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away; here what had been a field of plenty, ugly now with the pockmarks of the shells. For over this land whereon the Kaiser slept his legions had rushed of a day in August two years before, and their imprint lay still upon the earth.

Six o'clock. A commotion at the door. The guard stiffened into statues, transfixed in the imperial salute. A man dressed in gray-green like theirs, a gray military cape, lined with red, hanging from his square shoulders, the short baton of a Field Marshal protruding from his left hand, appeared in the doorway. With a quick gesture his right hand returned their salutes: "Good morning, soldiers! Another day for the Kaiser has begun.

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Under the trees purred the imperial motor; behind it a second, gay with the gold and black of the imperial standard. The Dragoons cantered up from the field near by, slashing the air into twinkling shreds as their sabres swished to the salute. "Good morning, soldiers!" cried the Kaiser, the silver-knobbed baton flashing a salute in return. "Good morning, your Majesty!" roared five hundred horsemen.

The Kaiser stepped into the car. His tall Pomeranian grenadier footman tucked a rug around the imperial legs. The Dragoons divided, half riding out in front of the car, half galloping behind. "To General Bülow's headquarters," ordered the Kaiser, and, to a trumpeting of motor honrs, the imperial cavalcade slipped through the park, and, leaving the château behind, moved toward the front.

So began one day for the Kaiser; so has begun many a day for him during this war. For the German Emperor is more often at the front than he is at the castle in Berlin.

The Kaiser Takes Risks

For, whatever else may be said of the Kaiser, he is a man, and, considering this war a man's job, he is ever on the job. No occasional trips to the front for Wilhelm II. No remaining quite comfortable in a palace and every so often, at intervals of months, going on a royal sort of Cook's tour to visit his army. Rather

the Kaiser ever holds his hand on the war pulse. One hears of him in France, then in Russia, then in Serbia.

At one time during the early fighting against Russia he barely retreated with a division across the River Niemen in time to escape capture by a Cossack patrol-an event, this, little known in Germany. Again, riding in an automobile with von Hindenburg in front of the fortress of Kovno, the Kaiser's car was picked up by Russian artillery observers, and there was a race for life against the shells. Again with his staff, and against their wishes, the Kaiser ventured upon a hilltop opposite Soissons in France and brought the crash of shrapnel down about his ears.

Yes, the Kaiser has seen this war. He has seen it at the front. He has seen regiments surge into action for him and die. Under his eyes-he deeming that his presence would stir the men to greater efforts the Germans charged again and again to break the British lines at Ypres. And the Kaiser saw the flower of his army, the Prussian Guards, blasted away. And later he saw the funeral pyres of their dead lighting one of those Ypres nights made greenish with the rocket flares, one of those nights when mad colors seethe up from No Man's Land and the trenches slowly turn to great long graves. The Kaiser has seen these horrors by night, those unearthly nights by the Ypres Canal that always seem to come out of the pages of a Maeterlinck play.

Yes, war has made its imprint on the Kaiser's mind. One can see it today. The rebellious lock of hair over the temple is more gray. A deep furrow between the brows where there was none before, a shadowing in his gray-blue eyes that used always to be clear. At times on the imperial face the gambler's expression is discernible the Monte Carlo face intensified illimitably. The Kaiser seems then like a man who has thrown everything on the wheel-people, country, dynasty-and the uncertainty, the stress of waiting and waiting for a result is portrayed there. Correspondingly the Kaiser's reactions of expression are violent today. After the victory at War

saw in 1915 he looked extravagantly joyous. It was as if one had been trying to tell one's self that everything was coming out all right—although subconsciously one often feared not-and that then something happened, a victory! And for a moment the tension of doubt was broken. These changes of emotion show on the Kaiser today. But generally his face is grave. As he whirls from one point to another on the front, indeed, as he rushes from one of his far-flung battle fronts to another, the Kaiser's expression is always the same, gravity.

The war lord on parade, the Kaiser of the manoeuvre fields of peace times, the Kaiser who would order a cavalry charge of huge proportions, and who, as his horsemen thundered by, would turn to his military guests with a look of supreme pride and confidence-that Kaiser is no more. Instead one sees a harassed expression that shows the mind behind to be thinking: "Will the terms of peace satisfy my people for the sacrifices they have made? Will my people hold loyal and true to the end? I believe we are in God's hands, and he will not desert us."

