years hence. In ten years, what will be the Germans' attitude toward
this war and their military lords?

It is not often that one has a senator for a guide; and I never knew a
more efficient one than our statesman. His own curiosity was the best
possible aid in satisfying our own. Having seen the compactness and
simplicity of an army column at the front, we were to find that the
same thing applied to high command. A sentry and a small flag at the
doorway of a village hotel: this was the headquarters of the Sixth
Army, which General Manoury had formed in haste and flung at von
Kluck with a spirit which crowned his white hairs with the audacity of
youth. He was absent, but we might see something of the central
direction of one hundred and fifty thousand men in the course of one
of the most brilliant manœuvres of the war, before staffs had settled
down to office existence in permanent quarters. That is, we might see
the little there was to see: a soldier telegrapher in one bedroom, a
soldier typewritist in another, officers at work in others. One realized
that they could pack up everything and move in the time it takes to
toss enough clothes into a bag to spend a night away from home.
Apparently, when the French fought they left red tape behind with the
bureaucracy.

From his seat before a series of maps on a sitting-room table an
officer of about thirty-five rose to receive us. It struck me that he
exemplified self-possessed intelligence and definite knowledge; that
he had coolness and steadiness plus that acuteness of perception
and clarity of statement which are the gift of the French. You felt sure
that no orders which left his hand wasted any words or lacked
explicitness. The Staff is the brains of the army, and he had brains.