FRENCH FEARS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19157, 14 November 1927, Page 12

FRENCH FEARS.

THE TANNENBERG SPEECH. DR . STRESEMANN SUPPORTS THE PRESIDENT; (frost ora owx coßßispoNimtrr.) LONDON, October 4. In an interview with M. Jules Sauerwein. of the "Matin "ar.Stresemann said that when President von Hindenburg said at Tannenberg that the German army went to war with a pure heart and pure hands, and that the German people fought to defend itself against dangers which threatened it he only expressed a sentiment which *-as common to all Germans Here once more, said I>r fctrese«n President von Hindenburg has ma f"W Sinst the accusation made nst the g Srman people of having againss u j mannerj °Z 11 lardi; necessary to remind French readers that there have, reS v been speeches which have given nIS an excuse for making such a pro- ' est In Germany speeches are not beconstantly made at the mauguratfrnTmom&ento to renew meniones of the war, as they are in * ranee, and the reception of the American Legion has been a further occasion for making them. The very fact that Germany resents the accusation that she alone was responsible for thenar shows the high moral value placed by Germans upon the idea of peace. Germany desires that the principles of arbitration, rightly advocated by M. Briand, not only for future conflicts, *but for financial and economic questions, shall be applied to this question of right, and that an impartial tribunal shall examine the diplomatic history of the summer of 1914 and-what in ' Dr. Stresemann's opinion is still more important-the events of previous vears It is quite understandable that Germany should be unwilling «o bow before a verdict m which the parties to the case were also the judges. French Opinion. In the desire to reopen the question of Germany's war guilt, French opinion professes to dis'cern a deep-laid plot for the eventual repudiation of her liability to pay reparations. French concern in the matter appears to,be based on the fact that Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty, in which the exclusive responsibility for the loss and damage suffered by the Allied and Associated Powers, is fastened upon "Germany and her Allies," on account of their aggressions is placed immediately at the head of Part VIII,, the reparation section of the Treaty, it is argued, therefore, that Germany s desire for moral rehabilitation, even though partial only (according to Herr Stresemann's plea), is both designed and calculated to warrant an eventual refusal by Germany to discharge her reparation obligations, on the plea that, since the ethical basis of reparation had been abandoned or weakened, the payment of reparation, at least in full, could no longer be insisted on by Germany's victors.

It is pointed out, however, that in the summer of 1924 the German Government, of its own accord, and with the subsequent approval and ratification of the President and the Reichstag, subscribed voluntarily to a new reparations contract, known as the Dawes plan, or, more officially, as the "London Agreement." « In this Treaty, which was not imposed on Germany, but freely negotiated between her and the Allies, no reference at all was made to the particular ethical considerations embodied in the Versailles Treaty, the amount and methods of the payments owing by Germany being determined on strictly business lines, and in accordance with strictly business principles. Not only this, but the German indemnity was, as it were, "commercialised," and the Reich was granted on the strength of its free acceptance of tfiis plan, a very considerable international loan. Speaking at Ostend at the inauguration of a monument to the memory of the Belgian Catholic statesman, M. Beernaert, who died in 1912, M. Jaspar, the Prime Minister, said: "M. Beernaert did not live on to those terrible days during which invaders 'with clean hands' delivered up our innocent country to fire, murder, and ruin. He knew nothing of the inexcusable shooting of women, old people, and children in the cradle. His heart was not wrung by the systematic pillage of industrial equipment. He knew the incidents neither of Louvain, nor of Vise, nor of Aerschot, nor of Tamines, nor of Dinant. "He did not follow with burning eyes the long procession of captured compatriots deported in thousands, nor did he know the supreme test of defending his beloved country against hate and calumny which untiringly persisted in their tendency to sully its heroism and its suffering by lying and bad faith." The Gospel of Frlghtfulness. A letter written by Mr Percy Hurd, M.P., who has been staying in Dinans, throws a strange light on the protestations of President Hindenburg. "I have just returned," he says, "from a simple little village ceremony of laying a wreath below a wall against which on August 23rd, 1914, 83 innocent civilians were shot in cold blood by Saxon troops under General von Els.i. Twenty-six women and 17 children were among the murdered. In all, in and about Dinant alone, 650 of these 'paysans,' as the Germans named them, were thus murdered between August 21st and 24th, 1914 including /2 women and 46 children, while 1200 homes were burnt to the ground. "And why? Our own and the Belgian official records answer that question for all time. A placard nailed by the Germans to an apple tree, at the foot of which one of this series of murders took place, tells us that Germany was making war 'solely against the Belgian Army, and these civilians, old men women and children, in the face of armed intruders had dared to try to protect their homes from outrage and destruction! It is as tihough a burglar pleaded to be excused the murder of his victims because, in the absence of the police, the householder had sought to save himself and his family from pillage and outrage. "The wounds of Belgium are too new tor forgetfulness. So are the wounds of France. In 1915 I and three other representatives of the Royal Agricultural Society's Committee of Relief passed through the devastated regions or Champagne and I,orraine. In the barracks at Nancy were collected the women and children driven in from the invaded villages, and I shall never torget the horrible and authenticated records of outrage as made by them to the Prefect of Nancy in our hearing, inat was the work of the army under the personal command of the Crown V' n ? e : I* wa * all part of the 'gospel of fnghtfulness' as preached fwm Potsdam.

■ Ah, well,' said a philosophic Belgian to me, 'there are good Germans as well as bad.' That is so. Otherwise there could be no peace for Europe. And the best use those'good Germans can make of their influence is to enjoin silence on their leaders and leave time to do its healing work."