The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1920. THE DISARMAMENT OF GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 153, 24 March 1920, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1920. THE DISARMAMENT OF GERMANY

Having surrendered her navy as i condition of the Armistice, Germany has now to show her good iaith under the Peace Treaty by ■educing her army to a strength ot 200,000 by April 10. In view of existing conditions in Germany this Ireaty stipulation now assumes a' special importance. The Treaty as n-iginally drawn provided that at i date three months after its coming into force the army was to be reduced to 200,000 men, and by March 31. 1920, to 100,000 men.' As; hey did not operate until January 10, the- terms of the Treaty in this respect became anomalous, and last -nonth the Supreme Council fixed the date 'of April 10 for' the completion of the reduction to 200.000. ind July 10 for the reduction to 100,000. A semi-official statement published in January last gave a total of 1,062,000 men in the five branches of the German armed forces, made up as follow:— Ee"ular Army 400,000 Lund forces of Kegular Navy K ' m Emergency Volunteer* .... 150,000-200,0(10 Civic Guards 300,000-400,000 Public Safely Police 40,000- 50,000 1,002,000 The new voluntarily enlisted regular army was hastily constituted in March, 1919, to deal with the Spartacist risings, and reached a strength of 500,000 in August, after which its demobilisation was begun. The naval land forces are made up of three' independent marine _ brigades and a coastguard regiment, The remaining groups of armed forces shown above come under the Federal .Ministry of the Interior. The Emergency Volunteers were created for the purpose of dealing with organised disturbances in the large towns and industrial areas, and are specially trained for street and house-to-house fighting. They arc armed with all modern weapons, such as machine guns, trcfich mortars, flammcnwcrfcr., and a few light howitzers. Their numbers arc uncertain, as separate organisations arc under the , control of Wurtcmburg and Bavaria. The Civic Guards are armed with rifles and revolvers, and some units have fivv machine-guns' per hundrcd_ men. fhey are said to consist mainly of the stable elements who 'have n stake in the country, and will only be called up if serious troubles tiro imminent. Of the last remaining section in the tabulated figures, the police, it is stated that these arc in future to' be arme'd with a club instead of a sabre, and deprived of their military character. _ The danger spot is obviously the .600,000 men enrolled in the Emcr gency Volunteers and Civic Guards. Being voluntary, they tend to attract! people with common political views, and thus become a standing temptation to leaders of military reaction, At the same time it 's far more difficult for the Allies to watch and control their numborß., As French critics point out, these intermediary formations between the

army and the police have been! wholly unknown in Germany until the- present day. It is claimed that the plain object of their formation is to confuse matters arid prevent all serious control. The German point of view was recently set out by Hem, Noske, Minister of Defence, who stated: "When I first came to Berlin last December [1918] at a time of much danger, 1 found 40,000 men. It is true they slept in barracks and enjoyed the warmth and food provided for them. But they were not soldiers if language has any meaning. There was no reliable discipline or organisation. The officers' authority depended upon the vote of their men day by day. . . . There arc 400,000 men now in uniform. ... If I have

but 100,000 men to control more than sixty millions spread over the vast area of Germany—and of these 100,000 I need 40,000 for the security of Berlin—what guarantees can I give to the law-abiding, and can 1 prevent a catastrophe which will assuredly spread beyond the borders of Germany V It is noticeable that iii his pica for a relaxation of the military terms of the Treaty, Hbrh Noskb makes no reference to the 000,000 men in the volunteer organisations as available for the control of disorder. It remains to be seen whether the recent attempt of the

militarists to seize the reins of government has made ' the Germans ■more disposed to effect a real disarmament, and more anxious, in their own interests, to prevent a recrudescence of militarism in Germany. The events of the past week as depicted in recent cable messages do 'not convey the idea that the armed forces of th 3 Republic are a protection to the peace and security of the law-abiding elements. On the contrary, they appear to constitute a standing menace not perhaps so much to the outside world as to the peaceful rehabilitation of Germany itself.