PRE-WAR HISTORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2605, 12 July 1923, Page 3

PRE-WAR HISTORY.

BY A GERMAN DIPLOMAT.

“THAT MADMAN VON TIRPITZ.” London, 10th July. The “Daily Express” states that Baron von Eckardstein, who was Councillor at the German Embassy in London before Count Bernstorff, lias returned to London to arrange for the publication of a book covering -the ten years before the war. Baron von Eckardstein is no longer a dashing Prussian Guardsman, but is now grey and bearded. He was regarded as pro-British when he said Britain could put four million men sin the field. Interviewed, Baron von Eckardstein said: “I have dealt with the events leading up to the war in a manner which may displease many of my countrymen. The war would never have happened if that madman, von Tirpitz, had not hoodwinked the Kaiser into a policy of aggresive naval expansion. At the outbreak oi, the war the Kaiser had me imprisoned for saying that Britain could win. I had pointed out that Germany’s policy would inevitably drive Britain into an alliance with Prance and Russia, but ths advice was ignored. The fact that I had lived in Britain and the United States and thoroughly understood Anglo-Saxon pyschology counted for nothing. Germany’s policy during the war, as previously, was dictated by madmen.”