Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25th. 1917. THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF GERMANY.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 October 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25th. 1917. THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF GERMANY.

The London Daily Mail all through the war has delighted in calling a spade, a spade. At the end of the third year in August last there were some remarkable artficles in the open about the war, not the least interesting and informative, because of the marshalled facts, being one by an ex-German correspondent who still regarded Germany as strong on land, sea and air. He opened with this clear definition of the enemy position:—“Germany’s position at the outset of the fourth year of the war is as strong in many respects, in my judgment,- as it was a year ago. I realise the unpopularity of such an opinion, but I hope we have unlearned the habit of viewing Germany from the standpoint of what we would like her to be instead of what she is.” Following this hold declaration of the situation as ho viewed it, ho went on to give grounds for the opinion he expressed so certainly. ’Plie German people, he said, know that they are baffled, even though still undefeated. The War Lords know it too, hut, as acknowledgment would he tantamount to signing their own deathwarrant, they are compelled by elementary dictates of self-preservation to maintain the fiction that “victory” as merely a matter of holding out. The war will go on as long as the German people consent to he turned into cannon fodder for the Hohenzollerns and the Hindenhurgs or until the Allies contrive to wipe the Hohonzollern s and the Hindenhurgs off the military map. I shall be asked why I think that Germany’s general situation is as staunch to-day as it was on August 4, 1916. Because in the interval:— She has eliminated Russia as a military factor for an indefinite nuumber of months. She has conqtfered Roumania. She lias re-taken Galicia. She lias maintained herself on the western front without perilous loss. She has solved her manpower problem for military and industrial reserves i by enforcing national service for all j males up to 60.

She has rationed foodstuffs and .raw materials (especially materials needed for .the people’s clothing) so ruthlessly that every ounce of fat and every shred of cloth needed for war 23 available for that vital purpose.

rt 1 gho has ro-organisod her vast inaustrian plant so that to-day every required lathe and wheel in the F.mpiro it at work on guns, arid shells and submarines. She has throttled remorselessly every pacifist pr “democratic” effort which contained the remotest possibility of interfering with the prosecution of war. She has contrived to keep the German nation convinced that it is bleeding to death dn a holy war of defence and lias offered “peace” to its enemies in vain.

"She is waging U-boat war on a scale well designed to male© Germans believe that sooner or later England “our grimmest foe,” will give ifp the ghost from, sheer physical exhaustion.

Having stated tho case so frankly <i.n tho affi'cVnatlive he turns to tho obverse side, and reviews the things that tell on the other side of the balance:—Though tlio Hi.mlenburg-Lu-dendorff regime, which has been enthroned for not quite ' a year, has accomplished these marvels of organisation and illusion, it must not be imagined that Germany is a lartd of cheer and radiant hope. She is a long way from that. Tho Germans have been made to comprehend afresh this week that their Army is not invincible. Thedr schoolchildren are now running about hare-footed, saving leather for next winter’s boots. Soap is a positive luxury. Coal is going tobe so scarce that they are talking in Berlin about heating water ®nly twice a week after October 1. Bread rations will soon be up, but the meat dole will be down again to Jib. a week. The poor are wearing old clothes presented to them by the communal authorities. The only man who had the courage to blurt out the truth about the war, 'Liebknecht, is a convict. ‘Maximilian Harden’s plain-speaking magazine Zukunft (Future) has been suppressed, and its editor 56 years old, conscripted into National Service as a clerk. The railway service is demoralised—trains few, rolling s tock, decrepit, travel dear and to a certain extent forbidden. And looming most menacingly of all on ’Germany’s harra&sed horizon is the spectre of the United States with its illimitable military possibilities. It is still the vogue in Berlin—Dr. Miehaolis gave the cue afresh a fortnight ago—to view American intervention “without concern.” But Germans of the calibre of Ballin, Gwinner, Rathonau, Hoineken, Helfferieli, Ivrupp, Dernburg, and Thyssen know what . Hindenburg brought down upon himself and bis desperate fortunes when he submarined the United States into Armageddon against its defines and intentions. They know and , tens of millions oi other sensible Germans know, that, hopeless as was their thrust for the world supremacy before, it became utterly insensate with the wealth, manpower, and spirituality of the American people ranged in arms against s Hbhenzolljerni'sm. Germany this August 4 therefore, presents the strange aspect of tho country physically strong ed in self-deception and artificiality. The duty of the Allies is crystal-dear. Wo have to break through Germany’s physical defence with our men and guns, #o umdeddlvo her piniple, to tear to pieces the web of make-believe in which they are meshed by rolling tlioir military idols in tho dust. It is a prodigious task that still awaits us. But it can, it will, it must, he accomplished.