Face to Face with Kaiserism | Page 9

which they have no power to decide.
Across the square and covering the entire block in a building that
resembles in external appearance a jail, built of dark red brick without
ornament or display, is the home of the Great General Staff. This
institution has its own spies, its own secret service, its own newspaper
censors. Here the picked officers of the German army, the inheritors of
the power of von Moltke, work industriously. Apart from the people of
Germany, they wield the supreme power of the State and when the
Staff decides a matter of foreign policy or even an internal measure,
that decision is final.
The peculiar relations of the Emperor to the Great General Staff make
it possible for him to dismiss in disgrace a head of the Staff who has
failed. But at all times the Kaiser is more or less controlled in his action
by the Staff as a whole and at a time when the chief of the Great
General Staff is successful, the latter, even on questions of foreign
policy, claims the right then to make a decision which the Emperor
may find it difficult to disregard. This is because in an autocratic
government, as in any other, personality counts for much. Von Tirpitz
controlled all departments of the navy, although only at the head of one.
The Ludendorff-Hindenburg combination, especially if backed by
Mackensen, can bend the will of the Emperor.
[Illustration: THE IRON CROSS. IN THE EXPECTATION OF A
SHORT WAR THOUSANDS OF THESE CROSSES WERE
DISTRIBUTED IN THE FIRST MONTHS OF THE WAR AND THE
PRECEDENT THUS ESTABLISHED HAS LED TO THE GIVING

OF PERHAPS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THESE
DECORATIONS]
Yet while the head of the Great General Staff may fall, the system
always remains. An unknown, mysterious power it is, unchanging, and
relentless, a power that watches over the German army with unseen
eyes. It seeks always additions to its own ranks from those young
officers who have distinguished themselves by their talents in the
profession of arms. What does it mean to them?
It is January twenty-seventh, the birthday of the Kaiser in a German
garrison town. The officers of the regiment are assembled in the
mess-hall, the regimental band plays the national air of Prussia, "Heil
Dir im Sieger Kranz" (Hail, thou, in the conqueror's wreath). (The
music is familiar to us because we sing it to the words of "America."
The British sing the air to the words of "God Save the King." This
music was originally written for Louis XIV.) The health of the Emperor
is proposed and drunk with "Hurrahs" and again "Hurrahs," and then
comes a telegram from Berlin announcing the promotions and
decorations granted to some of the officers of the regiment: the most
envied of all is that younger officer, perhaps the student among them,
who receives the laconic despatch telling him that he is detailed to the
Great General Staff!
Then commences for the young officer a life of almost monastic
devotion. No amusements, no social obligations or entertainments must
interfere in the slightest with his earnest work in that plain building of
mystery which so calmly, and with such mock modesty, faces the
garish home of the Reichstag on the Königs-Platz, in Berlin.
Who decided on the break with America? It was not the Chancellor,
notoriously opposed; it was not the Foreign Office, nor the Reichstag,
nor the Princes of Germany who decided to brave the consequences of
a rupture with the United States on the submarine question. It was not
the Emperor; but a personality of great power of persuasion. It was
Ludendorff, Quartermaster General, chief aid and brains to Hindenburg,
Chief of the Great General Staff, who decided upon this step.

Unquestionably a party in the navy, undoubtedly von Tirpitz himself,
backed by the navy and by many naval officers and the Naval League,
advocated the policy and promised all Germany peace within three
months after it was adopted; unquestionably public opinion made by
the Krupps and the League of Six (the great iron and steel companies),
desiring annexation of the coal and iron lands of France, demanded this
as a quick road to peace. But it was the deciding vote of the Great
General Staff that finally embarked the German nation on this
dangerous course.
I do not think the Emperor himself, unless backed by the whole public
opinion of Germany, would dare to withstand the Great General Staff
which he himself creates. They are so much his devotees that they
would overrule him in what they consider his interest.
Whatever thinking the Emperor does nowadays is more or less on his
own account. There is to-day no shining favourite who has his ear to
the exclusion of others. The last known favourite was Prince Max Egon