ite, and
Black" in unison--a stirring, marching song, which for patriotic fervor
and fighting spirit "puts it all over" the British "It's a Long Way from
Tipperary."

It was a Roman holiday for the French inhabitants of the town of ----,
who lined the roads en masse quivering with suppressed emotion and
happiness, thinking they were eyewitnessing a great German retreat. "Our
French soldiers will soon be here again," they whispered to one another.
But it wasn't a retreat--it was one of those mysterious strategic shifts
you read about in the papers without really realizing what it means till
you see it--great masses being rushed from one battlefield to another on
the long line.

For weeks these same regiments had been daily "decimated," "cut to
pieces," and otherwise badly mauled by English war correspondents, but
you would never have suspected it. Bearded dragoons and Uhlans were
still able to sit up and smoke big Hamburg cigars as they rode along,
the horses looked fresh, the guns of the batteries were spick and span,
the men seemed to have "morale" to spare; they looked as if they were
just going for the first time--and not coming from the scrimmage.

By way of digression and as illustrating the military "discipline" on
which the Germans pride themselves so, the following whimsical interlude
took place in front of the sacred portals of the Great German Staff: A
famous German professor of philosophy, adorned in civil life with the
high title of Privy Councilor, 65 years old, white-haired,
white-bearded, and with big yellow horn-rimmed spectacles, incongruously
wearing the field gray uniform whose collar and shoulder straps
indicated that he was an unterofficier of the reserve regiment of a
German university town well known to Americans, was waiting patiently
outside of the guarded gate in company with a young Feldwebel (a
non-commissioned officer of higher rank.) The old philosophy professor
had enlisted with practically his whole class at the outbreak of the
war, but on account of his age was not sent to the front with them at
the time, but finally was allowed to go with a transport of four
automobile loads of gifts and supplies for the regiment. He and the
Feldwebel had to hang around outside while the Lieutenant in charge went
inside to do the talking in the Great General Staff Building. Presently
the old philosophy professor ransacked his pockets, produced an apple,
clicked his heels together in regulation fashio