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Hokitika Guardian, 6 August 1917, Page 2

Afrofos of the War Anniversary, a remarkable French work has recently been published in Paris, entitled “Le Mensonge du 3 Aout, 1914,” and it is the subject of an article by Mr H. W. Wilson in the “Nineteenth Century.” The mau who reads this hook and still • entertains any doubt os to Germany’s responsibility for the war will be a strange man indeed. With the help ot much information supplied by tho French War Office, the book exposes 1 the wholo series of falsehoods told by the German Government on and Defore the declaration of war with France. In the spring of 1914 Germany made great preparations which pointed to the imminence of war. Sho bought a very large quantity of com. In May, 1914, she provided numbers of beds and hospital stores. In the same month she got ready for what her staff called “exceptional grand manoeuvres,” involving the concentration of 500,000 men close to the French frontier in August. In July German merchants in France hastily sent in their bills, called in debts, and disposed of their stock. The German. Government suddenly laid an embargo on the supplies of foreign motor tyres in Germany, or, in other words, seized them. The published reports of tho French Embassy in Berlin showed that the German mobilise tion began * In secret on July 2T 1 On July 24 machine guns were mounted on Dusseldorf station and high buildings non. it. On the 25tli tho railway stations throughout Germany were occupied by the military, and a movement by train of cavalry, artillery, and infantry towards tho Belgian frontier began. On the 27th the French observed German infantry taking post along the frontiei. and barbed wire being laid. On the same day men on leave were ordered to rejoin, and five classes of reservists, were called up. Germany was, in met; mobilising at least 2.0.50,000 men. On' .the 29th the famous War Council met at Potsdam, and that day tho German Ambassador in Potrogrnd informed the Russian Government of “the decision of bis Government to mobilise if Russia did not stop her military preparations, which Russia had publicly announced, and which, in fact, weio limited to the military districts affected by Austria’s action in previously mobilising eight army corpß against Servin. Thus, on the German theory, it was right for Germany to carry out u general mobilisation without proclaiming a mobilisation; it was wrong for Russia to take any uetion, however local, against 'the partial Ausirw mobilisation.