The young officer was in the seventh heaven of delight at this mark of distinction. He embarked on his new duties with boundless and untiring zeal. He almost divined the wishes of Falkenhein; and sometimes it was not even necessary to give explicit directions as to the manner in which this or that order was to be carried out. The colonel knew that Reimers, with his powers of intuition, would do the right thing.
Falkenhein could not imagine a more painstaking adjutant, nor one who, when off duty, on the march, or at the practice-camp, could have looked after his colonel's comfort with more tender consideration. He had noticed that Reimers had of late paid his daughter attention, and the idea of some day entrusting his child to the care of this excellent young man--already like a beloved son to him--gave him real pleasure. This gratifying prospect made him more unreserved than was usually his custom. It was well known that the colonel was not exactly delighted with the hundred and one innovations that had been introduced into the army at the accession of the young emperor. And now, feeling that he could trust his acting adjutant implicitly, and that not a word of misrepresentation or misconstruction would ever reach the ears of any evil-disposed person, he freely unburdened his mind of the cares and anxieties that weighed upon it.
Some of these confidential communications struck Reimers with amazement. He had expected to find in Falkenhein an officer who would entirely dissipate all the doubts that Güntz had awakened in his mind; and now he discovered that this honoured superior also was filled with the gravest views as to the thoroughness and efficiency of the organisation of the German army. The more important of these conversations he noted down each evening in the following manner:--
June 2nd.
The colonel happened to talk about the supply of officers for the German army. In his opinion, the best material to draw from is the so-called "army nobility"--that is to say, those families (not necessarily noble) members of which have in many successive generations been German officers--German meaning Prussian, Saxon, Hanoverian, &c.--(examples: the colonel himself, Wegstetten, and also my humble self). These families are mostly of moderate means, and often intermarry. That conscientious devotion to their calling as officers is thus ingrained in their flesh and blood must be self-evident. It is born in them; and by their simple, austere up-bringing, with their profession ever in view, they become thoroughly imbued with it. But there is a danger that in such a mental atmosphere their range of observation may be so restricted that they cannot view the life of the world around them with intelligence or comprehension. Therefore it is of immense importance that the corps of German officers should be strengthened by the infusion of fresh blood from the middle and lower-middle classes, whose members, having been brought up and educated according to modern ideas, are of great service to the other officers in enlarging their range of view. They provide unprejudiced minds and clear intellects capable of dealing with the more advanced technical problems of modern warfare (Güntz, for instance).
The most! unsatisfactory material consists of those officers who, on account of inherited wealth, look upon their profession as a kind of sport, attractive, abounding in superficial honours, and for that reason very agreeable. They generally spring from well-to-do middle-class families (Landsberg), or, in the smart regiments of Guards, from the families of large landed proprietors and wealthy manufacturers. These latter are apt to regard court ball-rooms and racecourses as more important fields of action than drill-grounds and barracks. They are wholly without ambition, because they only intend to spend a few years in the army, and then retire to the comforts of private life on their own estates. They are neither good officers because to be that demands a man's whole attention and energies; nor, subsequently, good citizens--because the proper management of a large estate needs training and experience, which cannot be acquired during their years of military life.
"Yet sometimes these very officers become generals in command, or something of the sort!" said he. "That's the worst of it!"
June 3rd.
The colonel continued the conversation of yesterday. We talked about the aristocracy and the middle-class in the army. He admits without hesitation that the middle-class element is despised, from the staff-officers downwards, owing to causes originating in the reflected glory of the old personal relations between the monarch and his feudal lords, now somewhat modified by the indiscriminate giving of titles--the acceptance of which titles, moreover, on the part of the middle-classes, he utterly condemns. He wound up by saying: "If only it were always members of the aristocracy who were really the most efficient, and attained the highest eminence!"
Just as the colonel had argued before that there was danger of one-sidedness from the prevailing influence of the "army nobility," he now pointed out that, on the other hand, an advantage arose: a kind of accumulation of specific military qualities of a bodily as well as of a mental kind. He may be quite right.