lives and works that marvelous central organization of the German army, the Great General Staff. There I found waiting Dawson, the photographer who had acco

om I liked at the first glimpse, and in his careful, groping English Ober-Lieutenant Herrmann of the Grosser General Stab introduced himself. He explained that he would accompany us on our trip to the front and bring us back to Berlin; where

s, each a minutely described small district of the whole Western front, took up as much room as anything else. And as I had heard officers say that a hypodermic with a shot of morphine was good to carry in case one was hit, that went in, too. During our conversation at the General Staf

or four, After the train had pulled out we discussed the war between the United States and Japan, which all well informed people whom I have met in Germany, diplomatic, naval, and army, believe must soon come. For the first time I noticed that the Ober-Lieutenant's uniform was different from any of the thousands of uniforms that I had seen in Germany; trimmed with

ica. The Emperor created it a special regiment after our campaign there." And I found myself looking at the tiny golden bars, and wondering what deeds of daring this merry-eyed man

ives there. We slept that night, each sprawled out on a compartment seat, and I awoke with a huge arc lamp glaring through the window. My watch showed seven

, to find them both asleep, but then photographers in warring G

w, the train stopped. Opening one of the wide car windows we saw a commotion under a shed of new boards, and there swarmed forth the women of Bingen, with pails of smoking coffee and trays of sandwiches. We saw them crowd

for the front was joined on duri

heard how they hated the Germans, these people of Lorraine, but at every station there were the women and girls with the cans of coffee and the plates of Butt

on one of those broiling summer days, a gray motor of the Red Cross had not stopped there to bury the wounded. A field flew by, serried with trenches that rotated like the spokes of a great wheel; but the trenches were empt

a foreigner's eyes. For only ten minutes was I in Metz and, although it was the natural thing to do to spend them waiting on the station platform, I had a feeling, though, that had I wished otherwise and attempted

eat Headquarters! You thought of it as the place of mystery. In Berlin you remembered hearing it spoken of only vaguely, its location never named. You had heard it kept in darkness, that all lighted windows were covered, lest French flyers seek it by night. You kn

a certain question, before deciding that it was not a breach

sked, "is the Great

desired district, he traced for me the route the train was following. "We cross the Frontier into France, just beyond Fentsch and then go diagonally northwest through Longuion, Montmédy and Sedan to Char

rontier post, with its barber-pole stripings, slip by unguarded, and realized that frontier guards were a thing of the past

ors was open and I saw that the floor was strewn with straw. The soldiers grinned and waved to us an

them, the gray sky showed in ragged, circular patches, framed by the holes in their walls. Sunken roofs, shattered floors, heaps of black débris, the charred walls gaping with shell holes; beside o

lowed ground. Plow furrows? One wondered.... For a mile we did

have lost some of the former indifference to war, "was apparently un

hts" and ended with "verboten." Then the train passed over a trestle and across the dirty little road that ran beneath. I saw a German soldier hurrying towards a squatty peasant house. I coul

ters of shells. At the Longuion Station I watched a German soldier standing on a ladder, painting out all French words within the sweep of his brush. Further on I saw a

darkness closed in, and the Ober-Lieutenant was saying that the Germans were digging the tunnel out, when a yellow

stle was yielding to the train's weight. The tunnel marked the beginning of a destroyed railroad and, as we proceeded, I found myself looking into a house flush against the track. It was like

r engineers. As they retreated, the French blew up everyth

f the house which was in their way an

around Montmédy. It seemed tranquil enough now. I saw the front door open, and down the terr

stations of these captured towns. Finally we pulled up to a larger station where the shadowy forms of houses were closer to

n was giving the station guards. Outside loomed the vague tops of trees, and the whiteness of a house accent

eels, we had gone the length of the station front, he said to me: "You please get Mr. Dawson and

for the movements of more than a million men on the West front; perhaps I might even see the Emperor. Perh

ideration with decision. "Remain in there," and he pointed

ject of furniture been a large buffet, shining with bottled French wines and liqueurs. As I sat down at one of the marble-topped tables, I realized tha

and fell to studying the room. It apparently was an officers' mess of the General Staff. The clea

ing how he had been with Jack London, taking movies for Pathé in th

aid, "and go to bed. We shall have to b

s real fighting in that n

asked, disappointed at being rushe

at rest. "We shall use Lille as a base and

t Headquarters, and the slight distrust I had come to feel at being rushed away from Metz and now from Charl

kets. I remember flashing my electric pocket lamp down on the cobbled street, for just an instant, when Herrmann dropped his gloves. We stumbled down a blind alley that called to mind the habitation of Fran?ois Villon in "The Lodging for a Night." Then Herrmann was rattling the knocker on the huge oaken do

d, high-casemented room such as you sometimes see on the stage in a romantic play. I rem

now on, soldiers with fixed bayonets composed the train crew. We crossed a wooden trestle built by German pioneers high above a green swirl of water between pretty trees, and on the left we saw the ruins of a stone bridge dynamited by the French. We rushed out at St. Vincennes to eat at an officers' mess, and as the train moved on I saw at a siding a

k, Herrmann suddenly plucked my arm. "Look," he exclaimed, pointing up at the huge glass-domed roof. I saw there a big hole, edged with splintered glass, and a fragment of blue sky

mud of the trenches. By that time I had become used to being saluted, and to enjoy the click of a sentry's heels. While Ober-Lieutenant Herrmann was telephoning for a military automobile I noticed one of the Landwehr guards begin to eye

it in the Café de Paris,-which was just across

walk to Headquarters and bring back a motor for us. I may be gone half an hour

heir terrific drive on that segment of the Allies' line, extending out from the Channel shore. Boo-omm, Boo-omm, Boo-omm, with the last syllable prolonged like a low note on

some almost razed to the ground, others with only their tops shot off, but all desolation and ruin. It was not the destruction that made me stop in the square and stare about me, for I had become sated with shelled houses, all the way from Charleville to Lille; it was amazement at the artillery fire that could lay low an entire block and not even drop a s

an who brought us our coffee in the Café de Paris, "is

nt he added wearily, "Our city has bee

post cards of Lille to a good natured German infantryman. The soldier went away and then, what appeared to be the other members of the firm, a bigger and a smaller boy, darted from a doorway to divide the spoils with the dark-eyed youngster who had closed the deal. I saw five different parties of German

n hour longer than he expected

nd Mr. Theyer to the Staff and then I shall take you to an aeroplane ba

an forty kilometers away, and a French fl

Lieutenant. "You can see much," and he smil

to believe that a German aero