Should Britain Bomb Berlin ?

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 28 January 1916, Page 3

Should Britain Bomb Berlin ?

“BRITONS NOT PRUSSIANS.’ The Prussian says to himself “ If I drop bombs in London they will be so terrified that they will wish for peace.” He forgets that if the 700 square miles were nothing but dust there would’still be England, and that England would not make peace. We are not to be frightened. We are British, not Prussians. We are not a people that can be terrified, but we do know that the German people are. It is their mistake to think that we can bo terrified ; it is our mistake not to terrorise them. When bombs are dropped on our heads we only feel that we want to get on with the war more. Bombs are alarum clocks for Britons. I am not advocating nor extenuating their use. I am merely pointing out that they wake us up. They remind us that there is a war on, and some day I hope they will remind us

that there is way to stop them — which is, to bomb those ten Kaiser-centres in Bor!in.

This is a war where psychology I must be taken into account. Fear is the whip that always brings him to his knees. When we dropped a few bombs on Dusseldox-f, what a howl of rage went up! How full of horror were the German newspapers, that had been praising the humanity of dropping the bombs on London, at the idea that we sh mid dare to drop a bomb on them! Those howls of' rage showed that we had got home ; but Dusseldorf is not Berlin. That is the sensitive spot of the German Empire. It is the sound-ing-board —make a Prussian afraid in Berlin and the thing spreads like an infection. A man who rules by fear must himself be susceptible to fear. I dare say the Kaiser is as big a coward as any, when hit. Drop bombs upon Berlin and you hit him. Bombs on Berlin would not add to the Kaiser’s popularity. A ruined Berlin would be a nail in his coffin. . The Kaiser could not stand to see Berlin, the centre of all his influence and power ruined. Rather than that he would call off his Zeppelins from London. Let us at any rate, try the experiment. Let ns see what bombing Berlin really does produce. There is a way to reach Berlin, let me add. Look at the way, not only on the land but on the water, and if you remember what is happening today, you will see that fit is not beyond accomplishment.

BERLIN,S SIGNIFICANCE. Reprisals—that is the language the Prussian understands. He doesn’t care a fig for London, Paris, or Brussels, it would not give him a single pang if all three were destroyed. But he does value Berlin. When you hit Berlin you hit the whole sources of the atrocities. It is here they are hatched and authorised. for here is the centre of the HohenzoUern influence. Take away Berlin from the wild Hohenzollern cattle, and their power of mischief is gone. When they see parts of Berlin in ruins they will be afraid to do any more to London. Once you get a Prussian afraid you can do anything you like with him.

What should be smashed in Berlin ? Ten main features, I enumerate them in the order of their importance : 1. The main palace, which the Kaiser uses, as his business office. 2. Kaiser’s home in Potsdam, with its 12tt. iron fences and its heavy iron gates cast in Chicago. 3. The historic Hohenzollern palaces, San Souci and the Old Palace, full ot relics of Frederick the Great and dedicated toswank, with the picture of the water-nymph he painted both of whose legs were left. 4. The Prussian Reichstag, that mockery of a Parliament that stands in i-eality as a symbol of Prussian absolution, producing no laws, creating no Cabinets, but simply obeying the will of Hohenzollern tyrant ; a Parliament merely intended to convince neutral opinion that Germany is not without one.

5. The Hohenzollern street, the Segesalee, a monument of tawdry art, designed by the Kaiser, full of statues of his ancestors, a street wherein eveiy day an artist drops down dead from fright. (i. The old monument of Prussian militarism, Spandau, one ot the last remaining fortresses of Berlin, with its Julius Tower, where the gold to make the war with was kept.

7. Unter den Linden, the street of pride, walking down which the Prussian feels himself more than any other time a superman. One single bomb dropped on it might cure the Kaiser of his Zeppelin habit. 8. The Academy of War, where the Prussian staff officers are educated and the Hindenburges and Macksensens turned out, the hotbed of militarism 9. The Wilhemstrasse, the Whitehall of Berlin, headquarters of bureaucracy, where Bethmann Hollweg keeps the Notes from America, and dictates the reasons for the sinking of the Lusitania, and explains the shocking conduct of the Allies in pursuing the harmless submarine. 10. Belle Vue Palace, the palatial residence of the Crown Prince, in the Tiergarten where he takes the loot he has collected from the various French chateaux