    34

    world saw this as a confrontation between a mighty nation with a strong

    military tradition, France, and a weak, unprepared principality, Prussia.

    Europeans and Englishmen were still bitter at France for its astonishing

    conquests under Napoleon sixty years before.  France, they thought, had an

    army no one could beat.79  Bismarck knew better.  He was quite aware that in

    the first weeks of a confrontation, France could only mobilize a few hundred

    thousand men.  But in that time, Bismarck could call up well over a million!80

    What's more, the Prussian knew that the French still hadn't figured out how

    to deploy many of the newly-developed armaments on which they were

    counting for their defense.  For example, the latest Gallic secret weapon was

    the  mitrailleuse, an extremely rapid-fire machine gun.  There was only one

    problem.  French generals hadn't worked it into their strategies.  As a conse-

    quence, when war came, they kept this potential battlefield terror in the rear,

    where it was of no earthly value.81

    Bismarck also knew that his extraordinary hi-tech artillery could wipe

    out French forces long before the French would even come within shooting

    range of Prussian soldiers.82

    The result was the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.  The world was utterly

    convinced that France would crush Prussia.  Instead, Emperor Louis

    Napoleon  was forced to surrender the bulk of his army within the first three

    weeks of the war.  Less than five months later, Prussian squadrons were

    marching through the streets of Paris.83

    Bismarck had never flinched or lowered his eyes at threats.  In fact, he

    had been able to control every offensive move.  Why?  Like the larger of two

    dogs encountering each other in a field, Otto von Bismarck knew from the

    beginning just who was on top.

    In the 1960s, when we were at the peak of our power, we too were

    raring for confrontation.  We entered the Viet Nam War...and lost.  It was the

    second conflict we had failed to win since our participation in the defeat of

    Hitler's Third Reich.  The first had been our "police action" in Korea during

    the early '50s.

      Finally, Bismarck was "forced" to go to war in sheer "self-defense."  The

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