Bisbee daily review., 1916-01-06
HEADQUARTERS OF GERMAN ARMY LIKE
 BUSINESS OFFICE
Field Headquarters Conducted on Wonderful Basis of Scientific Business Accu- racy; Strict Discipline.

A TOWN IN SERBIA, Dec. 12.- (Correspondence of The Associated Press)-A general headquarters in the field of the German army resembles closely the management of large business. The officers are branch managers whom convention and ne ' cessity has stuck into uniforms, and f the private soldiers take the place of employees about the office. For their I stereotyped garb there is. no better reason than that combatants, accord i ing to military law must indicate their status by distinctive dress. Beyond that a general headquarters is not military instruction in the popular conception of that term. It is purely an administrative office constantly or ganizing and recognizing.
 War on a scale as the European struggle has reached becomes, by the huge demands it makes, by the pres sure it exerts upon participating in- dividuals, and by the recurrence of the necessity for doing certain thing, business. Even the head of the group, the commander, the tactician and strategist, is again and again confron- ted with the same demands of the military situation; there are times when he must leave minor tactical de- tails to his staff officers, and all phases of his work which recur too often, and are, therefore, commonest, he must leave in the hands of subordi- mates altogether. General headquar- .ters is, in other words, an aggregate of trained managers and workers, which could successfully run any enterprise, and which, by virtue of its discipline among all concerned, would be dan gerous competitor to civilian organ ization in the same field.
 Such is the impression one gains at the general headquarters of the Field Marshall, von Mackensen, pre- siding genius of the Austro-Hungarian and German forces in Serbia In this establishment everything moves noise lessly, frictionless, positiely, at speed which is not expressed in revolutions of machinery, but in the pulsebeat of a great, expansion-seeking, and seem ingy inexhaustible force.
 The character of an army is best judged by conditions prevailing at base headquarters. The Associated Press correspondent spent two hours at the one in question. The captain in charge, a young man of about 36, pre- sided in an inner office. Several non- commissioned officers sat at tables in an outer room. Officers and men came for this and that, usually addressing sergeant. The brusk demeanor toward subordinates wit hwhich the German officer has been associated was who'll ly absent. Several officers wanted wheel transportation.
 Sorry, sir, None available at this moment" the sergeant would say.
 One of the officers thought he would have to get wagon, no matter how. This attitude took the case out of the sergeant's hands. Just then the 1 the base commander entered the outer room. The officer turned to him with | an introduction of himself by himself | and vigorous clack of his heels.
 Very sorry! We have no wagons | here just now" sai dthe base chief | in a friendly tone which for all of its warmth told the other that the in- formation given by the sergeant | should have sufficed.
 A major entered. He had been sent | from Berlin to superintend the harveS | of the grapes which were on the | verge of rotting on the hillsides, but wounded in the hospitals. It seems 1 that he had caused large and suit able cellar to be cleared for the bar rels in which the juice was to be | be stored. During the night a cavalry organization had needed shelter for its purpose. The major was indignant.
 That will happen" said the cap tain. Get the cellar cleaned again and then we'll static na guard there"
 The incident was settled. But the major had more trouble He did not have men enough to gather the grapes and what men he had weer none too proficient.
 Very We'll We can fix that. Ask Berli nto send you hundred or so of landstrum men from some town in the Palatinate or along the Rhine. They would enjoy the trip"
 The major said that he would do that and left fully satisfied
 The campaign in Serbia has been disagreeable enough to have soured the disposition of anybody Rains have fallen constantly, and men figure no longer on the absence of mud,