KAISER’S PEACE PLAN

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 251, 18 July 1921, Page 9

KAISER’S PEACE PLAN

INDEMNITIES PROPOSED IN 1917 ALLIES TO PAY IN MONEY, GOODS, AND TERRITORY The Berlin correspondent of the ‘“Manchester Guardian," writing on April 19, said: It has become known here that a document lies in the archives of the Foreign Office written by the ex-Kaiser in ihe spring of 1917 stating his peace terms. Apparently it is another of tho amazing Kaiser epistles and transcends in importance as a key to the mentality of the Mar Lord of Germany even some of the marginal, remarks published by Karl Kautzky. We have been at war more than two years, and my Government still failed to inform me what the war was being fought for” is the gist of the introduction, "so now in the name of my army and nary I announce my peace terms." Precisely what these were in full detail my information does not state, but they included the following points:— Germany to have Longwy and th* Briey basin. Belgium to he divided, Germany to have the const. Tho Kaiser to be Duke of Courland. Germany to have Lithuania. Germany to have the Azores and Malta. Tho United States to pay an indemnity of 40 billion dollars (-98000 million), France one of 30 billion dollars (£6OOO million), England to pay an indemnity in money and material.

A series of documents on the question cf tho throne of Rumania shows the Kaiser to have been absorbed in 1917 by the notion of having one of his sons appointed. His own candidate was Joachim, who, he writes, hod been at the east front, and had written excellent reports, and whom he recommended also for his ability to make good public addresses. Apparently tho court clique favoured Prince Oscar, and the archives contain a report from that prince’s advocates stating that he also had been at the front and had written good reports, and that to his qualifications were to be added those of his wife bv morganatic marriage, Countess do Bas’sewitz. The nature of this marriage, it was argued, should not prove an obstacle with such a country as Kumania. The chief concern of these Prince Osear conspirators was that his children should be accepted by the HohenzoTern family as members. There is also in the archives a letter written early in 1917 by Herr Hugo Stinnes protesting against a separate peace with Italy, which nt that time seemed not Improbable. The argument of Herr Stinnes revea's with whnt nrdour he believd in the succes of the submarine war.