At the end of the campaign of 1866 the Crown Prince and Princess had founded the National Institution for Disabled Soldiers, and by the special order of the King it was given the name of the Victoria Institution, because the Crown Princess had suggested and instigated its creation. At the close of 1871, this Institution, again at her suggestion, was placed upon a wider footing, and applied to the whole of Germany instead of only to Prussia. There is no need here to describe the course of the war itself. A vast literature, both technical and general, has grown up round it, and there are many people by no means yet old who remember vividly that immense and sanguinary struggle. To the Crown Prince was assigned the command of the Third Army, in which nearly every State of both North and South Germany was represented, including the Bavarian Corps and the Divisions of Würtemberg and Baden. Once more the Prince proved his fitness for high command, perhaps most notably at the battle of Wörth, when his admirable dispositions and his unhesitating resolve that even the last man must if necessary be staked were the main causes of the victory. Yet the Crown Prince said to the great German writer, Freytag, who was with him in this early part of the war: "I hate this slaughter. I have never desired the honours of war, and would gladly have left such glory to others. Nevertheless, it is my hard fate to go from battlefield to battlefield, from one war to another, before ascending the throne of my ancestors." Much as he hated war, the Crown Prince never hesitated, as weak commanders have always done, to pay the necessary price of victory in human lives. Among the troops, "Unser Fritz," as they called him, quickly became extraordinarily popular--indeed, their devotion to their leader formed a strong and politically useful link between men who had actually fought against one another so recently as the Austrian War. Throughout the campaign, the Crown Prince and Princess corresponded daily. The siege of Paris had begun on September 15, and the Crown Prince was at Versailles on his birthday, on October 18, almost the first birthday he had spent away from his wife since their marriage. When he woke in the morning he found on his table a small pocket-pistol, and a housewife, filled with articles for daily use, from the Crown Princess.