Gen. Zoellner intimated that the whole German Army either had been or was being vaccinated against typhoid on the American plan. "And there is also a very American flavor about our volunteer automobile corps--their dash and speed they have learned that from you Americans," he concluded.
My previously formed suspicion that the Germans were making war on the American plan, managing their armies like so many subsidiary companies of a big trust, was fully confirmed by my second visit to the office of the Great General Staff. Instead of a picturesque bunch of Generals spending anxious days and sleepless nights over their maps with faithful attendants trying to coax them to leave off dispatch writing long enough to eat a sandwich, I found a live lot of army officials, keeping regular office hours and taking ample time out for meals. The staff was quartered in a handsome old municipal building; the ground floor, devoted to living purposes, quite like an exclusive club; the business offices upstairs.
Gen. von Haenisch took me aloft and explained to me how business was done. A good telephone operator, it developed, was almost as important as a competent General--the telephone "central" the most vital spot of an army. Here were three large switchboards with soldiers playing telephone girl, while other soldiers, with receivers fastened over their heads, sat at desks busy taking down messages on printed "business" forms. In the next room sat the staff officers on duty, waiting for the telephone bell to jingle with latest reports from the front. There was no waiting because numbers were "engaged" or operators gossiping; you could get Berlin or Vienna without once having to swear at "long distance." Gen. von Haenisch had his chief of field telephone and telegraph trot out what looked like a huge family tree, but turned out to be a most minute chart of the entire telephone system of the --nth Army. It showed the position of every corps and division headquarters' regiment, battalion, and company, and all the telephone lines connecting them, even to the single trenches and batteries.
Gen. von Haenisch suggested having some fun with Gen. von X., commanding the army next door on the right, and I was made Acting Chief of Staff for two minutes, getting von X.'s Chief of Staff on the phone and inquiring if there was "anything doing."
