Alhough a work of military history, this is also the story of Germany's industrial revolution, which to great extent was powered by the military - indeed, the author argues, mainly by general Helmuth von Moltke 'the Elder' (1800-1891). Patiently, over half a century, Moltke assembled a war engine of unique force & cohesion. It gave Prussia & North Germany its chain of striking, rapid victories over Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) & France (1870-71). The spine of this new military organism was a rail network minutely orchestrated by Moltke's General Staff, a tiny strategy unit that also pioneered future-oriented war planning, war gaming, systematic military exercises & the orderly phasing in of new weapons.

Yet Moltke was no dour Prussian conservative (& hardly responsible for Germany's later abuses). To the contrary, the humanism of North European Enlightenment played an important role in his childhood & youth, which apparently were quite well spent in Denmark. The book's author is very fair & descriptive about this small country, not least when he describes its ill coordinated but stoic defence in 1864 against a far stronger Prussia.

A commendably short but dense book, by an author who cares about his subject, both as essential military history, & as important history proper. ( )