Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1916-05-31
Won FALKENHAYN
REAL WAR LORD
Even Kaiser Wilhelm Awaits the
Pleasure of His Chief
of Staff.
BRAINS OF GERMAN ARMY
NO Diplomacy, No Government or Ad-
mInistration Influence Has Any
Weight With the Head of
the GeneraIstab.


the brains of the German army.
The military domination of Prus-
STA, which Mr.. Asquith declared must
be wholly and finally destroyed" has
It's seat and center in the famous Gen
eralstab," which is quite an excep-
tlonal theocracy of war. I'm peace
time," says Ignatius Phayre, '.the Ber-
lin Kriegsministerium,' on the Koe-
nigsplatz, near the Austrian embassy.
is much like any other war office. But
the moment mobilization is complete.
and before the first gun is fred, the
real war thinkers hurry out to the field
and throw off every vestige of civil
authority-even that of the imperial
throne itself.
The kaiser is invited to grand
headquarters at Thielt, in Flanders, or
Verdun, in France, when big attacks
are to be made, but the emperor is
only visitor. He is now all-highest
In name alone, for the real war lord is
Eric Won Falkenhayn, chief of staff
of the German armies and directing
brain of all the others from the Bal
kans to Bagdad
1T is hard to convey an idea of this
mans absolute domination. Won ia
cow, the foreign minister, has no con-
troll over him, nor has the imperial
chancellor, Doctor Won Bethmann- Holl-
veg. No diplomacy, no governmental
or administrative influence has any
weight whatever with the head of the
Generalstab. The military tail now
wags the German dog. The central
empires and their allies are inexorably
ruled from the field, where Falken,
hayn and his staff carry out the war
In complete strategic supremacy.
even popular idols and great lead
ers like Won Hindenburg and Won
Mackensen-that stern ascetic who
taught the crown prince in Danzig-
are mere instruments in the chiefs
hands. Falkenhayn is as infallible as
the pope, now that the Kriegschule
is broken up and the nake-believe
Kriegspiel translated into the epic
arena of real war
Was an Army Failure.
won Falkenhayn is easily the
youngest of Germany's military lead
ers, being barely fifty-four. Yet, like
Papa Hindenburg, he was an army
failure, and drifted rather aimlessly
out to China in search of free-lance
opportunity in a troubled land His
chance came with the Boxer rebellion.
when his urbane capacity quickly
made him German governor of Tien-
tsin after that city was stormed by
the allied troops-of course with the
Prussian machine bossing all. Count
Won Waldersee had supreme command.
"Falkenhayn next became president
of the provisional government in Tien-
tsin, and began to attract the kaiser's
notice for the first time. Recalled to
Berlin, he was reinstated in that ram
bling pile on the Koenigsplatz, and
wore once more the broad red trou-
sers stripe of the general staff. From
that time onward the man never
looked back, mounting higher and
higher in the great machine, and at
last succeeding Won Moltke as chief
of staff, after that generals disgrace
following on the Marine retreat.
can extraordinary fact of Falken-
hayn's career is his personal ascend
ancy. His power over the emperor is
a source of continual amazement to
civilian Germany. Our sovereign is
hypnotized by this general you will
hear people say, and certain it is that
the kaiser hunts the grand headquar-
tiers with something like nervous fear
of the mighty military camarilla with
in its humble walls.
His Law Is Supreme.
Before me as / write is German
photograph showing the all-highest