Berlin, stands the great
building of the Reichstag, floridly decorated, glittering with
gold, surrounded by statues and filled, during the sessions of
the Reichstag, with a crowd of representatives who do not
represent and who, like monkeys in a cage, jibber and debate
questions which they have no power to decide. Across the square
and covering the entire block in a building that resembles in
external appearance a jail, built of dark red brick without
ornament or display, is the home of the Great General Staff. This
institution has its own spies, its own secret service, its own
newspaper censors. Here the picked officers of the German army,
the inheritors of the power of von Moltke, work industriously.
Apart from the people of Germany, they wield the supreme power of
the State and when the Staff decides a matter of foreign policy
or even an internal measure, that decision is final.

The peculiar relations of the Emperor to the Great General Staff
make it possible for him to dismiss in disgrace a head of the
Staff who has failed. But at all times the Kaiser is more or less
controlled in his action by the Staff as a whole and at a time
when the chief of the Great General Staff is successful, the
latter, even on questions of foreign policy, claims the right
then to make a decision which the Emperor may find it difficult
to disregard. This is because in an autocratic government, as in
any other, personality counts for much. Von Tirpitz controlled
all departments of the navy, although only at the head of one.
The Ludendorff-Hindenburg combination, especially if backed by
Mackensen, can bend the will of the Emperor.

[Illustration: THE IRON CROSS. IN THE EXPECTATION OF A SHORT WAR
THOUSANDS OF THESE CROSSES WERE DISTRIBUTED IN THE FIRST MONTHS
OF THE WAR AND THE PRECEDENT THUS ESTABLISHED HAS LED TO THE
GIVING OF PERHAPS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THESE DECORATIONS]

Yet while the head of the Great General Staff may fall, the
system always remains. An unknown, mysterious power it is,
unchanging, and relentless, a power that watches over the German
army with unseen eyes. It seeks always additions to its own ranks
from those young officers who have distinguished themselves by
their talents in the profession of arms. What does it mean to
them?

It is January twenty-seventh, the birthday of the Kaiser in a
German garrison town. The officers of the regiment are assembled
in the mess-hall, the regimental band plays the nation