TEN MONTHS IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2962, 28 December 1916, Page 6

TEN MONTHS IN GERMANY

SUBMARINE MOTIVES

"MR HOOGES"

(By D. Thomas Curtin.) Mr. D. Thomas Curtin, who has been for ten months a "Daily Mail" eye-witness in Germany, deals in this article with submarines and ruthlessness. Investigation of naval, military, and Zeppelin matters by a neutral is, beyond question, the most difficult task that can be imposed on anyone who goes into Germany seeking the truth. The situation, however, is slightly helped by tlfo national loquacity of the people both by voico and pen. Almost every German soldier keeps a diary in which lie bleats forth an exaggerated account of his sufferings, but that German writing habit is very misleading to Anglo-Saxons. You have been publishing gloomy letters from German soldiers for over two years in your newspapers, and yet you find that the Germans come up— I will not say smiling, because thev are soldiers who do not do very much smiling nowadays. Certainly they still appear in large and very often quite sufficient numbers. The people in general, and the women in particular, ■ talk even more freely J than tliey writo. For. the purposo of picking up submarine information I visited Hamburg. Bremen, Lubeck, Stettin, and' Danzig, which last was not very useful. Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen, plus Berlin, and an occasional railway and steamer companion, yie'de'd sufficient to enable mo to givo a broad outlino sketch of the system of building German submarines, the training of submarine officers and men, the beginning of tlie new mercantile marine, and the objects of the. various submarine policies. of which there aro several. Some of these projects seem not to be understood hero. The German submarines are standardised, as, I presume, are yours. The draughts and blue prints ot the most important machinery are multiplied and sent,, if necessary, to twenty different factories, while all the minor stampings aro produced at one or .other main factory. The "assembling" of the-submarines, therefore, is not difficult. During the war submarine parts have been assembled at . Trieste, Zeebrugge, Kiel, Bremerhaven, Stettin, and°half a dozen other places unnecessary to'relate. ' TII6 improvement, enlargement, and simplification of tho submarine hare progressed with great- rapidity. Double or Treble Crews. "\Mien I was in England after my last visit to Germany I met a number of sea folk wiio pooh-poohed extensive future submarining by saying that, no matter how_ many submarines the Germans might be able to produce,- tho training of submarine officers and crew was such a difficult task that the "submarine menace," as it was then in England, need not be taken too seriously. The difficulty is not so great. German Submarine officers and men are trained by the simple process of double or treble banking of the crews of submarines on more or less active service. I think that if I were to talk with your naval authorities I should find that in several submarines you have captured exceptionally largo crews. These double or treblo crews, who Tarely go far away from German waters and aro mostly trained in the : safe Baltic, are composed of young but experienced seamen. ; '

From that winch I heard directly from the members of a family who have a distinguished submarine officer of their number the whole of the art 'or science of submarining is not so difficult as people think it is. Submarine crews are therefore multiplied probably a great deal faster than war destroys them.

' The education of submarine officers and crews begins • ill thorough German fashion on land or in docks, in dummy or disused submarines,' accompanied by milch lccturo work and drill. Submarine lifo is not so uncomfortaETeas we think. With the exception of the deprivation of his beer, which is not allowed in submarines, or, indeed, any form of alcohol except a small quantity of brandy, which is kept under the captain's lock and key, Hanß in his submarine is quite as comfortable as Johann m his destroyer. He does not get much opportunity of _ bathing, which does not trouble him much, though during the last few years the Army and Navy have paid more attention to personal cleanliness than formerly. . No Shortage in the Navy. 1 know 'the kind of extra comforts that are forwarded to submarine men bccause I' was the witness of the packing of- Licbes.eaben (love parcels)' which, consisted of gramophone records (mostly Viennese waltzes), chocolate, sausages, smoked eels, margarine,, cigars, cigarettes, and'tobacco, a small and treasured quantity of real coffee, jam, marmalade, and sugar. All these, I was proudly told, were extras.' There was no shortage in the German Tfavy. I learned nothing; of value about the largest German submarines except that everybody in Germany knew they were being built, and by" the time the gossip of them reached Berlin the impression there was that they were at least as large as Atlantic liners.

