Industrialization of War, 1840–84 249
mysteries of electricity. Periodic breakdowns and unexpected delays
continued to occur.^39 But in principle, and to a considerable degree
also in practice, the development of an effective field telegraph meant
that Moltke and the king could exercise control of the strategic de
ployment of Prussian armies day by day and even hour by hour.
The General Staff’s other great instrument was the railroad. Use of
railroads to move large bodies of troops into battle was not new. But
detailed advance planning had never been done in the way that Moltke
and his subordinates prepared for the invasion of Bohemia in 1866.
Schedules of troop movements, drawn up carefully beforehand,
maximized speed and mass. Calculating exactly how many locomotives
and railroad cars each move required, meant that rail transport could
be used to full capacity.^40
All the same, the Prussian campaign of 1866 involved great risks.
But the outcome was a Prussian victory, swiftly followed by a peace
that permitted the Prussians to begin the political reorganization of
the Germanies. Bismarck and Moltke shared the glory with King
Wilhelm, while the Austrians attributed their defeat to the needle gun
and, quite unfairly, to the incompetence of their commander.
Such a brisk, decisive campaign stood in dramatic contrast to the
indecisive, long-drawn-out military actions of the American Civil War
and seemed convincing evidence of the superiority of European—or
at least of Prussian—military expertise. Yet in retrospect it is clear that
a large part of the secret of Prussian success in 1866, like that of the
French in 1859, rested on the political traditions of the Hapsburg
Empire that persuaded the Austrian government to conclude peace
after one or two lost battles. The Hapsburgs had survived Napoleon
- Moltke was fearful of inhibiting his commanders in the field by issuing too many
commands from the rear and so intervened only sparingly. Cf. Dennis Showalter,
“Soldiers into Postmasters? The Electric Telegraph as an Instrument of Command in the
Prussian Army,” Military Affairs 2(1973): 48–51. In any case, Moltke lost telegraph
contact with the crown prince’s army just before the Battle of Koniggratz began, and
had to fall back on a dispatch rider to summon the prince’s army to the place of battle.
Craig, Koniggratz, p. 98.
- Systematic use of available means at full capacity was the main secret of successful
industrial management in the 1880s, according to Chandler, The Visible Hand, pp. 259
ff. Military staff officers and captains of industry had more in common than either party
recognized when, in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were learning how
to apply managerial techniques to the parallel problems of destruction and production.
In this connection it is worth noting that production of anything involved destruction of
something else. The consumption of fuel and raw materials in heavy industry bears
detailed comparison with the consumption of resources in war; even the fate of the
labor forces involved offer interesting parallels.
