HE RULES THE KAISER.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7750, 18 July 1916, Page 1

HE RULES THE KAISER.

BRAIN OF GERMAN ARMY. ONE-MAN CONTROL. The “military domination of Prussia,’’ which the Prime Minister declared must be “wholly and finally destroyed,” has its seat and centre in the famous “ Generalsjtabler, ” which is quite an exceptional theocracy of war (writes Ignatius Pliayre in the “Express”). There is nothing like it on earth, nor will ever be again, we may hope, when this fearful conflict is over. In peace time the Berlin Kriegsministerium, on the Konigsplatz, near the Austrian Embassy, is mucli like any other War Office. But the moment mobilisation is complete, and before the first gun is fired, the real war thinkers hurry out to the field and throw off every vestige of civil authority—even that of the Imperial throne itself. The Kaiser is “invited” to grand headquarters at Tliielt, in Flanders, or Verdun, in France, when big attacks are to be made, but the Emperor is only a visitor. He is now All-High-est in name alone, for the real war lord is Eric von Falkenhayn, Chief of Staff of the German armies, and directing brain of all the others, from the Balkans to Bagdad. SUPREME POWER. It is hard to convey an idea of this man’s absolute, domination. Von Jagow, the Foreign Minister, has no control over him, neither has the Imperial Chancellor, Dr. von BethmannHollweg. No diplomacy, no governmental or administrative influence, lias any weight whatever with the head of the Generalstabler. The military tail now wags the German dog. The Central Empires and their Allies are inexorably ruled from the field, where Falkenhayn and his staff carry out the war in complete strategic supremacy. Even popular idols and great leaders like Paul Hindenburg and August von Mackensen—that stern ascetic who taught the Crown Prince in Danzig—are mere instruments in the chief’s hands. Von Falkenhayn is easily the youngest of Germany’s military leaders, being barely 54. Yet, like Papa Hindenburg, he was an army failure, and drifted rather aimlessly out to China in search of free-lance opportunity in a troubled land. His chance came with the Boxer rebellion, when his urbane capacity quickly made him German Governor of Tientsin after that city was stormed by the allied troops—of course with the Prussian machine bossing all. Count von Waldersee had supreme command. HYPNOTISED. Falkenhayn next became President of the Provincial Government in Tientsin, and began to attract the Kaiser’s notice for the first time. Recalled to Berlin, lie was reinstated in that rambling pile on the Konigsplatz, and wore once more the broad red trousor-stripe of the general staff. From that time onward the man never looked back, mounting higher and higher in the great machine, and at last succeeding von Moltke as Chief of Staff, after that general’s disgrace following on the Marne retreat. An extraordinary fact of Falkenhayn’s career is his personal ascendancy. His power over the Emperor is a source of continual amazement to civilian Germany. “Our Sovereign is hypnotised by this general,” you will hear people say, and certain it is that the Kaiser haunts the grand headquarters with something like nervous fear of the mighty military camarilla within its humble walls. Before me as I write is a. German photograph showing the All-llighest lunching al fresco with the two veteran Silesians, Max von Gallwitz and Remus von Woyrseh, two of Falkenhayn ’s ablest generals, who themselves handle great armies. The Kaiser stands cloaked and obviously shivering beside a small camp table in an open yard, while a minor figure of the general staff pours a glass of Rhine wine for his Imperial master. One of the strangest phases of the great war, by the way, is the passing of the Kaiser’s power into the iron hands of the staff in the field. He goes here and there at their bidding; he waits on Falkenhayn’s plans, “like a lost soul staying for wnftnge.” CHOICE OF MEN. It was Scharnhorst and Clausewitz ((he real father of Prussian Schrecklichkeit, which the world translates as frightfulness) who moulded the general staff into the machine as it exists to-day, while old Count von Moltke made omnipotence its watchword. The humbling of France in 1870 raised the machine to reckless heights in German estimation. It became a pitiless juggernaut that crushed the highest in the land when he stumbled. It has not, however, prevented the German army from becoming democratic. War has played havoc with its parade elements. The Prussian Guard went down at Ypres, and Falkenhayn’s doughty Brandenburgers wilted away at Verdun. The (lower of the Junker officers fell, and now able men are promoted to the privileged caste without regard to their origin.