HUN AMBASSADORS SECRET

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 261, 23 July 1918, Page 6

HUN AMBASSADORS SECRET

KAISER'S COUNCIL REVELATIONS WHY SCARBOROUGH WAS SHKLLED Mr. Henry Morganthau, formerly American Ambassador at Constantinople, is publishing his war memoirs in the "World's Work." In a recent instalment he gives a detailed account of his conversations with Baron von Wungenlicim, tho German Ambassador, who Bought him out immediately on his return to the Turkish capital from the Kaiser's War Council, held at Potsdam on July 5, 1911. Mr. Alorgauijiau says the Kaiser presided over the conference, which was" attended by nearly all the Ambassadors aB well as Moltke, Chief of the Stall, Tirpitz, tho great bankers, railway directors, and captains of German industry. "Wangenheim told me the Kaiser solemnly put the question lo each man in turn—Was he ready for war? All replied 'Yes,' except tho financiers. They said they must have two weeks to sell their foreign securities and to make loans The conference decided to give 'he bankers timo to readjust their finances for tho coming war, and then the several members went quietly back to their vork or started on their vacation. Wangenheim, in telling mo about the conference, admitted that Germany had precipitated the war. I think he was rather proud of the whole performance, proud that Germany had gone about tho matter in so methodical and far-seeing a way." Paris to be Sacked, Mr. Morganthau explains Wangenheim's indiscretions by the fact that he was convinced that a complete German victory was a matter of a few months only. "I was out for a stroll on August Hi "and happened to meet the German Ambassador, lie began to talk as usual about tho German victories in France. The German armies, he said, would be in Paris within a week. The deciding factor in the wnr, ho added, would be the Krupp artillery, 'and remember that this lime,' he said, 'we are making war. And wo shall make it ruchsichtlos (ruthlessly). We shall not be hampered as we were in 1870. Then, Queen Victoria, the Tsar, and the Emperor Francis Joseph interfered and persuaded us to spare Paris. But there is no one to interfere now. We shall move to Berlin all the Parisians' art treasures that lielong to the State, just as Napoleon took Italian works of art to Franco: ' After observing that the battle of the' Mame quite evidently 6aved Paris from tho fata of Louvain, Mr, Morganthau proceeds:—"So confidently did Wangenheim expect an immediate victory that he began to discuss the terms of peace. Germany, he said, would demand ot France, after defeating her armies, that she must completely demobilise and pay an indemnity. 'France now,' said Wan-, ganheim, 'can settle for .£1,000,000,000, but if she norsists in continuing the war she will have to pay He told me Germany would demand harbours and coaling stations 'everywhere.' Germanr was not looking so much for new territory as for great commercial advantages. * She was determined to bo the great merchant nation, and for this she must'have free harbours, the Bagdad Railway, and extensive rights in South America and Africa.,

A Hostage for England, "Wangenheim said Germany did not desire any more territory in which the populations did not speak German. Thev had had all cf that kind of trouble they' wanted in Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, and other non-German countries. It England attempted to starve Germany, said Wangenheim, 'Germany's response would be a simple one—she would starve France.

''It was evidently the German plan as understood by Wangenheim to hold France as a pawn for Englauds behaviour, and should England gain any military or naval advantages Germany would attempt to counter-attack by torturing the whole French people.

"Wangenheim repeatedly laughed to scorn the idea (hat England could creatn a large Army. It talcs generations of militarism, he said, to produce anything like the German Army. It takes thirty years of constant training to produce such as, we have. We have 500,000 recruits reaching military age every year, and we cannot possibly lose that number, so that our Army will be kept intact." Mr. Morganthau asserts (hat the German bombardment 'of Scarborough and Hartlepool was no sudden German inspiration, but part of a carefully considered plan. "Wangenheim told me on September 6, 191-1, that Germany intended io bombard all the English harbours bo as to stop the food supply."