These clubs, covering every trade and profession, every duty and every aspiration of women, were dotted over the German Empire. At last they drew together in a federation. The government looked on. It saw a machine created, and believing in thorough organization, no doubt gave thought to the possibilities of the Bund deutscher, Frauenvereine. At the outbreak of war, Dr. Gertrud Baumer was president of the Bund. She was a leader of great ability, marshalling half a million of women. No other organization was so widespread and well-knit, except perhaps Der Vaterlandische Frauenverein with its two thousand one hundred and fifty branches. It was evangelical and military. The Empress was its patron. Its popular name is the "Armée der Kaiserin." There the two great national societies stood--one aristocratic, the other democratic, one appealing to the ruling class, the other holding in bonds of fellowship the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, the professional and the industrial woman. Every belligerent president or premier has faced exactly the same perplexity. What woman, what society, is to be recognized as leader? The question has brought beads of perspiration to the foreheads of statesmen. France solved the difficulty urbanely. It said "yes" to each and all. It promised coöperation and kept the promise. By affably--always affably and hospitably--accepting this service from one society, and suggesting another pressing need to its competitor, it sorted out capabilities, and warded off duplication. Perhaps this did not bring the fullest efficiency, but the loss was more than made up, no doubt, by a free field for initiative. Britain ignored all existing organizations of women, and after a year and a half of puzzlement created a separate government department for their mobilization. America struck out still another course. It took the heads of several national societies, bound them in one committee, to which it gave, perhaps with the idea of avoiding any danger of friction, neither power nor funds. Germany faced the same critical moment for decision. The government wanted efficient use of woman-power on the land, in the factory, in the home, and that quickly. It made use of the best existing machinery. Dr. Gertrud Baumer visited the Ministerium des Innern, and on August 1 she issued a call for the mobilization of women for service to the Fatherland in the Nationale Frauendienst. Under the aegis of the government, with the national treasury behind her, Dr. Baumer summoned the women of the Empire. By order, every woman and every organization of women was to fall in line under the Frauendienst in each village and city for "the duration of the war." [3] In each army district, the government appointed a woman as directress, and by order to town and provincial authorities made the Frauendienst part of local executive affairs.