AN AMAZING FORECAST.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 237, 22 December 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

AN AMAZING FORECAST.

WHAT A GERMAN WROTE FOUR YEARS AGO. By THE WELL-KNOWN PUBLISHER, MR. R. B. MARSTON.

In 1912 an old Russian angting friend of mine, Baron T , wrote to mo to advise me to get a copy of a German work which was attracting much attention in Russian military circle*.

It was entitl.'d " Der Europaische Krieg von 1913" ("The European War of ISM 3"). I procured a copy and found that it was a clever description of this present war by an eye-witness nrho published his account in 1912! Among things he did not foresee were trench warfare—and the British Empire Army. The work has peculiar interest just now because in 1912 its publisher, Paul Baumann, of Charluttenburg. when issuing a third edition, was graciously permitted to print m red type on it an extract from a letter from' Count Zeppelin in which he. blessed the work, saying "Moehte ihm der gebuhrende,Einflus:v aut die Goschicke unseres Yatcrlandes suteil werden. . .*' ("May it have its duo influence on the fortunes of our country"). This is the more significant, coming fiom the count, as the book attributes tlie inevitable. Teuton victory largely to the Zeppelin air squadrons. It may be hit cresting to give a 1* sumo of this German forecast of thiS greatest of wars, its causes, course, find ending. Not the least striking thing in t.'lft book is the intense hatred of England which is preached in every chapter, but in this respect it is not extraordinary —in my position as editor of n British book-trade paper I have very frequently during the last tiwenty-fivß years or so called attention to the extent and virulence of his anti-British propaganda in the German publishing world, especially in the shapV* of hooks like this, all set to the tune of "Gott strafe England."

CAUSE OF THE WAR AND GROUPING OF THE POWERS.

The war is descril>ed n* due, ostensibly, to sudden insuperable dissension between France and Germany over Morocco; really to British intrigue and tr the conviction on the part of France that at Inst the hour had arrived for the ''Revanche" for 1870.

The Entente between England and Prance had never been more cordial: Russia had been bought over by proffer of a free hand in Persia: Italy could not be counted on by Germnnv and is described as later on throwing in her lot with France and England. A Scrap of Paper.—"As the Powers guaranteeing these small State* (Belgium and HolUwid) were at war witli each other, the treaties guaranteeing neutrality wvre merely 'ein Stuck Papier' (i scrap of paper), without practical value." This was said two years before Herr von Bethmann Ho!:weg's historical "Scrap of Paper" speech. England being engaged to help Franc.', these States ask Belgium it she iwill or will not permit them to attack Germany through Belgium and and allow England to land her troops at Antwerp; Belgium Chauvinism catches fire from that of France; Holland reluctantly listens to the wooing of her great Gorman neighbour; and when English fleets and transports appear in the Scheldt, Dutch heavy guns iu armoured batteries make a landing at Antwerp impossible. This upsets the plan* of thv Allies, the English aire unable to arrive in time, and the first great battle of the war, the battle ot Liege, ends in tiie French 3rd Army Corps being defeated, broken up, and compelled to seek safety under the guns of Narour, Huy, Civet, and Maubeuge. The French «ire forced to withdraw to the? line Rheims-Laon-La. Fere : leaving to the English the task, with their four divisions laboriously landed at Ostend, Dunkirk, and Calais of taking a flanking posiion in th* Btisigny district against the German alvance.

FATE OF LIEGE AND THE FRENCH FRONTIER FORTRESSES.

The Belgian Army, withdrawn to complete its mobilisation mainly behind tho extensive fortifications of Antwerp, was to have operated against tho German right wing, but owing to the threatening attitude of the Dutch and to German demonstrations was \mable to move, and the greater part of Belgium, with its capital, was in German hands. Italy having joined the Allies, Austria's task is to defeat her on land and sea, which .s!i*e eventually does. Except for a temporary success in the invasion of German at Mulhausen, the course of the war naturally goes against France. Liege i's described as being able but for a few days tc withstand the battering her torts were subjected to by the modern German siege artillery. The fall of Liege left the road to Kamur open, and Namur, Malbeuge, Mons, etc., are described as falling—much as they did fi.il. In a battle on the Samhre the little English Army is defeated, surrounded, and has to capitulate. France is left to fight her battles on land by herself.

COUNT ZEPPELIN ATTACKS LON DON. PORTSMOUTH, CHATHAM AND DESTROYS THE BRITISH FLEET.

In the early days of the war the English aro described as beinb beaten in tta Bight in an ateinpt to capture Heligoland, but for a time they succeed in confining the German Fleet to its fortified bases. Then the whole cinl-ii-ed world was astounded at news from London. From his base at Brussels, Count Zeppelin, with six great airships, had suddenly appeared over London and paralysed its inhabitants by destroying London Bridge with highexplosive bombs. As suddenly as they came they disappear, only to do enorm ous damage to the docks and arsenals at Portsmouth. Chatham, etc. The 25(1 m:!o voyage between Brussels and Portsmouth is comfortably done in eight hours. The count returns to Brussels, and has lunch at the Hotel. Bcllovue, in the Pl:uo Boya.le, while lie and his brave crews listen to the hoys in the streets crying the news of his destroying visit to England. But his work is only commencing. Aftsr refitting and taking in great stores of explosives he disappears with his air squadrons and drops bombs with such success on the British Fleet that before lot,; all that is left of it afloat surrenders "never had there been such a sudden destructin cf sea-power in the history o the world" —and Britannia no longer rules the waves France makes heroic but hopeless efforts to repel the invaders: even her women, uncW a new Joan of Arc, rush to battle, fight, and die. Paris, th" wonder city of the world, li.'s one l mere at five feet of the conqueror.

Then the world is asked to look on while German}', magnanimous, holds out her hand to France, says she bears her no ill-will, no hatred, offers her a place, in the German sun and the bless, ings of German Kultur.

ENGLAND THE ENEMY AND WHY SHE SUFFERS FROM THE "FUROR TEUTONIC US."

In his last chapter this German ■prophet tells us that before the war there was only one nation, England, towards which Germany evinced an unalterable outspoken hatred (ein unumw undeu auvgesprochenes Haszegcfuhl). The reason for this hate has its roots, this Teuton tells us, far less in envy of England's possessions in the world than in the blood-boiling rage at the "everlasting, never-ending expressions of British brag," and her open and secret inciting of the nations against her dreaded competitor in the domain of commerce and industry—in short, "at the piovocative homming-in policy, which has its seat in Downingstreet, and its orgaas all over the world." It was this unbridled hate, he says, .which led Germany to employ against England "such brutal"methods of warfa.-e as the woi'lli has never known before." England is outside tho palo of nations, and is warned that if again she tries to stir up strife tho United States of Central Europe, under German leadership, will "give over her land to fi.ro and the sword and t-.:rtch her to sing 'Home Sweet Home among the smoking ruins." —Dailv Mail.