PASSING OF A LEGEND.
HYPNOTISM OF PRUSSIAN HELMET ■IS oONE. ' "Wnat'is the capital fact that emerges from the events of the , past , throe months? (asks "A.U.S." in the "Daily News and Leader"). I think it is this: tho hypnotism of the Prussian helmet is gone. l'or nearly fifty years it has held unchallenged sway over the mind of Europe. Those of us who are middleaged began our conscious life under'tho shadow of that formidable symbol' of conquest and power. There is a story— I think it is- one of de Maupassant's— which tolls how a Prussian soldier in 1870 got separated from his fellows, went.to sleep in a ditch, wcke up.and looked over the wall of a neighbouring farm. As the helmet rose above tho wall, the brave follows inside fled, leaving the Uhlan to 'range at large. Procently the bravo fellows returned with reinforcements, surrounded the farm, and captured the Uhlan. And the talo ended with the presentation of the Cross of tho Legion of Honour to tho hero of tho victory. That story illustrated in an extravagant way the legend of. the Prussian helmet. It was an enchanted', mystio helmet, winged with victory. A legend of this sort is a supreme military asset, and Germany has lived on it for nearly half a century. She _ lives on it no longer. Tho German soldier is stripped of all the glamour with which- the triumphs, of Bismarck and Moltke invested him. Ho -s not only not the best soldier in Europe; he is nut tho.second best. The fact is not due to intrinsic inferiority, but to a mistaken tradition. He is not wanting in courage, but ho is wanting in-individuality. \Ho can advance to be shot down- in tho mass, for he has been taught that collective courage, but he cannot stand to be shot down alone. This inferiority of the human factor is related 1 to another cause of disillusion. Tho faith of Germany was built oh Krupps. It was believed that tho war when it came would be won by artillery, and full of this conviction they put a reliance on that arm which has not been warranted by experience. ■ Tho point perhaps"may be put thus: In tho German Army the gun is first and the men are only subsidiary,, to. the gun; among the Allies the man is first and tho gun is only tho means of preparing the way for the decisive action of the men. 'After three months there _is no doubt in any mind as to which is tho sound theory. Battles are won to-day as they have always Leen, by men, and it is because Germany believed that they were won by material and that the only use for men was as material that sho has failed Whatever guns could do sho has done, and if. sho could havo repeated tho tactics of 1870, her superiority in artillerv would have given her a speedy triumph. But she has been dis 7 illusioncd here also. Tho kaiser's campaign was based on tho lessons of 18/0. Ho°ought to have remembered that nothing was less likely than that-Franco would allow those tactics'to. be repeated—that never again, would sho allow her armies to bo driven out of the open where the Renins of her men is at its highest and whero artillery cannot bo jha .final arbitfiC
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Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2346, 31 December 1914, Page 6
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560PASSING OF A LEGEND. Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2346, 31 December 1914, Page 6
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