Now as to the German submarine policies. I read a report the other day in "The Times" by the chairman of the Ericsson Shipping Company, Ltd., of, Newcastlc-oii-Tyne. He apparent ly understands that part of the German submarine policy which is part and pared of tho future German passenger and freight steamer policy. On this head I picked up very valuable information at Blankenese, a delightful Tesort of the Hamburgers. The boat trip there orms a convenient opportunity for finding out about part of the colossal passenger and ■freight shipbuilding programme now in progress in Germany, such as is going on at the Vulkan Works at Hamburg and tho Schichau and Vulkan Works at Stettin and' the various works at Lubcck. The enthusiastic passengers in the boat for Blankenese completely forgot the constantlyprinted injunction

Soldaten! Vorsicht Bei Gespraechen. Spionengefalir. (Soldiers, caution in conversation, beware of spies.) and as most Hamburg people \ know something aljout ships they "handed out the goods," as wo say in tlie United States, with loquacious liberality. Tlie Gepnan habit .of boasting enabled me 'to gain more and more information. Lying in the river there are tho Cap Polonio, which has been finished sinco the war, and which I was told was 20,000 tons, ancT the Cap Finisterre, also finished since the fi'ar, about 16,000 tons. Tlie whole of the extensive yards lining the river are in full activity. Tho rattle of the pneumatic riveter was as incessant _ as in any newly-building American city._ The two million prisoners, working twelve and fourteen hours a daj, allow the Germans to retain men in their shipyards who would otherwise be needed for the army or agriculture. I do not know whether English prisoners are engaged In tho shipbuilding

yards; tlio Russians certainly aro. I saw English prisoners in huts on tie banks of the Weser between Bremen and' Bremerhaven, near the shipbuilding yards there, though whether they aro actually engaged in the shipbuilding yards I cannot say. Throughout the whole of my long visit I made - ono rule — that was never to ask a question in a dangerous atmosphere. On that particular excursion I had 110 opportunity of putting questions safely.

The National Liberal Party, of which Tirpitz is the god, are at the head of ihe vast, gradually solidifying mammoth Trust,, which embraces Kxupps, the mines, shipbuilding yards, and the manufactures. Now and then a little of its growth leaks out. The other day there leaked out the linking mp of Krupps with the new shipbuilding. The scheme is brutally simple, and is going 011 tinder your eyes every day. These people believe that by building ships themselves and destroying all enemy and neutral shipping they will be the world's shipping masters at the termination of tlio war. In their attitude towards Norwegian shipping you will notice that they make the flimsiest excuse for the destruction of as much tonnage as they can sink.

It was confidently stated to me by a member of that party, • and by no means an unimportant ono, that Germany is building ships as rapidly as she is sinking them. That I do not believe, but that a great part of her effort is devoted to the construction of mercantile vessels can bo ascertained by even a casual traveller in the districts I have named.

The suggestion that tho Allies may demand the ships interned in New York Harbour and elsewhere as part of their indemnity tills tho average German with genuine alarm. But the National Liberals, who are, of course, tho Party —the party that believes in ruthless ill-treatment of prisoners, Zeppelins, submarines, the scattering of poison germs and poisoned sweetsj. and all the rest of it—exhibit no fear, for they aro confident that they can win the war if tho Kaiser will permit ruthless submarine warfare. Our Enemy Banks. Another part of their policy is the keeping alive of all German businesses, banks, and others, in enemy countries. Some people here seem to think tljat the Germans are anxious to keep tSese businesses alive in order to make money. Many of them regard John Bull as extremely simple, but not so simple as to allow them to .do that. So long as the businesses are Kept going until-after the,war, when they can start out with redoubled energy, they wish for nothing more. The Deutsche Bank, for example, which bears no comparison to- an English or American bank, but which is both a political and industrial enterprise promoting institution, is entrenched behind so powerful an Anglo-German backing in London, I was informed on many occasions, that the British Government dare not close it down. The mixture of spying and propaganda with banking, with export, with manufacture seems so foreign to AngloSaxon ways as to be almost inconceivable. ' \

Coincident with the destruction of 'foreign shipping, the maintenance of their businesses in enemy countries (England and Italy especially) is the exploitation of the coal and other mines, oil wells, and forests in occupied enemy territory. I venture- to say that when the truth is revealed the French and Belgian coalfields will have been worked as nearly as possible to exhaustion, together with the iron mines at Longwy and Brieux. Poland is being deforested to such an extent thrit the climate is actually altering. It is a vast and definite scheme, with such, able leaders as Herr Bassormann, the ■•real leader of- 1 the National Liberal Party, Herr Stresemann, and Herr Hirsch, of Essen.

"We have powerful friends not only ill London, Milan, Rome, Madrid, New York, and Montreal, hut throughout the whole of South America, and everywhere except in Australia, whore that verdamnit Hooges (Hughes) played into the hands of our feeble, so-called leader, von Bethmann Hollwcjr, by .alarming the people tliat the British people would follow Hughes's lead."