His Religion Appallingly Sincere

For the religion of the Kaiser has been his cornerstone or his poison in this war. Calling upon the Almighty for aid in everything he undertakes, the Kaiser has come to approach the fanatically religious sovereigns of centuries gone by. In religion and his belief that God is on his side the Kaiser is appallingly sincere. Better were it a pose; he would have made peace long ago.

What of the Kaiser today? Always dignified, the war has grown about him a grave, almost reverential mood, lightened only by the smiles of victory. That the war weighs heavily upon his heart every American who has talked with him affirms. That he feels deeply at the sight of the dead and wounded is also true. Conceptions of the human character always differ. It has been written that Joan of Arc was a saint; that she was a madwoman; Molière scoffed at her. It has been written that Catherine of Russia was a great Empress; that she was a mere sexual pervert; that Edward

VII. of England was a peacemaker, that he was a Janus-faced diplomat, who bred war. Conceptions of the Kaiser have been written, presenting him as an archhypocrite, the greatest actor in the world, and as a madman. The conception I have is neither of these. He is dangerously sincere. He believes in himself and in the destiny of the German people. He believes strongly in Nietzschean "will to power "-in his speeches to his soldiers during this war he has called it the "will to victory.".

Always religious, the war has made him more so, until it approaches almost mysticism. His constant calling upon God is sincere. His belief that God is on his side is sincere. Whenever he goes to the front the imperial banner, orange, black embroidered with a cross, and bearing the legend "God with us," goes with him. He has caused that motto of his to be inscribed on the buckles of his soldiers. He has caused every soldier in the army to receive a little pocket Bible. He is accompanied by a Chaplain wherever he goes-accompanied by a surgeon, too.

The Kaiser's Health Uncertain

For during this war the imperial health has more than once been the cause of great worry to the German Nation. In December of 1914 a throat affection, the curse of the Hohenzollerns, which laid low his father and his grandfather, confined the Kaiser to the Schloss in Berlin. No one knew exactly what was the matter with him; only those at the top knew. An operation was performed, the Kaiser lived. For a year the malady left him alone, and he rushed from battlefront to battlefront, then in December of 1916 it overtook him again. The aged Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, died. The Kaiser's physicians permitted him to attend a mass for his ally, but refused to let him go to the funeral. Now, the absence of the Kaiser from Franz Josef's funeral was a most conspicuous thing, and it is certain that in no circumstances would he have tolerated it had not the danger to his health been great.

Will the Kaiser survive the war? No one can tell. Wilhelm I. was a tall, pow

erful man. One day he was taken down to a resort on the Riviera. The curse of the Hohenzollerns had caught him, and there he died quickly. The Kaiser has had a battle with himself from the day he was born. His left arm crippled, his figure drooping and sickly, as a boy Prince he worked against fate until he developed himself into a broad, muscular man. But he was not able to strengthen his throat, he was not able to ward off that disease, be it cancer or what, which took off his Hohenzollern ancestors.

Active at the Front

Physically strong the Kaiser is today. At the front he does not pamper himself. He has gone without meals. He has scorned the course luncheons of château headquarters for plates of stew at field kitchens. He has been in the saddle for hours at a time, always leaving the imperial motor when the zone of military fire, with its alert enemy observers, drew near. At Lille he stood in the rain for hours and watched the Bavarians, who were to drive on Arras, go marching by. Day after day, during the height of the Verdun offensive, he went to bed after midnight, and was up at daybreak, consulting with his Generals throughout the night.

Visiting points on the front by day, ever haranguing the soldiers with speeches, it is not an uncommon thing for the Kaiser to make twelve speeches a day at the front. It has been said of him that he believes his presence is worth more in a battle than two army corps. Let a column of infantry be overtaken by the imperial motor. "Halt!" cries the Kaiser-to the distant drumming of the guns he almost seems to beat time with the little Field Marshal's baton generally to be found clasped in the imperial hand. "Soldiers, you have given the Fatherland many glorious victories, you will continue to win victories until, with God's help, peace comes." Such is the pith of the typical Kaiser speech at the front-acknowledgment, instilling of will, reminder of God. It is his inevitable construction.

