DOWNFALL OF BRITAIN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1033, 30 November 1912, Page 4

DOWNFALL OF BRITAIN.

JAPANESE-GERMAN PROPHECY OF THE WAR OF 1913

(By R. B. Marslon)

A book called “The European War ol 1913,” is having a great success in Germany and Austria, and in military circles in Russia and France. Count Zeppelin, who recently sailed in his warship over the British Fleet in the Baltic, wrote to the German publisher expressing his hope that the work would have the effect it deserved to have on the future of the Fatherland. If it really is what it purports to be, the work of a Japanese officer on the general staff of our ally, Japan, its antiEnglish lone is all the more significant.

The author begins by recording that in the night ot the 21st to the 22nd of March, 1913, he received a telegram from his military superiors in Paris ordering him to return immediately from Toulon, where, by permission of the French Government, he was making an inspection of the naval position. On reaching Paris his orders are at once to join the Third French Army under General Raoul St. Juste, to follow and carefully record all the operations of the war, with a view to present at its close as clear a picture of it in its details as possible.

France declared war ou March 12, 1913, ostensibly ou account of new and irreconcilable difficulties with Germany iu Africa —really because the nation felt that the time had at last arrived to be revenged for the disaster of 1870 : “Not iu vain had beeu England’s avowed and secret efforts to bring about the great war against Germany. At last she found the French ready to help her to break the Great Power opposed to her. History shows that the policy of England has ever beeu to allow no Continental nation to become too powerful ; her aim is ever to preserve the balance of power iu Europe so that she may be able to carry out her designs of world-Empire unimpeded by any European rival.”

The time was well chosen. The entente cordiale between England and France bad never been so cordial, England In cl given

K ::-..,a a : - ■•hand iii Persia as tK- price oi her assistance in the war against Germany. The Teutonic members of the Triple Alliance could not cc nut on Italy still fettered by her struggle with Turkey. The English transports, accompanied by warships, ou attempting to pass Flushing on their way to Antwerp, found themselves under fire irom unexpected powerful Flushing shore batteries must be silenced before the transports could pass up the Scheldt. But the English warships found they could make little or no impression ou the Dutch defences ; on the contrary, they received such damage from the heavy artillery ot the Dutch that they were compelled to give up the attempt. Thus the intention of the English, by laudiug their army at Antwerp to fall on the flank of the German advance, ou which the French were to make a frontal attack, was foiled. Antwerp being closed to them, the English were compelled to divide their forces, sending some to Osteud, some to Dunkirk aud some to Calais, none of which ports offered such safe aud ample facilities for laudiug a great body ot troops with the necessary guns, horses, munitions, waggons, etc. As a consequence, the French, already iu touch with the Germans and on the eve of a decisive battle, louud their English allies were — not there.

The French found themselves attacked on Belgian soil by the Germans, supported ty the Dutch. For five days a terrific conflict raged—most vividly described by this Japanese expert iu war. Towards the end of the fifth day French airmen apprise the French General St. Juste that the Germans are preparing a flanking movement. The general, turning to his chief of staff, says, “Ah, the old German plan—they attack stubbornly iu front, and under cover of it surround a wiug ! Good —let them do it. But we will break through their front, divide the German Army, press their whole right wiug hack from their line of retreat, and drive them into the arms of the English !”

But it is iu vaiu that the French hurl themselves agaiust the Germau frout— after enormous losses they can make no impression on it. We can only glance rapidly at the course of next year’s great war iu the south. Italy, hampered by her African campaign, attacks Austria, and is defeated ou laud. Hastily recalling her army from Tripoli, her transports and covering war vessels are attacked within sight of Malta by the Austrian fleet and almost destroyed—the French fleet arrives from Toulon a day too late—aud there is no British Mediterraueau Fleet to intervene. These disasters to Italy permit the bulk of the Austrian armies to pass to the Rhine. Bondon, fretting at the absence of great deeds on the part of either its Army or Navy and their forced inaction, is suddenly skaken to its foundations. Its world-famous bridge, memorial of Waterloo, is destroyed, together with its surroundings by bolls from the blue, dropped by Count Zeppelin’s fleet of great airships, which then soars away southward, and after irreparably damaging Portsmouth as a naval base, does the same for Chatham, and then, still favoured by the elements, lands quickly near Brussels for more petrol aud explosives. Then iu the evening they rise again, circle round, aud start off in a south-westerly direction—only to chauge it iu the night for the North German coast, where the British fleet holds the sea, watching and waiting for the Germans to come out. Over the doomed Dreadnoughts the German airships hover while they drop explosives more powerful than a dozen of the greatest naval shells. Such of our ships as are not utterly destroyed are rendered unmanageable, helpless targets for the German warships, which now swarm out and surround them.

The Japanese observer saw France broken, the victorious Teutonic millions within striking distance of Paris. Is there to be a repetition of the great seige and and the past humiliation ? No ! The German Powers suddenly offer Frouce peace and friendship, France, drained of her best blood, disillusioned as to the value of her so-called allies, acknowledges the magnanimity of the victor in the hour of triumph, and hate of the two nations passes from respect to admiration.