24 PROMOTION. 



when a recruit. The roughness is sheer habit arid 

 does not spring from intention to inflict pain. It 

 therefore does not go very deep, on the contrary has 

 something refreshing and stimulating about it. especially 

 if combined with humour, as has almost always been 

 the case with the models of military harshness known 

 to fame. The service over the incivility is forgotten. 

 and the feeling of comradeship is again uppermost. 

 The feeling of comradeship, which pervades the entire 

 Prussian Army from king to recruit, renders the strict 

 discipline, the toils and hardships reaching often to the 

 extreme limit of the capacity to undergo them, endu- 

 rable, and constitutes its cementing bond in woe and 

 weal. It will, accordingly, be often very hard for the 

 military veteran to feel comfortable in civil life: he 

 misses therein the reckless rudeness on a substructure 

 of good fellowship. 



After six months drill came the great event of 

 advancement to the post of bombardier. It was an 

 elevating feeling to be now the superior of hundreds 

 and thousands and to be duly saluted by every private./ 

 Then followed the order to the horse artillery, then 

 the interesting artillery practice, in which for the 

 first time I became aware of my technical abilities, 

 since what most found hard to comprehend appeared 

 to me matter of course. Lastly, in the autumn of 1835, 

 I received the longed-for order to attend the school 

 of the united artillery and engineers in Berlin, and 

 therewith the fulfilment of my ardent desire to have 

 an opportunity to learn something useful. 



