"This paper will tell you."
Herr von Zimmermann handed me a permit from the Great General Staff which read as follows: "The bearer of this permit is entitled to use the relays of the Imperial Volunteer Automobile Corps to the Main Headquarters. Everything that can in any way expedite his journey is to be placed at his disposal."
III—"MY ARRIVAL AT THE GREAT GENERAL STAFF IN LUXEMBURG"
Still as ignorant regarding the whereabouts of the Main Headquarters as when we left Berlin, we set out from Treves in the morning of the 18th of September, recrossed the Moselle, and cast a glance up at the heights from which on August 4th Frenchmen in mufti were heliographing to the airships, who wanted to know how the German mobilization was getting on. At the flying station we stopped a moment to have a look at the Taubes in their canvas sheds....
Now we begin to look about. Yes, it is obvious that the Main Headquarters are still at Luxemburg. Sentries at the entrances to all hotels, soldiers everywhere, officers rushing past in motor-cars. In a market-place large tents have been put up for horses, and round them walk the sentries smoking their pipes; in another open space there are rows of motor-cars laden with petrol and oil in cylinders.
We must observe becoming military precision in our search and consequently make at once for the house where the Great General Staff has taken up its quarters, and which in ordinary times is a Luxemburg school. Von Krum gets down and soon returns with the intimation that we must report ourselves to a Lieutenant-Colonel Hahnke. He sent us off to the Chief of the General Staff, His Excellency von Moltke, who with his charming Swedish Countess has just sat down to dinner at the Kölnischer Hof, where they reside. The Countess was on a short visit to Luxemburg in the service of the Red Cross. Here I felt almost as if I were at home, for I had many times been a guest in their hospitable home in Berlin. As calm as if he had been on manoeuvers, the Chief lit his cigar and made detailed enquiries about my plans and wishes. I said I wanted to go to the front and see as much as I might be allowed to, mentioning that it was my intention subsequently to describe what I had seen of the war with my own eyes. If possible I wanted to get an impression of a modern battle, and hoped also to get an opportunity of visiting the occupied parts of Belgium.
The Chief thought for a moment. Permission to visit the front had already been granted to me by the Emperor, and it only remained to decide which would be the best place for me to begin my observations. The army of the German Crown Prince was the nearest, only a couple of hours away. The Chief would arrange everything for my journey, and I was shortly to receive details of the programme. "Of course, there can be no question of safety in the fighting zone," he said, "it is not far away. If you listen you can hear the thunder of guns from Verdun."...
It would take too long to describe all the interesting acquaintances I made in Luxemburg and to introduce to the reader all the eminent men with whom I spoke during the two days I spent in this little town. Suffice it to mention the Imperial Chancellor von Bethmann Holweg, the Foreign Minister von Jagow, the War Minister Lieutenant-General von Falkenhayn, and the Chief of the Imperial Volunteer Automobile Corps the young Prince Waldemar, son of Prince Henry.
The Main Headquarters are the head or rather the brain of the army in the field, where all plans are made and from which all orders are issued. It is an incredibly complicated apparatus with an organization of which every detail has been prepared in advance. When an apparatus of this kind is installed in a small town like Luxemburg, all hotels, schools, barracks, Government offices, as well as a number of private houses, have to be requisitioned for billets. The invaded country has no alternative but to resign itself to its fate. But nothing is taken promiscuously, everything will be made good after the war. The War Ministry is housed in an hotel, the General Staff—as already mentioned—in a school, the officers of the automobile corps, in a private house, and so on. The Commander-in-Chief, von Moltke, resided at the Kölnischer Hof, the Imperial Chancellor and the Foreign Minister in an exceptionally elegant private house, whilst the Emperor's personal staff and suite were stopping at the Hotel Staar, where a room was also placed at my disposal....