We propose in this present chapter, which concludes our account of Germany's system, to show how complete is the training of agents for the work of military and naval espionage. The German military spy, it must be premised, is rarely an officer on the active or retired list, but almost always a civilian who has, of course, had military training. Turr and Windell had both been military officers who had practically been cashiered, while Lody had been a minor officer in the German merchant service. The German military agent must know all units of foreign armies at sight and must also be able to memorise the code words by which such units are indicated in the Berlin bureau. In respect of code words, indeed, his memory must, in all military matters, be of a Napoleonic capacity, and when corresponding with his head office as to the work of any particular pattern of gun on which he is instructed to report, it will go badly with him if he fails to quote his code accurately. Since, by the regulations, he is not permitted to carry documents, his task is obviously not an easy one. And so, again, with classes of explosives and types of shell. Furthermore, he must be so intimate with the science of fortification as to be competent to produce a map of any required fortified place, its maximum content and capacity for resistance. No Woolwich cadet of two years' standing is expected to know half as much as your German military spy, while his periodical examinations are conducted on a scale which would be sufficient to make studious officers of the Staff College doubtful as to their ability to "floor" the papers. Any error transmitted in the way of information as to guns, man-capacity of fortresses, new ideas in strategy and tactics, ballistics, plans and military maps, are dealt with in Berlin on the American plan—that is to say, the offender is never given a chance to offend twice. Nor is the art of generalisation, so common in journalism, ever permitted to pass muster at Number Seventy. Particularisation is insisted upon, for Berlin wants facts first, last, always and everywhere. To ensure complete accuracy, the General Staff will employ, if necessary, a dozen spies on the same mission; they operate unknown to each other, their reports are compared and discrepancies mean the sending out of supplementary agents on the same mission, until by a process of exhaustion, and perhaps after several years of observation, the mathematical truth is finally arrived at. In the meantime, perhaps, the structure of any given fortress has been radically or partly altered; still the process goes on, for Berlin's General Staff never sleeps, is eternally vigilant and alert and possesses the only financial stocking in the Empire which knows no end. All this is in accordance with a rule laid down by the Bismarck-Stieber combination—namely, that the German Intelligence Staff shall know as much about any country in Europe as that country's own Intelligence Department could possibly know. In Austria in 1866 and in France in 1870, events proved that it knew far more. In whatever other way a high-class German secret-service man may fail to please the critics, there can be no question as to the degree of sheer intellectual ability required to enable him to reach his position—and retain it.