Some hours later the neutral was ushered into a vast, lofty apartment whose tapestried walls were almost completely rehung with the huge maps pinned upon them. On easels stood other maps, strange diagrams in curves and slants of red, green and black ink. On a large table was a horizontal relief model of hills and woods, a river with tributary streams, a splash of red in the valley, thin lines of red converging upon it, passing through, opening out again. On all these maps, on the splash of red in the relief model, the name "Verdun" was repeated again and again.
All these things the neutral officer noticed with the corner of his eye—the large writing-tables behind which sat officers of high rank, other officers grouped in a corner. His direct gaze was held by the figure he saluted. Spare, of medium height, in the grey field-service uniform of a general, gold cord looping across his right breast, a star upon the left above the Iron Cross, gilt epaulettes, gilt leaves upon the red gorgets of his collar, the would-be conqueror of the world stood stiffly erect, graciously acknowledged his salute. The brushed-up moustache was still dark, though the short hair on the head was grey, almost white. The face was deeply furrowed with endless anxieties, but the blue eyes—pouched though were their under lids—gleamed with excitement. He spoke in a jerky but distinct manner that betrayed a temperament of long ill-controlled impulses.
"Guten Abend, Herr General! Welcome to Germany's greatest hour! You shall see our sun mount triumphantly to its zenith, breaking through the dark clouds of foes who cluster over against us in vain!" The tone was that of a rhetoric practised until it has become a habit. The right hand gesticulated with quick motions, the left arm was conspicuously still. "General!" he turned to one of the officers sitting at the tables, "be so good as to explain everything to our friend here."
It was to be clearly understood that the All-Highest was flatteringly gracious.
The neutral officer bowed, expressed his thanks courteously, ventured a request: "That I may be allowed to admire your War-Machine in all its work, Majestät—go where I will."
"By all means, General. We have nothing to hide. You will find much to interest you, much to relate to our well-wishers in your country. General! see that a pass is given to our friend that will give him the fullest freedom." The All-Highest answered the neutral's salute in a manner that terminated the conversation.
Seated at the huge, carved writing-table with the officer to whom he had been addressed, the neutral found himself looking at a pair of keen grey eyes that peered through pince-nez under bushy white eyebrows. The German spread out maps, indicated positions. He drew notice to the fact that all roads squeezed through a bottle-neck over the river at Verdun, spread out in a fan on the east bank to a long line of positions that climbed from the river over the Heights of the Meuse and fell into the plain of the Woevre across which they bent southward.
"Die Sache ist äusserst einfach!"[12] he said with the air of a man explaining a chess-problem. "The French have three divisions of Territorials in front of us to hold the entire sector. That force is not strong enough to defend it and certainly too weak to have kept the trench-systems in good repair. In fact we know that they have been allowed to fall into ruin.[13] We have fifteen divisions in front line, fifteen divisions in reserve. We do not intend to fling those divisions away. No. Step by step our artillery will blast a passage for them—see, here are our artillery positions," he showed concentric lines one within the other on the map, round the doomed sector. "It is the greatest artillery concentration the world has ever seen. Even our concentration on the Donajetz last year is surpassed. We shall obliterate the positions in front of us—other batteries will drench the only avenues of supplies with shells, they must all go through the town—our infantry will merely march into the devastated position, wait for the clearance of the next step. I may tell you that the French have only one small branch railway line which is safe from our fire. We have built fourteen new lines, besides those already existing. In the great problem of supply we have an overwhelming superiority. We believe we have the advantage of surprise. Certainly the French have no concentration within easy reach. In four days we shall be in Verdun. The Western Front will have been broken."