Will Fight to the Bitter End.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 253, 23 February 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

Will Fight to the Bitter End.

HOW GERMANY CONSERVES MAN POWER.

CONQUERED PEOPLES FORCED TO MAKE MUNITIONS.

BY PROFESSOR T. G. MASARYK

There has rather been a temptation in the Allied countries to take it for granted that Germany would sit down tamely while her man-pow-er was being depleted by the lengthening fronts and the attacks of her enemies —and yet if we had arijy knowledge of Germany at all we might have known that a people so prone to organise and to look ahead would not be left without a plan of augmenting their military and Industrial resources. The Germans have a plan, and as they are not concerned overmuch as to the impression they make in the neutral world, that plan will serve their purposes' for some considerable time yet. The plan roughly is to use the manhood of the conquered territories for the army or for munition factories, and by using Belgian and Polish workmen in Germany as substitutes for Germans of military age to release a corresponding number as recruits for the German Army, while the fighting and working army is further to be increased by a levy en masse. THE HUNS' RECRUITS.

By making white slaves of the Belgians and by coercing the Poles under the specious plea of having granted them their independence. Germany hopes to obtain half a million munition makers, allowing hair a million Germans now exempted as ndispensable to be incorporated in the army. Some time ago Austrian officers took a census of the manpower of Russian Poland and found that there were over/ a million men fit for military service. By hook or by crook Germany and Austria will make use of them, and employ them wherever she thinks proper. As for the feelings of the Poles, Germany does not care a fig. Being in her power they must do as they are told —that is her way of arguing. The point of importance tc the Allies is that Germany has elaborated a plan whereby she increases her military resources by over a million men or perhaps twice the number of men Rumania brought to the Entente, and at the same time assures herself of a largely increased output of munitions. In the economical sense she strengthens her position by forcing practically everyone to work for the State, and so utterly controlling them. I have been asked whether I thought Germany would fight to the end, and I have answered "Yes." The present measures convince me that I am right. Germany may be crushed to her knees, and I sincerely hope she will, but until Germany is on her knees she will fight on, ever seeking ways and means of equalising the advantage which the Allies enjoy in usable man power. Russia, for instance, has millions of men, but the number she can really use depends on the ability of her own factories and those of the Allies to equip them, and at the best the number must be limited.

Jt is always a mistake for the Allies to believe that Germany is nearing the end of her tether. When Rumania came into the war peopl* immediately began to ask where Germany would get men from to meet this new enemy. We have new had ample opportunity of seeing that Germany knew where to get the men from, and, what is more, where to get important reinforcements for the same force from. I should say to-day that the resources of Germany are: five million men in the field, and, including the Poles who will be used, two million men in reserve.

MAX-POWER—AND FOOD. I don't think that Germany is halt as much worried over the man power problem as she is over food, for remember that while Russia can always maintain her strength in the field, there will come a time soon when the Allied man-power in France, Britain, and Italy, will begin to wane also, though the Allies are much better able to stand the strain than Geimany.

They talk more about peace in the Reichstag than they used to. There is a new note in the German music. The Somme offensive may have produced it. but 1 am inclined to think that food anxiety is largely the explanation. Ido not know how badly off Germany is placed for food, but l fancy the British blockade is begin ning to get home. Germany has a man-power plai. and she has a war plan. Her aim is obviously to conserve her strength on the west and to concentrate on retaining .ind even extending her gains in the south-east. The, loss of her colonies &he dees not mind now; she would give up France and Belgium to-morrow if she could have peace, but what she will never give up until she is forced is the through Berlin-'Constantinople-Baghdad Tin--. That represents the real ambition of the Germans. Given virtual curtiol over Austria and the Balkans, with Asia Minor under her thumb, shethreatens the British Empire at Fgypt, and tins country could never rest in security. Also, with the wealth squeezed out of these exploit cd peoples, she is in a position to build up a great navy, perhaps to compete with the Hritish.

