Everything considered, the American military attachés have done more valuable work and received less recognition for it than almost any class of officers that I know. They have been placed in the unenviable position of taking orders from two departments—War and State; they have been forced, by the very nature of their duties, to play the rôle of onlookers while their fellow officers were fighting, and they have repeatedly been accused of being spies. Though the duties of our attachés in the capitals of our allies have been largely ornamental during the war, owing to the fact that they were virtually superseded in their military functions by the various American military missions, their work in the neutral countries of Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland was of enormous importance, for they provided Military Intelligence with its most reliable and important source of information. Those officers stationed at The Hague, Copenhagen, and Berne could look across the barbed wire, figuratively speaking, and see for themselves what the enemy was doing. Through all sorts of agents—spies, smugglers, deserters, refugees, business men whose affairs took them into the territory of the Central Powers, and returning travellers—they were able to keep their fingers constantly on the military and economic pulse of the enemy, and to report the information thus obtained to the A. E. F. and to Washington. It goes without saying that this work called for the exercise of the highest degree of patience, resourcefulness, and tact, for they were always surrounded by German agents, and particularly in those countries where German sympathizers predominated, the slightest indiscretion would have resulted in a demand for their recall. No news that came out of Germany was too trivial to escape their attention. Every one who crossed the frontier, from Dutch and Danish bankers to German deserters, was adroitly questioned and cross-questioned by the attachés, certain of the information thus obtained exercising a profound effect on America’s military policy. For example, our attaché at The Hague was dining one evening with a Dutch banker who had just returned from a business trip to Germany. While chatting over the coffee and cigars the Hollander remarked that, though he had been the guest of a German nobleman of great wealth, he had not been quite as comfortable as on previous visits, owing to the absence of his host’s butler. “What has become of old Franz?” the Hollander had asked his host. “The place isn’t the same without him.” “He was called to the colors last week,” was the answer. “But surely he is too old for active service,” the banker protested. “He must be nearer sixty than fifty; he is blind in one eye and he is crippled with rheumatism.” “Ach, yes,” admitted the German. “But what would you? The Fatherland has need of every man.”