into France before the French machine had been even put together. The pieces of the French machine had not been got together even when the war ended. When war was declared by France, her military machine was in three parts. Two of them got together fairly quickly, so that the French machine was soon divided into only two parts; one under Marshal Bazaine, and the other under Marshal McMahon. But Moltke's machine was together at the start, and it stayed together throughout the war. This does not mean that all its parts stood in the same spot; but it does mean that the parts were always in supporting distance of each other. The two parts of the French machine were not in supporting distance of each other, and the German machine prevented them from uniting. When McMahon and Bazaine tried to unite, McMahon was defeated at Wörth, and Bazaine at Gravelotte. McMahon was forced to surrender his entire force, including the emperor at Sedan; and Bazaine was shut up in Metz. Paris was then besieged.