There is much talk of Germany's intentiens about Belgium, and I sen a statement h.is been published professing to give away the Chancellor's view;- regarding the future of the cc unity. All such reports should he discredited. Germany knows she will have to evacuate France ant* Belgium, even if she is not driven out. She dare not commit the crime of annexing a country whose only offence w.is that tho dared to defend her independence by refusing a right of v..ay to the Germans and for alt their political gaucherie. 1 cannot conceive < f the Germans making the blunder of permanently seizing it 1giuin. Belgium would have been endangered if the Germans could have

gained the decisive speedy victory they in the beginning expected. This victory is lost, and they endeavour, therefore, to save Central Europe. The Germans are not fools altogether. They realise that they will .have to trade with the neutral world again, and if they seized Belgium it is not going to b& the kind of advertisement they would particularly desire. The position of Holland would be impossible, and it would mean that all nations would begin to prepare for the next war. Mind you, do not let it be supposed 1 dismiss from my mind the extreme probability of the Germans being driven out of Belgium; I am merely refuting the very prevalent impression that Germany's ambition lies in Belgium, whereas nothing is clearer than that it lies in the Balkans and |in Asia Minor. To a nation controlling Middle Europe, Belgium is al- [ ways a ripe plum to be plucked. THE THRUST AT RUMANIA.

If Germany felt impelled to send important forces to Rumania, it is because she felt her whole war ambition stood in danger of complete frustration. She feared the cutting of the Balkan link and the subjugation of Bulgaria; also the Salonika army, inactive though it was for a iong time, was a sore that always rankled, and Germany was anxious jby the overrunning of Rumania doubly to protect herself from a blow delivered from this direction. The Allies can, and must, expect that Germany will try to send reinforcements through Serbia to .Monastif and against Salonica. Germany fights for what she feels she may best retain. She realises the neutr.il world would not be half as much concerned about what hapi pens in Belgium; hence the Chancellor's constant harping on the suggestion that Germany does not look for territorial aggrandisement in the »'est. The duty of the Allies is plain. It is to make a supreme effort to inflict decisive defeat on Germany, and then the Allies will be able to settle what is good or bad for Germany to hold. Meanwhile nothing is clearer than that this is a war to the death. It was not so at the beginning, but it is so to-day. Germany's brutalities to stamp out the particular kind of militarism which not only violates humanity but brings odium on the profession of .arms. You can respect the brave soldier even in your adversary, but the soldier tvlio murders women is fit only for contempt and to be blotted out as soon as possible. Being a war to the death, it demands from all the Allies much greater sacrifices even than those they have already made, and particularly from Britain. If people did not realise at first what a war of this character meant, there is no excuse for their net knowing now. I was speaking the other day to an English gentleman who was seeking to impress me with the immensity of Britain's effort. "Yes," I replied, "it is all very, very wonderful, but so is Germany's effort. You are j forcing her to do ever so much more ) than she wanted to do in the way of ) war organisation, but the effect is . also to call for a corresponding additional effort on your part." "You are correct," he replied. "We entered into this war because we felt honour and duty demanded it, and being in it we must fight to the end, to the last man and to the last penny, if we were not prepared to make this supreme sacrifice then we should have kept out." The great European drama advances slowly to Its climax. The nations marshall their forces for the next encounter and the curtain should ascend on the most terrible battles imaginable. Germany organises against half the world in arms, a remarkable illustration of a people confident because of the tenacity of the invincible doctrine. While the battle rages and the great factories turn out the huge guns for the Spring offensive and counter-offen-sive, the politicians in Germany divide up their thoughts between Flic prospects of the Berlin-Baghdad scheme and the spectre of hunger. In this feverish energy which besets Germany there is a nervous desire to believe that it still lies within the power of Germany to ward off the fate which the Allies have prophesied for her. Sometimes I think the aim of the rulers of the country is to make their docile subjects work so hard that they have no time foi reflection. There is so much for the average German to think about: How long it is since the promised entry into Paris! Will the war go on until millions more Germans are "ki 11fl? Why did Rumania come in unless she thought the Allies were going to win? What makes us Germans so hated to-day every whore?

A TEST OF ENDURANCE. We have to take the new activities cf Germany, whatever psychological phenomena may reveal as a cold. hard fact, a demanstration of Germany's will to win and. at any r.ate. (o fight on lo the last. Someone linn said that victory in this war will go to the side ahle to bear 2a per cent: more punishmen than the other side, which is another way of saying that the war has become a test of endurance.

Since Germany promises to ondut> until she is beaten to her knees, and p ! ncc the Allies are no less firm in their resolution to continue the wa* until a decisive victory is Rained, it means that the whole man and woman power of the various nations will be mobilised for the purposes of the State. In number, the advantage for the Allies is a two-fold one; in point of time they an 1 likely to he behind, for I suspect the mobilisation of Germany's entire resources is already well under way. In their own interests the Allies should fall into line without further delay.