the young lady in the army. Not individually, of course, but as a colourful unit, a dazzling plaything made up of real men. It is to this end that the evening's visit has been planned and a set-up arranged to allow the Duchess the martial thrill of performing the regiment's song as a duet with General Boum. Drums and bugles announce the arrival of the Grand Duchess and no sooner has she begun to review her troops than it becomes very clear that the army holds many more attractions for the young woman than ever did Prince Paul. As she continues down the ranks, she finds they hold one very particular attraction. Her eye alights on Fritz. It is a shame, she feels, that such a fine soldier should be only a Private, so she promotes him on the spot to Corporal and then to Sergeant. Puck is distinctly worried by such a purposeful mark of favour and Boum is particularly irritated that such a favour should have fallen on the detested Fritz, who is soon introducing Wanda to his sovereign and being promoted once more, this time to Lieutenant. When it comes to the time for the regimental song, the Duchess is delighted to sing but, instead of the eager Boum, she chooses Fritz to make up the duet and, when Boum protests at such lèse majesté, she spitefully retaliates by promoting the Lieutenant to Captain The young Duchess is not at all sure what the feelings are that she is experiencing. All she knows is that she is supremely anxious to see the handsome Fritz dressed up in his new Captain's uniform and yet she is not at all impressed when poor Prince Paul comes to find her, dressed up in a bridegroom's outfit with the hope that she might take the hint. Clearly, all men are not the same. Paul is now quite desperate. He has been hanging around Gérolstein for six months, spending all his allowance and being ignored, and some of the nastier newspapers have taken to making slighting remarks about it in their personal columns. The Grand Duchess brushes him off with the excuse that she is far too busy to marry him and she turns happily to her new preoccupation with things military, calling together her chief men to listen to the plan of battle which General Boum has evolved. Fritz, who has been elected to stand bodyguard on the Duchess, laughs out loud at the General's complicated pincer plan, provoking a near explosion from the choleric Boum. He is furious that this lowly soldier should be allowed to interfere in matters of such importance, but the Duchess is determined to hear Fritz out and she promptly creates him a General and a Baron, thus giving him sufficient rank to be heard in council. Fritz's idea of battle is to wade in and thrash them and, to Boum's horror, the Duchess blithely agrees that this is the way to organise the forthcoming battle. When Boum refuses, she simply removes him from his position as commander-in-chief and replaces him with Fritz. The army gather and the Duchess confers on her new Commander the honour of carrying into battle her own father's sword and, as Boum, Puck and Paul grumble furiously in the background, the army marches off to war under Fritz's command. ACT 2 The war is over and the Grand Duchess's maids of honour wait impatiently for the return of their favourite lovers. Prince Paul is still hanging around the palace trying to get some attention but he hasn't a chance on this day of all days, for General Fritz is returning to Gérolstein crowned with victory in battle. Coming before the Duchess, he returns to her the sword of her father and, at her urging, gives an account of the battle. His strategy was to take to war twenty thousand bottles of wine and arrange that the enemy should capture the depot. The next morning, when the entire opposing army was suffering from a ghastly hangover, he was able to order the attack and win a famous victory without a drop of blood being shed. When the official business is done, the Duchess, to the horror of Prince Paul and his supporters, demands to see Fritz alone. In the time since their first encounter, she has come to understand the feelings which have been stirring inside her and she is about to make some tentative opening moves. As Commander-in-Chief, she decrees, Fritz will be given an apartment in the palace—the one in the right wing—and then, she must tell him, one of her court ladies has fallen in love with him. Being of a certain density, Fritz fails to understand that the Duchess is speaking, in a thinly veiled fashion, of her own feelings. Weighing everything up, he decides that he will do better to stick to his first love, and he determines to ask the Duchess for permission to marry Wanda. Boum and Puck are horrified when they hear about the apartment in the right wing. It is the old royal mistress's room, connected to the ruling monarch's chambers by a secret corridor. Things arc getting serious.
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