The Kaiser goes for a daily drive or ride about the countryside usually in the afternoon, but occasionally he is allowed to have a real outing by his solicitous entourage—a day and more rarely a [Transcriber: text missing in original]
"His Majesty is never so happy as when he is among his troops at the front," another transplanted Berlin detective told me. "If his Majesty had his way he would be among them all the time, preferably sleeping under canvas and roughing it like the rest—eating the 'simple' food prepared by his private field kitchen. But his life is too valuable to be risked in that way, and his personal Adjutant, von Plessen, who watches over his Majesty like a mother or a governess, won't let him go to the front often. His Majesty loves his soldiers and would be among them right up at the firing line if he were not constantly watched and kept in check by his devoted von Plessen." However, the Kaiser sleeps within earshot of the not very distant thunder of the German heavy artillery pounding away at Rheims, plainly heard here at night when the wind blows from the right direction.
Of barbarism or brutality the writer saw no signs, either here or at other French villages occupied by the Germans. The behavior of the common soldiers toward the natives is exemplary and in most cases kindly. There are many touches of human interest. I saw about a hundred of the most destitute hungry townsfolk, mostly women with little children, hanging around one of the barracks at the outskirts of the town until after supper the German soldiers came out and distributed the remnants of their black bread rations to them. It is not an uncommon sight to see staff officers as well as soldiers stopping on the streets to hand out small alms to the begging women and children. Many of the shops in town were closed and boarded up at the approach of the Prussians, but small hotel keepers, café proprietors, and tradesmen who had the nerve to remain and keep open are very well satisfied with the German invasion in one way, for they never made so much money before in their lives. Most of the German soldiers garrisoned here have picked up a few useful words of French; all of them can, and do, call for wine, white or red, in the vernacular. Moreover, they pay for all they consume. I was astonished to see even the detectives paying real money for what they drank. Several tradesmen told me they had suffered chiefly at the hands of the French soldiers themselves, who had helped themselves freely to their stock before retreating, without paying, saying it was no use to leave good wine, for the Prussian swine.
I had not prowled around the Great Headquarters for many hours when the Secret Field Police, patrolling all the streets, showed signs of curiosity, and to forestall the orthodox arrest and march to headquarters (already experienced once, in Cologne) waited upon Lieut. Col. von Hahnke, Military Commandant of the city, and secured immunity in the form of the Commandant's signature on a scrap of paper stamped in purple ink with the Prussian eagle. Commandant Hahnke, after expressing the opinion that it was good that American newspaper men were coming to Germany to see for themselves, and hoping that "the truth" was beginning to become known on the other side, courteously sent his Adjutant along to get me past the guard at the Great General Staff and introduce me to Major Nikolai, Chief of Division III. B., in charge of newspaper correspondents and Military Attachés. Here, however, the freedom of the American press came into hopeless, but humorous, collision with the Prussian militarism.
"Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here?" snapped the Prussian Major. A kind letter of introduction from Ambassador Gerard, requesting "all possible courtesy and assistance from the authorities of the countries through which he may pass," and emblazoned with the red seal of the United States of America, which had worked like magic on all previous occasions, had no effect on Major Nikolai. Neither had a letter from the American Consul at Cologne, nor a letter of introduction to Gen. von Buelow, nor any one of a dozen other impressive documents produced in succession for his benefit.
"No foreign correspondents are permitted to be at the Great Headquarters. None has been allowed to come here. If we allow one to remain, fifty others will want to come, and we should be unable to keep an eye on all of them," he explained. "You must go back to Berlin at once."
Reluctant permission was finally obtained to remain one night on the possibly unwarranted intimation that the great American people would consider it a "national affront" if an American newspaperman was not allowed to stay and see the American Military Attaché, Major Langhorne, who was away on a sightseeing tour near Verdun, but would be back in the morning. However, a long cross-examination had to be undergone at the hands of the venerable Herr Chief of the Secret Field Police Bauer, who was taking no chances at harboring an English spy in the Houptquartier disguised as a correspondent.
I found Major Langhorne standing the strain of the campaign well, and I gathered the impression that he intended to see the thing through, and that there was much which America could learn from the titanic operations of the Germans. Major Langhorne and the Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, Spanish, Rumanian, and Swedish military attachés are luxuriously quartered a mile and a half out of town in the handsome villa of M. Noll, the landscape painter, present whereabouts unknown. The attachés all have a sense of humor, "otherwise," said one of them, "we could never stand being cooped up here together." The gardener's daughter, a pretty young Frenchwoman, the only servant who remained behind when the household fled at the approach of the Germans, is both cook and housekeeper, and when I arrived I found the seven military attachés resolved into a board of strategy trying to work out the important problem of securing a pure milk supply for her four-month-old baby.
Work consists of occasional motor runs to various points along the long front. I was told that recently Major Langhorne ran into some heavy shrapnel and shell fire, and was lucky to get away with a whole skin. When asked to tell about it, Major Langhorne passed it off laughingly as "all in the day's work."
In spite of the fact that they are engaged in keeping their end up in a life-and-death fight for national existence, the Great General Staff has found time to give the American Military Attaché every possible opportunity to see actual fighting.