I remember well that my acquaintances in the Berlin Foreign' Office gave a great sigh of relief when they learnt that Mr. Hughes had gone hack to his Kangaroos. He, Viscount Grey, Mr. Lloyd George, Mr._ Asquith, and, if I may say so in his own newspapers, Lord Northcliffe (as lie. has probably learn by the perusal of German news- . papers) are the most. detested people throughout the German Empire. Ballin's famous saying that "we shallmobilise for peace as quickly as we mobilised for war" is repeated everywhere by tlio powerful National Liberal school of thinkers and capitalists with great satisfaction, thougE Herr Ballin is not so popular with the National Liberals as he was. He is considered not as an Anglophile but as distrustful of the certainty of victory and selfishly anxious for the future safety of his own vessels since the Allied "toil for ton." phrase reached Germany. So much for the commercial part of submarining. The policy has been toned down tinco the sinking of your Channel boat the Sussex with its American passengers. Mr. Wilson's Noto on that occasion was effective, but that Frightfulness will be resumed when Germany gets in extremis I have no doubt whatever.

Do not imagine that any Germans have any compunction about the drowning of women and children at sea. A few of those who have been in England or the United States go as'far as to say, "It is sad, but necessary," but the greater part of Germany cordially endorsed the issue of the Lusitania medal, struck to commemorate the great German defiance of Great Britain and the United States. When I say the greater part, I do not , include the countless simple farmers and small folk who judge the war from their own grievance standpoint and know no more about ships and shipping than farmers know in England or America.

The German majority thinks that if the Allies cannot bo fought into peace by the German Army on land and the German Navy at sea they will be frightened into it by long-distance submarining.

Submarining close to England has long ceased to be a popular amusement with the German submarine flotilla, who have a thoroughly healthy appreciation of the various devices by which you have destroyed so many of tliem.

Tho National Liberals believe that you will not bo able to tacklo long-dis-tanco submarines operating in the Atlantic and elsewhere.

From remarks made to me I do not believe that these submarines have many land bases at great distances— certainly' nono in the United States. Tliev may have floating bases, but this I do know—that their petrol-carry-ing capacity altogether exceeds that of any earlier type of submarine, and that tlieir surfaco speed, at any rate in official tests, runs up to nearly twenty knots. , The trip of the Deutschland was uot for tho purpose of bringing a few tons nf nickel and rubber, but for thnroughlv testing the new engines (desinned by Maybach). for bringing back a hundred reports of tho effects of submersion in such cold waters as are to be found off tlio banks of Newfoundland, for ascertaining how many days' submerged or surfaco travelling are likely to be experienced, aud, indeed, for making such a trial trip across the Atlantic and back as was usual in the early days of steamships. One great fact stands out. The ra- . dius of action of the German sub-

marines is increasing almost mouth by month. Tho early idea was to have a largo number. o£ small submarines around England in a kind of chain and to effect a blockado that way. The quick-wittcdness of your seamen soon devised a scheme to render that project Impossible, but that scheme being illustrated tlio long-distanco blockade will most certainly bo attempted, and .vou would, in my opinion, do well to look to your food reserves here even if only as a precaution.

So much for the Frightfulness and blockade theory of submarining.

Almost the whole of the political crisis in Germany to-day surrounds this school of thought. To'ho ruthless or not to be mthless? Those who think Germany is certain to win are for ruthlessness. The mob have been carefully deprived of the news of the loss of a submarine, with few exceptions, and cannot understand why you are not being starved out. The leaders know, of course, and believe in tlio long-distance plan. Those who think that Germany will be beaten and punished for her crimes call out: "Hold, enough. Let us make an honourable peace, get what we can, and not godown tp History as barbarians." Tirpitz nominally leads the ruthless section,^backed, of course, by Zeppelin as a minor light and with the Kaiser cunningly pushing the matter forward. Von Bethmann-llollweg, who, paradoxically as it may seem, also has the Kaiser's support, leads the other. It is notorious that the German Royal Family are very anxious for their personal safety in the event of complete defeat, and many cynical people whisper that the trip of the Deutschland across the Atlantic was an experiment as to whether the Kaiser and his family could get safely away from Germany in the event of invasion, an invasion which, by the wav, is always to take place through Holland or Denmark. Personally I believe no such rubbish. The voyage of tlie Deutschland to the United States was a thoroughly practical engineering test; a preparation for submarining Frightfulness on Allied and neutral shipping in the safe waters of the far Atlantic and elsewhere as soon as enougli submarines are Teady. Watch your own losses and those of Norway. They are already not so negligible if you add them up.