information on the French military that proved valuable in the campaigns to come. In the Franco-Prussian War, Lieutenant Colonel Count Waldersee, recognized for his military prowess and recent analysis of the adversary's armed forces, proved a most useful assistant to the "supreme War-Lord." He was present at the great battles around Metz, assigned to the staff of General Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; and later in operations against Chanzy's army on the Loire. The grand duke was a prominent soldier, but not a tactician of note, and the successful outcome of the western campaign was largely due to his adviser, Waldersee. At the end of the war, Waldersee received the Iron Cross, First Class, and was entrusted with the difficult post of German representative at Paris, in which his tact and courtesy were marked. At the end of 1871, Waldersee took command of the 13th Uhlan Regiment at Hanover, and two years later became chief of staff of the Hanoverian army corps, in which he had served before 1870. On 14 April 1874, he married Mary Esther Lee (1837–1914), third daughter of the wealthy New York City merchant David Lee and widow of Prince Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein. Mary had previously been created Princess of Nöer by the Emperor of Austria. She became an advocate for the poor in Prussia and was honored for her compassion. The Great General Staff In 1882, Waldersee was chosen by Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder as his principal assistant on the General Staff at Berlin with the rank of Generalquartiermeister. With this appointment, Waldersee was already seen as the likely successor of the octogenarian field marshal. On several occasions Waldersee accompanied Prince Wilhelm, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, on trips abroad to represent the prince's grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I. Out of these trips grew a tenuous teacher-student relationship, but Waldersee was seen by Wilhelm's liberal parents Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Victoria, Princess Royal as "anti-Semitic, narrowly zealous in religion, and reactionary... the quartermaster general was the personification of everything Wilhelm's parents most detested." The British historian John C. G. Röhl wrote that Waldersee "...seems to have suffered from some form of paranoid megalomania" as Waldersee believed in a vast Jewish world conspiracy in which the "entirety" of Jews around the world were working for the destruction of the Reich. Chancellor Bismarck had been in power in Prussia and Germany for a generation, but