That the army loves him there can be no doubt. The Kaiser's attitude is as if

Germany were the father; as if all the soldiers were children; as if he were the representative of the father, Germany, looking after them. He does look after his soldiers, too, as much as circumstances will allow-obviously impossible for the Kaiser to know his millions of soldiers personally. A visit to the groaning hospital cot, a word of kindness, a clasp of a day laborer's hand, a decoration bestowed, an unexpected visit to a company at meal time, a dish of stew with them from out of the field kitchen; an unheralded coming to the quarters where his soldiers rest behind the firing line, an imperial call-down for the officer because the men are not comfortable enough-such things the Kaiser is ever doing, and the stories of them are spread like wildfire throughout the army; and the men come to feel that he is an Emperor who is fighting with them, not lounging back in a palace, getting the reports.

Now, obviously it is good business for the Kaiser to create such sentiment among the soldiers; but to give that as a reason for the Kaiser being at the front is unfair and untrue; for the Kaiser is a man, and while he approaches war in the mood of utmost gravity and religiously inspired, still he loves the thrill of it all.

In a room of the General Staff in Berlin where the officers whose duty is railroad transportation keep track day and night of the movements of all passenger and military trains throughout the empire, there come nights when every man is unusually alert. Those are "Kaiser nights." In the great headquarters of Charleville, Brussels, and in Lille, three staffs whose sole work is railroads sit.

The Imperial Special

The Kaiser decides to leave the western battlefront for the east. His headquarters, during July, was a château behind Sedan. From Sedan the word is flashed to Lille that the Kaiser is coming. Lille flashes it on to Brussels. Brussels to the great railroad room in Berlin. From that building of yellowish brick on the Königsplatz, railroad chiefs at every point, from Aachen on the Belgian frontier to Alexandrovo on the Po

lish frontier, are notified that the Kaiser's train is leaving Lille bound for Warsaw, over Brussels, Berlin. There is a separate staff for the administration of the roads in Poland, to which headquarters in Warsaw comes the same message from Berlin, and it in turn notifies the yard chiefs in Poland, at Lodz and Skierniewice, of the coming of the imperial train. All is ready. The yards know just how many military and passenger trains are scheduled to pass through them in the next twenty-four hours. The "Kaiser's schedule" is put in operation. Tracks are cleared for the imperial special.

Drawn by one of the powerful engines of the Heckle works, it pulls into Sedan, a drawing-room car for the Kaiser and his personal aids, a combination dining and study car, the imperial sleeper, and three sleepers for the rest of the staff. As the big locomotive waits, there sounds above its panting the clatter of airplanes, and overhead, in V formation, flying like crows, a big Fokker at the apex, the Kaiser's aerial guard, to keep off any possible enemy flier until the German frontier is reached, circles and circles on high.

The night after the Kaiser has stepped into his special train at Sedan, he is detraining at Warsaw and driving at midnight down the Jeruselamer Allee into the Nowy Swiat and down to the palace of the old Polish Kings, where he will spend the night. A few days getting the Polish sentiment, possibly sounding out the temper of the people, to see if shoulder to shoulder they will fight with the Germans against Russia, and the Kaiser moves on. From Warsaw he radiates north to watch the hammering at Riga; east, beyond Brest-Litovsk, where Reincke holds the line of Barnovitch against the Russian drive; or the imperial train goes hammering southwest over Ivangorod toward Kovel, where Litchowsky and his Cossacks drill the Austrian wall.

Wherever the situation seems to be critical, there goes the Kaiser-to inspire his troops. Wherever a great victory has been won, there goes the Kaiser -to thank his troops. Whenever a new

country has been captured, Serbia, Rumania, there goes the Kaiser to strike awe into the hearts of the captive populace, awe and respect for the Prussian eagle. Wherever an ally is becoming a little uneasy, there goes the Kaiser-to stiffen weak backs and bolster causes that seem lost.

Methods of the War Lord

One of the Kaiser's prerogatives is that he holds the supreme command of the German Army and the German Navy. Incidentally, the German military title for the office is "Kriegs Herrn," a regular military title which caused the Kaiser to be known to the world as the War Lord, for Kriegs Herrn literally translates into that. Holding this supreme command, the Kaiser uses it. Our President is Commander in Chief of the American Army and Navy, but as a rule our Presidents rarely direct the campaign of our army and navy in time of war. Unlike our Presidents, the Kaiser has studied military and naval science his whole life, and he believes he knows something concerning it a point, by the way, upon which writers on military science differ.

