"In 1806 the French under Napoleon had defeated the Prussians in a six-week campaign, trouncing them with such aplomb at the Battle of Jena that the philosopher Hegel had moved to celebrate Napoleon as the "world soul." In 1870 all signs indicated that the outcome would be otherwise. The French military ataché Eugène Stoffel] in Berlin had recently made a chilling observation: "Prussia is not a country which has an army. Prussia is an army which has a country.""