"No, I had not heard that," Schlieffen said. On hearing it, he heard also that Rosecrans was a beaten man. No matter how many men the USA moved down to the Potomac, Jackson would find a way to beat them, because Rosecrans thought Jackson would find a way to beat them. Someone-Schlieffen annoyed himself by not recalling whether it was Napoleon or Clausewitz-had wisely said that the moral was to the physical in war as three was to one. As Austrian and Prussian armies had for so long gone into battle against Bonaparte convinced before the fighting started that they would lose, so Rosecrans faced the prospect of confronting Jackson.
"Well, it's true; God damn it to hell, it's true," Rosecrans said.
Schlieffen listened with half an ear, trying to remember which military genius had come up with the maxim. He couldn't. Like a bit of gristle stuck between two back teeth, it would bother him till he did. He became aware that Rosecrans had said something else, something he'd missed entirely. "Excuse me, please?" he said, embarrassed at piling one professional failure on another.
"I said, a few friends in the world sure would come in handy about now," Rosecrans repeated.
"For this war, you have no friends who can give you help," Schlieffen said. "This was, I hear from every American, the idea of your President Washington. This man has not been your president for many years. Maybe it is time to think that matters have perhaps changed since his day."
"I'll tell you what I'm starting to think," Rosecrans said savagely. "I'm starting to think Washington was nothing but a stinking Virginian, and the Rebs can damn well keep him and his ideas both."
Schlieffen did not smile. He made a point of not smiling. Not only would smiling have been against his interest and his country's, he was such a resolutely moderate man that smiling did not come easy to him anyhow. In his usual careful way, he said, "I hope you will also say this to your president and to your foreign minister-no, secretary of state you call him."
"I've been saying it since things started going downhill without any brakes," Rosecrans answered. "I've been saying it to anyone who will listen. Colonel, if you think President Blaine is inclined to listen to me, you had better think again. If you think he's inclined to listen to anybody, you had better think again."
"This is not good," Schlieffen said.
The telephone jangled. Rosecrans jerked as if a horsefly had bitten him. "Guess who that is," he said with a martyred sigh. "He may not listen, but by Jesus he likes to talk."
Schlieffen left the office of the general-in-chief. Behind him, Rosecrans bellowed into the newfangled instrument. As Schlieffen came out into the outer office, Captain Saul Berryman looked up from his paperwork with a martyred expression. "Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Oberst, " he said.
"Good-bye, Captain," Schlieffen answered. He had more than a little sympathy for Rosecrans' adjutant, a capable young man trapped in a position where his ability did his nation less good than it might have in the field.
The calendar said spring was only a few days away. Freezing rain pelted down in spite of what the calendar said. Schlieffen hardly noticed as he walked to the carriage waiting for him and climbed in. His mind was elsewhere. Napoleon or Clausewitz? Clausewitz or Napoleon? That he could not make a fact he knew spring up and stand to attention infuriated him.
"Back to the consul's establishment, Colonel?" the driver asked.
"Yes," Schlieffen snapped. He paid no more attention to the driver's chattering teeth than he had to the weather that caused them. The wheels of the carriage slipped a little on the icy paving stones, but then the toe calks on the horse's shoes bit and the carriage began to roll.
Despite the weather, some sort of political demonstration was going on not far from the War Department building. Socialists, Schlieffen thought, seeing the red flags that hung sodden from their staffs. He'd seen more Socialist demonstrations than he liked back in Germany, but never till now one of this size in the United States.
When he reported what he had seen to Kurd von Schlozer, the German minister to the USA nodded. "One faction of Blaine 's own party has made common cause with the Socialists," Schlozer said.
"Really? I had not heard." Save as they affected military affairs, Schlieffen paid little attention to politics.
Schlozer gave him a look that said he should have heeded them more closely. "If we have no peace, soon we shall have fighting in the streets. With the Socialists now stronger, we may have revolution, Red revolution," he said. "This is a land of revolution, and the Socialists- the new Socialists, I mean-know it and exploit it."
"God forbid," Schlieffen said. "If they try to raise a revolution, may they be met with iron and blood." After using Bismarck 's famous phrase, he nodded to Schlozer. "You know I feel the same about the Socialist movement in the Fatherland."
"Oh, yes, my dear Colonel, of course," Schlozer said. "No man of property, no man of sense, could possibly say otherwise. But too many Americans, like too many Germans, have neither property nor sense. And the leaders of the Socialists here, like the leaders there, have an oversupply of cunning, if not of sense."
"This has not been true in the United States," Schlieffen said. "So much I know-otherwise, the Socialists here would have stirred up far more trouble than they have."
"Now, though, men who really know something of politics have started waving red flags for purposes of their own," the German minister said. "In matters of politics, Blaine is now as dead as a salt herring. Even if he could have been reelected before-which would have taken an act of God-he has no hope whatever with a large part of his party going over to the radicals. He must understand as much."
"This is not good," Schlieffen said, as he had to Rosecrans. "A man without hope will do irrational things. Since Blaine did irrational things even when the situation for himself and his country looked better, who knows how crazy and wild he might become now?"
"We shall see." Kurd von Schlozer sounded less gloomy than Schlieffen would have. Schlieffen wondered if his superior was deluding himself about how sensible President Blaine could be. From what the German military attache had seen, expecting common sense from Americans was like looking for water in a desert: you might find some, but, even if you did, it would be only an oasis in a vast stretch of hot, dry, burning sand.
"Napoleon!" he exclaimed suddenly, and felt much better about the world. Hot sand had made him think of Egypt, which had made him think of Bonaparte's campaign there, which in turn had reminded him of whose adage had crossed his mind during his conversation with Rosecrans.
Kurd von Schlozer gave him a curious look.
A couple of days later, after a cable from Berlin, Schlozer requested an audience with Blaine. When the request was granted, the German minister asked Schlieffen to accompany him. "Of course, Your Excellency," Schlieffen said, "if you think my being there will do some good. If not, I have other matters to occupy my time." He was still refining the plan for movement against France whose basic idea he'd borrowed from Lee's campaign in Pennsylvania. He'd had wires of his own from Berlin; the General Staff was enthusiastic about the outline he'd sent.
But Schlozer said, "Military affairs are likely to be discussed, so your place is with me." However much Schlieffen would have liked to go on burrowing through his books-inadequate though his research tools here in Philadelphia were-he could only obey. Hiding a sigh, he set down his pen and, carefully locking the door to his office behind him, followed Schlozer downstairs to the carriage.