THE MIND OF THE HUN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3984, 17 July 1915, Page 8

THE MIND OF THE HUN.

GERMANY'S MENTAL- DISEASE. All diseases have a beginning, and the infection of the Hun's mentality is one of the most dangerous diseases the world has known. It. has been traced back by 31 r Sidney Whitman, to the infectious character of the Kaiser. In the pages of the “Fortnightly Review'” Mr Whitman has written an article called, most excellently, “The Praetorian Spirit,” and it is an article which every Briton should read. It searches out the spirit behind this war made by Germany. During the last 25 years the spirit of Germany has changed. “Some years before the present Emperor came to the throne,” writes Mr Whitman, “the old conditions had already begun to change. The ground was being ‘salted/ to use an American mining phrase, for developments which were to come rapidly. The veterans of the 1870 war were dying off, and the supply of the fine old types of in- , corruptible and simple character amonjr Prussian officers was running low.” Then the Ka’ser came to the throne aud with him the Praetorian Spirit, lie had “a restless, headstrong, obstinate, romantic, mystical nature with a strong leaning towards the historic.” Armies mirror the character of their generals, and the Gorman nation changed with its Emperor. “In imitation of the Emperor’s manner it became a positive mania on the part of officers to talk of cavalry attacks on a, colossal scale, and the prevailing idea in this kind of conversation being that it mattered little how many common lives were sacrificed so long a.s the ‘top crust’ lived to witness and rejoice in the knock-down blow to the enemy.. - “A morbid sci'tsc of conceit, of class pride -aAd acquisitiveness is tho driving power of these pinchback Praetorians. Snell is the real inwardness of this colossal attempt at bluffing, foisting second-rate .value us sterling currency on to t he, worlcl. This is'hot

realised as yet; but it will come.” In this way Mr Whitman brings historiral perspective to a very interesting analysis of that disease, which is appalling the world, which is contrary to the rule of knighthood* and understanding of people who have fought cleanly an many .wars.