Without doubt the most important division of the General Staff and upon whose information and efforts the whole machine hinges is the Intelligence Department--really covering many different fields--for instance, general science, especially strategy, topography, ballistics, but mainly the procuring of information data, plans, maps, etc., kept more or less secret by other powers. In this division the brightest young officers and general officials are found. The training and knowledge required of the men in this service are exacting to a degree. It requires in most cases the undivided attention--often a life study--to a single subject. It has been the unswerving policy of the Prussian military authorities to know as much of the rest of the European countries as they know of their own. In the war of 1870-71, German commanders down to a lieutenant leading a small detachment had accurate information, charts and data of every province in France, giving them more accurate knowledge of a foreign country than that country had of itself. It is a notorious fact that, after the defeat of the French armies at Weissenburg and Worth and later at Metz, the French commanders and officers lost valuable time and strategical positions through sheer ignorance of their own country. This is impossible under the Prussian system. To-day there is not a country in Europe but of which there are the most elaborate charts and maps, topographically exact to the minutest detail docketed in the archives of the General Staff. This applies as a rule to the General Staff of most nations, but not to such painstaking details.