I thought about this time of nothing but my desire to become a
competent soldier of my country. There was nothing I wanted more, but I
felt physically very weak. When the first news of the battles of
Midsunde and Bustrup arrived, I was very strongly inclined to follow
Julius Lange to the Reserve Officers' School. When tidings came of the
abandonment of the Danevirke my enthusiasm cooled; it was as though I
foresaw how little prospect of success there was. Still, I was less
melancholy than Lange at the thought of going to the war. I was single,
and delighted at the thought of going straight from the
examination-table into a camp life, and from a book-mad student to
become a lieutenant. I was influenced most by the prospect of seeing
Lange every day at the Officers' School, and on the field. But my
comrades explained to me that even if Lange and I came out of the
School at the same time, it did not follow that we should be in the
same division, and that the thing, moreover, that was wanted in an
officer, was entire self-dependence. They also pointed out to me the
improbability of my being able to do the least good, or having the
slightest likelihood in front of me of doing anything but quickly find
myself in hospital. I did not really think myself that I should be able
to stand the fatigue, as the pupils of the military academy went over
to the army with an equipment that I could scarcely have carried. I
could not possibly suppose that the conscription would select me as a
private, on account of my fragile build; but like all the rest, I was
expecting every day a general ordering out of the fit men of my age.
All this time I worked with might and main at the development of my
physical strength and accomplishments. I went every day to fencing
practice, likewise to cavalry sword practice; I took lessons in the use
of the bayonet, and I took part every afternoon in the shooting
practices conducted by the officers--with the old muzzle-loaders which
were the army weapons at the time. I was very delighted one day when
Mr. Hagemeister, the fencing-master, one of the many splendid old
Holstein non-commissioned officers holding the rank of lieutenant, said
I was "A smart fencer."