PUSHING THE HUN NAVY

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1923, Page 4

PUSHING THE HUN NAVY

<By ChrLionker Hart, in -‘Daily Mail" HAMBURG, June 1. Seven years have elapsed .since Jutland was fought, and in these, seven years tin- -torv of The battle as told in Gc-imatiy him hardened into a legend cf vim cry w hich nobody quite believe-, but v.ob'dy dares to que-tlon. The further the fight- tr-.-ede.- into the mi.-i----of the nasi, the more loudly do inofficial interpreters, the German adminds, proclaim it to have been a great victory for the fleet of the l-'ath.-rlaml. This tendency towards the Mythological must not be nst-ii*>c:l to tm-iv liarmli--- vanity or wounded naval prui". There is method in it. It is the voice of the convale-eent Flnlicnverein that. hen. mice more makes itrelf he.ltd. The Old Gang of the Navy is up la its tricks again, and its agents are once mote trying to persuade tlnstill bewildered Germania that she will never be happy till sin- holdNeptune's h idont in her hand. One i f iho most,, zealous leaders io the new movement t- Admiral voti I lolbvg the a, --'. a! lioiieiunst- of (1 •,- S: inn.— Brest. "The victory of Siiagei rak .. e.o by (w-i-many oil May 2d. 191 li,” he this week told tin- burghers of Bremen, "should -teach lit-- whole nation to 1 ut its faith in deeds rather than in word-. Kkagerr.-il; v.as a deed and the la-riwho fought in it have helled to I'til! down for ever this arrogant, and tyrannical England from the high | Fee she had n urped to lhe ) i-ril - f the pc,re of Europe.” Admiral Kcln-er. too. lias been louring the country with a lantern-slide lecture on the battle, repenting all

the old mendacious plant tub s .■ - l ii i■: 11ing Knglaud current in German Navy l.cagtie circles before the war. Auditor eloquent si*_>n of the reviving energy uf the naval clii(ile is the reapen ranee of the Xa.ut icus. This notorious naval year-book, published last iiioiith for the liisf time sitin' 1911. hits ever since its inauguration in 1898 vricetl the aspirations of von Tiiqdtz end his disciples. The lirst article in the current iininher is from t!:e ten of the ill-starred (truss Admiral himself. It shows him chastened hut incorrigible. held upon repeal wig the policy which has once already led Germany to disaster. il ! ' and his. hand of collaborators in Ike Xautieus have evivlentlv made up their minds that the whole sorry farce of a ‘‘future oil the water." a “place in the situ", and till the r<’«t of it has to l:e played over again. “The German nation lost the war." says von Tiiq tix oracularly, “bemuse it failed to understand the sea, failing to understand the sea. failed to understand ihe world." The publication of the new Xautieus, with its score of excellently written technical articles, marks the beginning of a new epoch in German maritime advent tire. The task the annual sets it-ell' is to transform an essentially Continental people into a maritime one. The industrial and agricultural masses of Germany are at present rather inclined to get a headache at the thought of Jutland ami the sea and show small desire to come to grips again with the British bluejacket. It remains to he seen whether the propaganda of von Tirpitz and his fol- j lowers will stteteed iti overcoming tin's quite comprehensible aversion.