His breath stank of whiskey. Even a sober man, though, would have been hard pressed to be optimistic at the moment. "How does he want you to do this?" Schlieffen inquired.

"How?" Rosecrans howled, stretching the word out into a cry of pain. "He hasn't the faintest idea how. I'm the soldier, so that's supposed to be my affair. Have you got a won war concealed anywhere about your person, Colonel Schlieffen? I haven't, sure as the devil."

"If President Blaine still wants you this war to win, I do not know how to tell you to do this," Schlieffen said. "The only question I have is why he does not take the peace the Confederates say they will give him and thank God for it. When we France beat, we from them took two provinces and made them pay five milliards of francs."

"What's a milliard?" Rosecrans asked. Schlieffen took a pen from its ink-well and wrote the number on a scrap of paper: 5,000,000,000. Rosecrans looked at it. "Oh. Five billion francs, you mean." He whistled softly. "That's a lot of money."

"Ja, " Schlieffen answered laconically.

"That's a hell of a lot of money," Rosecrans said, as if the German had not spoken.

"Ja," Schlieffen said again, and then, "and Longstreet wants to take no provinces-no, no states, you would say-from the United States . He wants to take no money from the United States. He wants to take only the two provinces he bought from the Empire of Mexico, and to have the United States say they are his. With what he could do, these are good terms, nicht wahrT'

"Oh, they're good terms, all right," Rosecrans said. "You ask me, they're too damn good. It's as though Longstreet is saying, 'We can lick you any old time we please, and we don't have to take anything away from you to make that so.' It's-humiliating, that's what it is."

Schlieffen essayed a rare joke: "If President Blaine does not for these terms care, President Longstreet will them harder make. Of this I am sure. Do you not think that I… am right?" He nodded to himself, pleased he'd again remembered the English idiom.

"In a red-hot minute," Rosecrans said, which the German military attache, judging by the tone, took for agreement. Sighing, scowling, Rosecrans went on, "But he can't do that now, because that would be humiliating, too. Do you understand what I'm saying, Colonel?"

"Oh, yes, I understand," Schlieffen said. "But in war, the way not to be humiliated is to win. If you lose a war, how can you keep this from happening to you? The enemy to be stronger himself has shown."

"Hasn't he, though?" But then Rosecrans violently shook his head. "No, God damn it, the Confederates haven't shown that they're stronger than we are. As strong as we are, maybe, but not stronger. It's only after England and France jumped on our back that everything went into the privy."

"But we of this spoke down in Washington before the war began," Schlieffen said. " Britain and France have been friends to the Confederate States since before the War of Secession. The United States should have had ready a plan to fight at the same time all three countries."

"I remember you saying that," Rosecrans replied. "I have to tell you, I didn't take it seriously then. Do you really mean to tell me that back in Berlin you've got a plan for war against France and one for war against France and England and one for war against France and England and Russia and one for-"

"Aber natiirlich," Schlieffen broke in. "And we think of also Austria-Hungary and Italy, though they are now our friend. And we remember Holland and Belgium and Denmark and Sweden and Turkey and-"

The gcncral-in-chief of the United States stared at him. "Jesus Christ, you do mean it," Rosecrans said slowly. "What do they do in that General Staff of yours, Colonel, sit around all day studying maps and timetables and lists of regiments and I don't know what all else?"

"Yes," Schlieffen answered, surprised yet again that Rosecrans should be surprised at the idea of military planning. "We believe that, if war comes, we should as little to chance leave as we can."

"A lot of chance in war," Rosecrans insisted. "Can't help it." Yes, he was an American, looking for nothing more than the chance to go out in the field of uncertainty and snatch what he could from it.

"Yes, this is so," Schlieffen said. "A lot, there is. As little as there can be, there should be." What the United States had snatched from the field of uncertainty was a thumping defeat.

"Maybe," Rosecrans said, like a man admitting Limburger cheese might possibly taste good in spite of the way it smelled. "Maybe." He brushed a pale speck from the dark blue wool of his tunic. "The more you talk about it, Colonel, the more I do think the United States should send some of our officers to your country after this blamed war is finally over-if it's ever over-so we can take a long look at how you go about things."

"They would be welcome," Schlieffen said. "Your neighbors who do not love you are allied to the French, who do not love us. Since we have one enemy who is the same, it might for us be good to be with each other friends." He held up a hasty hand. "You must understand, I speak here only for myself, not for Chancellor Bismarck."

"Yes, yes." General Rosecrans nodded impatiently. "I can't speak for the secretary of state, either. Speaking for nobody but William S. Rosecrans, though, Colonel, I'll tell you I like the idea pretty god damn well."

Alfred von Schlieffen sat very still, contemplating what he had just said. The enemy of my enemy is a friend was an ancient truth. France, so far as he could see, would never be anything but Germany 's enemy. France was the Confederate States' friend; the Confederate States were an enemy to the United States, also unlikely to be anything else.

So far as he could see, real, close friendship between Germany and the United States made good strategic sense. He wondered what Minister von Schlozer would think of the idea. Up till now, German relations with both the USA and the CSA had been polite, even cordial, but not particularly close. Would Chancellor Bismarck want to continue what had been working well enough, or would he be interested in changing things? If he was, a U.S. military mission to Berlin might be one tooth of the key in the lock.

Schlozer will have a better idea of the chancellor's mind than I do, Schlieffen thought. Then he realized Rosecrans had just spoken, and he had no idea what the general had said. "I am sorry," he said. "You must please excuse me. I was thinking of something else."

"1 guess you were," Rosecrans said with a chuckle. "The Judgment Trump could have sounded right then, and you never would have noticed. What I said was, I'll take the notion of sending officers to Berlin over to the secretary of state to see what he thinks of it."

"That is good. I am glad to hear it," Schlieffen said.

"Damned if I know what will come of it, though." Rosecrans' good humor vanished. "Ever since Washington warned us against entangling alliances, we've held apart from 'em. Of course, in Washington 's day we didn't have nasty neighbors tangled up with foreigners themselves. But he's like the Good Book to a lot of people here, even if he was from Virginia."

That Rosecrans was himself talking with a foreigner never seemed to enter his mind. Schlieffen had seen in other Americans the same interesting inability to judge the effects of their own words. It did not offend him, not here; he would not let it offend him. "You will do what you can do, General, with the officials of your country, and I will do what I can with the officials of mine, and we will see what from this comes."

Before Rosecrans could answer, the box on the wall clanged to let him know someone wished to speak with him. He grimaced and swore fiercely under his breath. But then, like a hound summoned to the dinner bowl by the ring of a bell, he got up and went to the telephone. "Rosecrans here," he shouted into it. "Yes, Mr. President, I hear you pretty well right now. What were you saying before, Your Excellency?" A pause. "But, Mr. President…"