"BLUFF AND BOUNCE"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 215, 5 June 1919, Page 6

"BLUFF AND BOUNCE"

GERMANY NOW AND LATER. Sir,—ln your issue of Thursday last, a correspondent, "Bluff,", in commenting on the "bluff and bo\We" attitude of tho German ablegates in connection with the signing of the peace terms, says that Germany "is beaten both commercially and militarily beyond all possible hope of recovery." Rats! The regrettable part of the whole business, to my mind, is that the Germans are only half beaten, while the Huns are of the opinion that they aro not beaten at all! The armistice came too 6oou. Beaten or not, the • Germans will come ugaln—thero is nothing more certain than that. Her armies are practically intact. Too loss of her fleet, submarines and aeroplanes is a mere nothing. In a few years the present implements of war will all be obsolete. Wo have only to imagine Germany linked up with Austria-Hungary and Russia, and such a combination is well within the bounds of possibility. Germany will always be a menace to the pcaco of the world. Germany' 6 record of political crime and intrigue from the days of Frederick the Great makes very interesting reading. Fox declared Prussia to be everything that was'.contemptible in servility and all that ,vas odious in rapacity." Your correspondent adds that "Germany is beaten like she never was before." Oh.no. What about .the crushing defeat inflioted upon Prussia in 1806 at Jena? At that period Prussia was considered the first military power in Europe. The campaigns of Frederick the Great had fired the imagination of the young Prussian coxcombs, and they were wont to sharpen their sabres on the steps of tho French Embassy. But the military genius of Napoleon soon checked their ardour.

There was no armistice after Jena, and 60 vigorous and relentless was the pursuit of the Prussians—aha there are r.o troops in the world to equal tho French in following up or completing a victory—that in exactly a fortnight from the commencement of hostilities the whole of Prussia lay prostrato at the conqueror's feet. When Napoleon entered Berlin at the head of his troops, such was the changed demeanour of the prinoipal inhabitants from bombast and arrogance to cringing subserviency that the "Little Corporal" remarked that he did ' uot know "whether to rejoice or feel ashamed."

Anxious to break the military power of Prussia, Napoleon concluded . a subsidiary treaty with the enemy whereby it was stipulated that the Prussian army should be limited to a certain number of men for a period o£ ten years. But the Prussians were too tricky for Napoleon. They contrived "by the skilful chango of soldiers called out into active service to elude the most galling'part of the obligation and prepared tho means ot political resurrection in future times." And it was these very Prussians that proved Napoleon's downfall, for in the Russian campaign of 1812, when practically the whole of Continental Europe marched under the Napoleonic banner for the conquest of Alexander, tho very first defection came from the Prussians under York. Then followed the crushing defeat of tho French at Leipsic and later Waterloo. .

In his anxiety to save that monster in human form—the Kaiser—your correspondent says that "when Napoleon was in tho hands of tho Prussinns after Waterloo, they didn't take the same drastic, steps against their old-time enemy that we proposo taking against the Kaiser, but spared his life." Just imagine Napoleon in the hands of tho Prussians! After .Waterloo, Blucher, smarting under the defeat inflicted upon him at Ligny, two day 6 previously, made desperate efforts to capture Napoleon, and ho was within an ace of doing so. Had he been successful It was th* intention of the "debauched dragoon" tp bang him from the nearest tree. , To this cold-Blooded proposal, characteristically Prussian, Wellington, to his groat honour, lef it bo said, point-blank refused to lend Ins sanction,.and added: "Should the allied Sovereigns wish to put Napoleon to death, thov shall appoint another executioner, who shall not' bo mo."—l am, etc., J. A. WALSH. Pnniatua, June 3.