Man Who Told Truth to the Kaiser.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 March 1922, Page 4

Man Who Told Truth to the Kaiser.

GERMANY COMPARED TO A MADHOUSE. MEMORIES OF A SHIR LUNG MAGNATE. The memoir of Guilin, the German shipping magnate ami creator of the Mamlmrg-Anierika Line, which lias just been published by his colleague Herr Gernard Huldermann, is <i work of extreme importance from the light it ■ sheds upon the inner history of the war and upon the character of the exKaiser. Ballin, it will be remembered, committed suicide after the German collapse. Long before it? be. had ' despaired of victory.

He appears to have been a German of singularly moderate and shrewd views, with an understanding of the British which nowhere else was to be found among the German leaders. ‘•| am regarded,” lie wrote, “in high quarters and even by the Kaiser himself as Anglophil, and yet I am the sole German who can claim with reason to have been for 30 years engaged in war against England for predominance in the shipping business.” Eveu before the war he regarded thle .German policy of building a huge navy as disastrous to German interests and certain to lead to ultimate trouble.

A nation which rules a third of tliie inhabited world and means to retain this dominion' could not renounce its position of superiority at sea. The British argument was sound from tlio British point of view. For that reason Lo desired a compromise in the torni of .en Anglo-German understanding.

' With tlie aid of Sir Ernest Cassel, his iviond ill England, he made repeated ’ -efforts before the war to secure such an agreement and played a direct part in bringing about Lord Haldane’s visit to r cr ]in in 1912. But the German naval ' authorities took good care to bring | ids efforts to nothing. | THE KAISER IN’S ANGER, i The Kaiser did not like to k> told j unpleasant truths. “The manner in | which the truth was kept, from him was ■ a misfortune to himself and his people. ; Lie was informed only ol wont was I satisfactory, and therefore did not neo ' things as they really were.” i He w;ts. according to Ballin, too | prone to yield to his Ministers and ad- ! risers: : Tirpilz was not sympathetic to him | mic.l in mu way a man after his own i heart, but lie gave way to him. G> j lit-.iug Tihpitu’s .naval policy was the ! sound one. He did not really aim jii ! building a battle-fleet- for use against I England in prosecuting a policy of ad-

venture, and his frequent excursions into publicity, which were interpreted other-than lie had' intended' abroad, were only the explosions of a strong temperament. When war came, all the Kaiserin’s influence was used against any early peace: . f-.lio met Ballin with her hands tightly, clenelied and cried: “Peace with Eng-, land? Never 1” The Emperor’s family, Believed that they had been betrayed by England and the British Court. Why, is even more difficult to understand now than Ballin found it to be then. But in such circumstances opposition to her was useless and only led to mischief.

Ballin mates very short work of the German propaganda tale that Great Britain and France on the eve of war, were thirsting for a conflict. On his, return from London a few days before war he reported: , “England and the leading British politicians are entirely pacific, and the French Government is so Litte anxious, for war that its representative in London is making himself very small and doing all in Lis power to avoid a conflict.” Churchill, with tears in his eyes, on taking leave of Ballin, entreated him thus: “My dear friend, don’t let us go to war!” THE U-BOAT CAMPAIGN. Even after the war was in full swingBallin still dreamed of a swift recoil-, (filiation-with Great Britain. In October 1914 be wrote to Tirpitr,:— “What we must aim at is a new arrangement of Powers in the shape of a German-British-Frencii alliance. This alliance we can obtain so soon as wo. have struck down France and Belgium, provided always you make up your mind to reach an understanding with England as to your shipbuilding programme. Kilts la ml is lighting toi hoi . existence to exactly the same degree as ourselves, or perhaps in an even greater degree.” On the U-boat war Ballin wavered in opinion. There was a moment when he seems to have approved it. believing Hint if Germany had 300 U-boats she might win. But in .May 1910 he wrote:

"The people who are now preaching the ruthless U-boat war are tnlsielv informed as to the efficiency of the Uhoats. They imagine that the starvation of England by such means is not only possible but is also reasonably certain. I need scarcely say that such an imagination is false. That the ruthless U-hoat war will bring on us the bitterest enmity and perhaps the actual hostility of all the neutral States is a consequence which these enthusiasts do not take into consideration.” He had no doubt that if Germany forced tlio United States: into war the result would be fatal to Germany, hut

lie preached in vain. “They talk lightly of war with America as if they were dealing with a .Montenegro, or San Marino. Folly! Folly! Everywhere folly! 1 fetel that I am in an asylum when I hear people discuss war with Holland, America, , Denmark, and Rumania as if it were some trifling affair!” KAISER’S DELUSIONS. On .the eve of disaster, in August

1918, lie was called in by Stinnes to tell the Kaiser the truth : :“Stinnes told me that the military position had become extremely bad. Our man-power was failing; we had many deserters (Stinnes named some-32,000, I think). Ludondorff lias at last made a clean breast of things to the Grown Prince, but the Kaiser lias still to be told.”

A few days later Ballin saw the Kaiser for the last time, but the •■dtp took care that there were people present, so that it was impossible to speak freely: I found the Kaiser very badly informed and in ! the excellent spirits which lie always affects when there is a third person present. The people about him have so distorted 'the ' truth that the disastrous failure of the offensive, which at first greatly depressed him, is now represented as a suscess.” A few weeks later he was in (light; and Billlin.' with all his Hopes wrecked :i::d, as"he said himself, no hope of friendly intercourse thereafter with bis acquaintances in England, France, and the United States, committed suicide—a tragic end to a not ungenerous and strenuous life.