One entered the house, going directly into a large room that was occupied no longer by the round-faced man of my cadet days, but by Assessor Horstman, the head of the Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office. Upstairs was the private office of the Emperor, and, to the rear of that, the Nachrichten Bureau—a newspaper propaganda and intelligence office, directed by the Kaiser and under the charge of Legation-Secretary Weber. I visited the Turkish Legation, at the suggestion of Herr Steinmann, and discussed at length and very seriously with the Ambassador the attitude of Italy and its effect upon Turkey’s possible entry into the war. He assured me that the only thing necessary to make Turkey take part in the conflict was a guarantee that Germany was capable of handling the Italian situation, and that whatever Italy might do would not affect Turkish interests. But it was with the General Staff that my chief business was. At the outbreak of hostilities this—the “War Office” so-called—had become two organizations. One, devoted to the actual supervision of the forces in the field, had its headquarters in Charleville, France, far behind the battle front; the other branch remained in the dingy old building on the Koenig’s Platz, in which it had always been quartered. It is here that the army department of “Intelligence,” officially known as Abteilung III B., is located, and it was to this department that I had been assigned. [Illustration: Bills from the du Pont de Nemours Powder Company for explosives delivered to “Bridgeman Taylor” and charged to Captain Tauscher.] Von Papen had, of course, communicated to Berlin an account of our various activities and there was little that I could add to the information the department possessed about conditions in the United States. Mexico seemed rather the chief point of interest, and Major Köhnemann, to whom I spoke, asked innumerable questions about the attitude of Villa towards both the United States and Germany; what I thought of his chances of ultimate success, and whether I believed that he, if he succeeded, would be more friendly to Germany than Carranza was at the time. After an hour of such discussion, which more closely resembled a cross-examination, he suddenly rose. “Your information is of great interest, Captain von der Goltz,” he said. “I shall ask you to return here at five o’clock this evening. Wear your heaviest underclothing. You are going to see the Emperor.” I started. Prussian officers do not joke, as a rule, but for the life of me, I could not see any sane connection between his last two remarks. The major must have noticed my perplexity, for he smiled as he continued. “You are going to travel by Zeppelin,” he explained. “It will be very cold.”