Were there not other secret processes, other revelations of frightfulness, that the German General Staff had up its sleeve? Among the hidden weapons that it has wielded with the greatest effect is its vast network of spies, established among Germany’s neighbours, among all her supposed enemies, at every point where it could be of any service. The foresight displayed in this system, the perfection to which it was brought, were marvellous. Even the level-headed English were almost thrown off their balance, when they found out how well these emissaries had done their work, not only round the coast of Britain, but even at the uttermost ends of the Pacific, on the distant shores of Chile. IV. But the advantages which, according to our opponents, were destined to ensure their triumph, were the superiority of their strategy and tactics, and the careful preparation of their army down to the last detail, far beyond anything that their rivals had achieved. “The idea is prevalent abroad,” said General von Moltke in 1910 to General Jungbluth, the commander of King Albert’s household troops, “that our General Staff is constantly preparing plans of campaign, with an eye to all the possibilities of a European war. This is a mistake. We occupy ourselves with the question of the transport, concentration, and provisioning of our troops, and the employment of the new means of communication. You would be astonished if you saw the offices of our General Staff. They look like the head offices of a railway.” The only conclusion to be drawn from these words is that the plan of the 1914 campaign, the plan for an invasion of France and a rapid onslaught, had long since been worked out, and was reposing in a secret drawer somewhere in the Königsplatz building. We may even surmise that the march on Paris, pursued across the central plains of Belgium and the valley of the Meuse in order to turn the defences of the French frontier, had been traced by the aging, but still steady, hand of Marshal von Moltke. It is characterized by those wide-sweeping movements that he loved; in fact, the whole scheme bears the impress of his personality. Nevertheless, the methods by which it was carried out and the idea of an ultimatum to an unsuspecting neutral country must be ascribed to his nephew. I have good grounds for believing this, in view of Herr Zimmermann’s last words to me on the 5th of August: “Since the mobilization, all the power has been in the hands of the military authorities; all the decisions issue from them.” By this statement he implied that the responsibility for the invasion of Belgium lay with the General Staff and with its chief.