Through the severity of his measures in Prussia itself, Stieber caused such a popular outcry that he was relieved of his post as chief of police, but Bismarck, then coming to power, employed his hound in equally useful work outside the bounds of the kingdom by sending him through Bohemia, where, by establishing spies all along the route that the army would have to traverse later, Stieber laid the foundations for the campaign that was to end so disastrously for Austria at Sadowa. By 1866, when the Prussian campaign against Austria opened, Stieber had Bohemia so thoroughly planted with spies that every step of the Austrian forces was known to their opponents before it was taken, every village had its informer ready for the Prussian troops when they entered, and, though the system of mapping out posts of defence and military positions had not then reached to the perfection it has since attained, it may be said that the campaign against Austria was half won by Stieber before it was entered on by the Prussian army. These things have so far passed into history that they have become general knowledge; but how Stieber enlisted and placed his spies--the actual routine and full secret of the work--he is careful not to tell. It may be assumed that, among other qualities, he possessed the power of reading his fellows; he was a genius in psychology, and knew his spy when he saw one. Hence his success, for which he was made chief of the "active service police," a force never recognised in this way up to his time, and a post created practically by his own ability in his special line of work.