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GERMAN IMPERIAL MANOEUVRES, 
1880 , 
BY 
CAPTAIN A. E. TURNER, R.H.A. 
The importance with which the annual exercise of troops in mimic 
warfare is regarded by the German government, may be gathered from 
the fact that, from the middle of August to the middle of September, 
every portion of its huge army is on the move; and commencing 
with the exercises of each arm separately, these are gradually combined 
and duly trained in their mutual action in relation to one another ; then 
brigades are pitted against brigades, divisions against divisions, or 
against skeleton enemies (markirte feind) ; and lastly, where the 
manoeuvres are on a large scale, as those held in the vicinity of Berlin, 
one army corps contends against another, according to a general idea, 
which is said to emanate from Graf Moltke himself. 
Such were the Imperial manoeuvres of 1880, in which the Garde and 
3rd (or Brandenburger) Army Corps were brought into play. Both 
these corps are especially renowned : the former under the Crown 
Prince of Germany turned the tide at the battle of Koniggratz, by its 
magnificent attack on the Austrian right; while in the war of 1870, 
after suffering the most unparalleled losses during its first advance 
against the heights of St. Privat le Montaigne, it pressed forward a 
second time supported by the Saxons, hurled the French back from 
their strong positions and decided the fate of the battle of Gravelotte 
and of Bazaine^s army. The Brandenburgers were the first to come 
into contact with the French, near Vionville, on the 16th August, 1870; 
the latter were for a long time vastly superior in numbers, but the 
3rd Army Corps, though with terrible losses, held on with desperate 
tenacity to positions which it had taken up across the line of 
Bazaine’s retreat on Verdun, and, being at length reinforced by the 
8th, 9th, and 10th Corps, succeeded in frustrating his movement. 
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