NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16142, 21 February 1918, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A "DOPED" NATION

■. Mr Philip Gibbs's graphic description of Germany on the ev e of the great offensive—"drugged, under the spell of a frightful secret dope"— presumably refers to the mental "doping to which tlio nation lias been subjected throughout the war. It has been stuffed with exaggerated or utterly false reports of successes, the [ high authorities, from the Kaiser downwards have perpetually couched their public utterances in the key of imminent victory, and the wildest 6tories have been circulated about-the allegedly deplorable and despairing condition of Great Britain. - Many of the assertions and stories have been demonstrably false, and there .have been times when not merely the Socialists but a very large proportion of the German public seemed to doubt the accuracy of the official reportß. But the 'doping" still'went on, and from the point of view of the High Command was, no doubt, justifiable. The Zeppelin dope, the aeroplane dope, the Üboat dope—which was the most potent of all —were administered successively, and each in turn sery<»d to stimulate the spirits of_ the people. Now the great offensive" dope is being injected into them to revive their flagging confidence in their ruler and his generals and advisers.

A MORE CHEERFUL ARMY

This is particularly the case with tho armj*. As wo mentioned tho other day English war correspondents agree that at the end of last year .the German troops were better fed, clothed, and looked after, and in better heart than they had been for a long time. "Officer prisoners declare quito <fi\ n y Y T n * e8 ono correspondent, that the issue of the war will be decided on tho Western front and in the very near future. The feeling is strong in the German army that its fortunes havo suddenly and very materially improved, and that aims long since abandoned as hopeless are now possible of attainment. Wo hoar of troops constantly being harangued by their generals in tho spirit of three years ago; praiso instead of threats; promises instead of curses- The docile German mind has been turned into a new channel. For a time tho Kaiser's legions pinned their faith to tho U-boat, but that illusion has been shattered, and jicv they dream of a triumph on t&a battlefields of France."

'GERMAN COURAGE."

But apart from the mental stimulus administered to the nation and th# troops, the latter have had considerable experience of physical "doping." What the men are given is not known with' any accuracy, though in tho fighting on the Russian front in tho early part of tho war there was ovidenco that they were supplied with somo horrible mixture of which methylated spirits formed a part. Latterly evidence has been accumulating that tho men aro now regularly given come powerful drug before being sent into action. "All tho soldiers home from tho Cambrai 'push.'" says a rocent London paper" "state that the Germans who attacked in great masses on November 30th were doped to a man. Regiments advanced to certain death from our machine-gun fire with glazed eves, apparently unconscious of their surroundings. The enemy losses during tho lighting were probably unprocodnnted. Tho German High Command had undoubtedly issued drugs wholesale to give the storm troops new courage, and tho men who eamo on in v,ave s to their death like felled o:cen. 'It. wn.s simply awful to look at,' said a Lewis gunner, 'and the most significant instance of the brutal exhibition of German callousness was the complete ab-sencc of officers in tho attacking columns.' "

Similar reports came from Italy when the German and Austrian troop's were trvinv to drive the Italians back from r ! 'e Pinve. The German soldier, when led. is not n coward—there is nlentv of evidence of that. But when he is simply driven forward on to tho guns by officers who recognise that it. is safer behind . than in front, ho has to be artificially stimulated with what

niav well come, to be known as "Ger- ' ni;m" courage. CHANGES ALL ROUND. The retirement of Sir Williapi Robertson from the position of Chief of the Imperial General Staff is another, and not one of the least important, of the changes that have occurred during the war. Writing apropos of Lord ; Jellicoe's retirement from the position of First Sea Lord, a correspondent of an English contemporary points out , th.it he was "the last of the few men' who held our destinies in their hands when we began to fight. Mr Lloyd i George has succeeded Mi Asquith; Lord Derby fills the nost occupied l>y Lord Kitchener: Sir Eric Geddcs rules the Navy instead of Mr Churchill; Mr Balfour presides at the Foreign Office, where Viscount Grey was in fontrol: Sir Douglas Haig is supremo ai General Headquarters in the place of Lord French : while Sir David Beatty commands the Fleet, the post in which Sir John (now Lord) Jellicoe began his war services/' THE RUSSIAN CHAOS. 1 Nov. - that the veil lias been lifted nvr.? more from Russia, we see that affairs in that tortured country ire li"co:iiinir worse and worse. The Vetrograd correspondent of the London '•Times." iiv a message to his paper, which was published last week in Australia. gives an appalling account of tlie conditions obtaining during what describes as the reign of terror, m-irder, and criminality. Nothing that happened under the old regime was haii as bad. "Bands of Red Guards," he wrote, "soldiers and sailors—arc for ever training for fresh plots; seeking. searching, confiscating, and invading homes, and, with marauding, drunken hooligans, destroying, smashing, robbing, and violating decenpy. Thev arrest and silence protests with revolvers and bayonets. "Militiamen sometimes, administer rough-handed justice, killing burglars caught red-handed and flinging their bodies into the nearest canal; but the extent of the lawlessness, robberi;**. and murders is indicated by the open sale in the market place of overcoats and furs smeared with blood with which is human hair. "Manv people sew their money in llio lining of their clothes to avoid repeated robberies. Cheques are l.ot cashable. The banks are guarded l:y hordes of lolling, drunken, dirty soldiers superintending the Bolshevik clerks, who are muddling accounts. Besides being robbed, the population is gradually nearing starvation. The scanty black bread mixed with straw producing intestinal pains. Cabbages are Is lOd per lb, potatoes 2s lOd per lb, and butter 28s per lb. "The middle classes have been reduced to extreme poverty. Government, bank, and business employees, students, and professors are compelled to subsist by sawing wood, scavenging, and snow-clearing. Their spirit is utterly broken, and thejr only desire is to be allowed to live."