There is no man alive who knows one-half as much about the strategical position of Metz and the surrounding country as General von Heeringen. Often on stormy, bitter cold winter nights, sentries on outposts stationed and guarding the approaches of Metz are startled to find a gaunt, limping figure, covered in a gray army greatcoat with no distinguishing marks, stalking along. Accompanied by orderlies carrying camp stools and table; night glasses and electric torches, halting repeatedly, hidden men taking down in writing the short, croaking sentences escaping between the thin compressed lips, the "Geist of Metz" prowls round measuring every foot of ground fifty miles east, west, north, and south of his beloved Metz. The steel tipped arrow ever pointing at the heart of France is safe in the hands of such guardians. The visible head of this vast organization is called Der Grosse General Stab with headquarters in Berlin. Each army corps has a "kleine General Stab" who sends its most able officers to Berlin. These officers in conjunction with the most able scientists, engineers and architects the Empire can produce, compose the Great General Staff. The virtual head is the German Emperor. The actual executive is called "Chef des Grossen General Stabs." There is a small, dingy, unpretentious room in the General Staff Gebaude where at moments of stress and tension or international complications, assemble five men. His Majesty, at the head of the table; to the right the Chef of Grossen General Stab; to the left his Minister of War; then the Minister of Railways, and the Chief of Admiral Stab. You will notice the total absence of the Ministers of Finance and Diplomacy. When those five men meet the influence of diplomatic and financial affairs has ceased. They are there to act. The scratching of the Emperor's pen in that room means war, the setting in motion of a fighting force of 5,000,000 men. Here is another instance: When the feeling and stress over the Moroccan question was at its height General von Heeringen on leaving his quarters for his usual drive in the Thiergarten was eagerly questioned by a score of officers, awaiting his exit. "Excellency! Geht's los?" ("Do we begin?") Grimly smiling, returning their salutes and without pause, limping to his waiting carriage came his answer: "Sieben Buchstaben, meine Herren!" ("Seven letters, gentlemen!") In Germany military parlance this means the Emperor's signature, Wilhelm II, to the mobilization orders.