FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58  
59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   >>   >|  
e was a chivalrous fellow, with imagination enough to appreciate the feelings of an enemy who has fought hard and lost. Such as he would fight fair and hold this war of the civilizations up to something like the standards of civilization. The very tired German stiffened up again, as his drill sergeant had taught him, and both stared straight ahead, proud and contemptuous, as their Kaiser would wish them to do. I should recognize the faces of those two Germans and of that little French guard if I saw them ten years hence. In ten years, what will be the Germans' attitude toward this war and their military lords? It is not often that one has a senator for a guide; and I never knew a more efficient one than our statesman. His own curiosity was the best possible aid in satisfying our own. Having seen the compactness and simplicity of an army column at the front, we were to find that the same thing applied to high command. A sentry and a small flag at the doorway of a village hotel: this was the headquarters of the Sixth Army, which General Manoury had formed in haste and flung at von Kluck with a spirit which crowned his white hairs with the audacity of youth. He was absent, but we might see something of the central direction of one hundred and fifty thousand men in the course of one of the most brilliant manoeuvres of the war, before staffs had settled down to office existence in permanent quarters. That is, we might see the little there was to see: a soldier telegrapher in one bedroom, a soldier typewritist in another, officers at work in others. One realized that they could pack up everything and move in the time it takes to toss enough clothes into a bag to spend a night away from home. Apparently, when the French fought they left red tape behind with the bureaucracy. From his seat before a series of maps on a sitting-room table an officer of about thirty-five rose to receive us. It struck me that he exemplified self-possessed intelligence and definite knowledge; that he had coolness and steadiness plus that acuteness of perception and clarity of statement which are the gift of the French. You felt sure that no orders which left his hand wasted any words or lacked explicitness. The Staff is the brains of the army, and he had brains. "All goes well!" he said, as if there were no more to say. All goes well! He would say it when things looked black or when they looked bright, and in a way that would make others beli
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58  
59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

French

 

Germans

 

soldier

 
looked
 
fought
 

brains

 

clothes

 
brilliant
 

Apparently

 

thousand


office

 

officers

 

typewritist

 
bedroom
 

permanent

 

telegrapher

 

existence

 
settled
 

manoeuvres

 
quarters

realized

 
staffs
 

receive

 

orders

 
statement
 

steadiness

 

acuteness

 

perception

 

clarity

 

wasted


bright

 

things

 

lacked

 

explicitness

 
coolness
 

knowledge

 
sitting
 
officer
 
series
 

bureaucracy


thirty

 

exemplified

 

possessed

 
intelligence
 

definite

 

struck

 

recognize

 
Kaiser
 

contemptuous

 
stared