, 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.
While undergoing instructions in the Admiral Stab in the
Koenigergratzerstrasse 70, previous to my being sent on an English
mission, a controversy arose between my instructor and myself as to
the distance between two towns on the Lincolnshire coast.
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