Not that the military institutions of Prussia, dating back from the “new model,” devised during the stress of the Napoleonic Wars, had been fundamentally altered. Nothing was done except to increase the numbers, close up and oil the machinery, render its working prompt and easy by prudent decentralization, give it a powerful brain in the General Staff, and impart to the whole system a living energy. The art of war, if the phrase may be allowed, was, in accordance with venerable traditions rooted in the Hohenzollern House, taken up as a serious business; and that deep sense of its importance which prevailed at the fountain head, was made to permeate the entire frame. That is the real distinguishing characteristic of the Prussian, now the German army, as contrasted with the spirit in which similar labours were undertaken by some other Powers. The task was a heavy one, but the three men who set about it were equal to the task. King William, with a large intelligence, a severe yet kindly temper, and a thorough knowledge of his work, threw himself heart and soul into the business, and brought to bear upon its conduct that essential condition of success, the “master’s eye.” General von Roon framed or sanctioned the administrative measures which were needed to create an almost self-acting and cohesive organism, which could be set in motion by a telegram, as an engineer starts a complicated piece of machinery by touching a lever. Von Moltke, as chief of the General Staff, supplied the directing intellect, and established a complete apparatus for the collection and classification of knowledge, bearing upon military affairs, which might be applied wherever needed. These men, working with “unhasting, unresting” diligence, founded a school of war, not based on “the law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not,” but upon the vital principle that a good army should possess in itself such a power of adaptation, as will make it always abreast with the latest genuine discoveries in tactics, arms, material appliances, and discipline. Also the army was treated as a great school in which officers and men alike were teaching and learning from dawn to sunset, throughout the allotted period of service. The principal trio had other and able helpers, but they were the main springs moving and guiding the marvellous product of constant labour applied by rare capacity.