Now the Kaiser's method with his army is direct. He appoints the man whom he believes to be best fitted for the work to the office of Chief of the General Staff. This man is surrounded by hundreds of the most efficient and highly specialized officers in the German Army. This General Staff, quartered in the field at Charleville, France, works out department by department every phase of the big military campaigns. These campaigns, decided upon by the Chiefs of Staff, are then put up to the Kaiser.

After the success of the operations in Serbia in the Autumn of 1915, Falkenhayn formed a plan of campaign that called for a spending of Germany's offensive resources at that time against France. Hindenburg, then in supreme command of the German armies of the East, (Falkenhayn not having jurisdiction over him in any way,) violently opposed this plan against France. Hindenburg and his great strategist, Ludendorff, told the Emperor that no of

fensive movement should be made against France, but that a decision should be first reached in the East. The Kaiser had the two propositions in front of him. Falkenhayn flatly promised the Kaiser Verdun. He had it all figured out convincingly. Hindenburg came out against Falkenhayn's plan. The Kaiser told Hindenburg he was wrong; but half a year later Falkenhayn's head went into the basket, next to Moltke's. He had joined the lists of the Kaiser's Chiefs of Staff who failed.

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Now that is the Kaiser's position in relation to the army. He is the supreme arbiter. His Chief of Staff and his Generals conceive the military moves. studies their plans, suggests changes here, and likes his Generals when they openly disagree with him-that is, if it turns out that they are right. If their opposition is shown to be wrong, they get on the imperial black list. The Kaiser decides. That sums up his position with the army.

His Control of Submarines

Similar is his relation to the navy. That, too, has its General Staff. They sit in a most modern building in Berlin, a palace compared with the headquarters of the army; and conceive their problems of naval strategy. In that white stone building on the shores of one of Berlin's canals was born the idea of submarine frightfulness. For two years they worked on the campaign which was announced to the world on Jan. 31, 1917. For two years they increased the building facilities of the German shipyards, biding their time, as week by week the number of sea snakes" grew. Then, when they had a certain number ready— one does not pretend to know how many; credible information says that Germany can now build six submarines a weekwhen they had raised the number of submarines so it would satisfy their plans, the German Admiralty Staff laid them again before the Kaiser, and he made his momentous decision. Will it make him or break him?

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Likewise with his Foreign Office does the Kaiser decide. In that musty old building, Wilhelmstrasse 76, there are

departments for every nation in the world. One official, with his subordinates, is in charge of the United States department, another of the English, and so on. It is the duty of these department chiefs to be ready at the Kaiser's call to lay before him any diplomatic information which he desires in relation to that particular country. As executive head of the Foreign Office-Secretary for Foreign Affairs-von Jagow, with a mild, suave, tolerant, cosmopolitan type of mind, was quite all right for the rubber stamp work that a German Foreign Minister under Wilhelm II. has to do. Quite all right, until the brew of submarine frightfulness began boiling, and out went the mild Jagow for the vigorous Zimmermann. He is responsible to the Chancellor for the efficiency of the Foreign Office, and the Chancellor is responsible to the Kaiser.

As the army and navy chiefs bring up their plans for a decision, so does Dr. Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. If the Kaiser likes the Chancellor's plan, he adopts it. If he doesn't, the imperial frown is put upon it. One colossal blunder, and, like Moltke, Falkenhayn, and Tirpitz, off will go Bethmann Hollweg's head into the imperial basket; for the Kaiser's chieftains publicly assume the responsibility for the moves of Imperial Germany. If the moves fail, they and they alone are to blame, for, despite the fact that none of these moves can be made without the Kaiser's indorsement of them, Wilhelm II., being the Kaiser, 66 can do no wrong."

We find today the German Emperor at the pinnacle of his power, lusty in health, save for the shadow of that disease which has cursed his family, and which at any time may insidiously creep over him.

The Kaiser has the vitality to keep continually active during this war. Grave, bearing his responsibilities heavily, rarely brightening except at the news of a victory, he sternly and grimly goes through the daily routine, knowing exactly what is going on in every department of the German war machine. Intensely religious, calling upon God in his hour of trial more even than he called upon Him in peace, the Kaiser is relig

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