The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THIS EGMONT BETTLER. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1915. AN OUTSIDE VIEW.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 30, 6 February 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THIS EGMONT BETTLER. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1915. AN OUTSIDE VIEW.

.Though, of course, never for one moment do we doubt the outcome of the present bitter struggle to crush German militarism, it i§ occasionally interesting to read the views of people of other nations on the matter. One American who claims to possess a long and intimate knowledge of German life and German national ideals, and who has been backward and forward between the United States and Germany since the war began, - has written a book entitled: “Can Germany Win?” His sympathies are certainly with Britain and the Allies, and he is satisfied “beyond all shadow of doubt the English ideal is the better ideal, and the English way the better way.” At the same time he does not hesitate to express the opinion that Britain at the time he wrote very much underestimated the enormous power ot\ Germany. Can Germany win? The writer thinks not, but he declares that thp outcome of the war depends, not on Russia or France, but on Britain, and that if Germany is to be crushed, Britain will have to make up her mind to an effort greater enormously than any she had been making. “You think you have been roused?” he says. “1 tell you, English people, that so far you have only stirred in your sleep.” He considers mistaken the current opinion that Germany is on the edge of downfall. Germany, he says, admits her initial blunders and miscalculations. But, with her enormous resources, she is merely the more determined, in a soberer spirit. Of course, there is the American note of friendly apology in a lot of this, and few people to-day will agree as regards the “soberer spirit.” Does not Germany now rather stand revealeed in desperate, reckless brutality, maddened and drunken with an unbridled lust for blood and pillage? However, our American friend tells us that the Kaiser has 10,000,000 men of fighting age to draw upon, and is only using 0,000,000 of them at present, and that the “boys” are simply the now recruits for the year, and the “greybeards” are simply middle-aged members of the landwehr and landsturm, who arc looking after power houses and railway stations, exactly as if they were British Territorials, or other volunteers, some of whom may be of similar ages. They are not at the front. Also, Germany is well enough off for food, at present, though not so well off for money—-and here the extraordinary devices adopted for raising the great war loan are explained. It is true Germany’s trade is suffering. But 1 “the hour of triumph of the long purse is still far distant. When the pinch comes, Germany will organise herself economically as thoroughly, as ruthlessly, as she organised her arms, for, in the words of a German banker, ‘every mark will Ije squeezed till it shrieks.’ ” This gentleman may be

taken. There is, however, some ap parently good reasoning in the following passage:—“England in this struggle must rely upon herself. The French have fought with a courage that is magnificent, and a staying power that they themselves did not right, but his opinion is not altogether know they possessed. But capacity for fighting and for resistance on the part of the French does not in reality enter into the ultimate issue of this conflict. . . You had an impression that Russia’s immediate goal was Berlin.' . . But Russia has no such aim in view. . . I say deliberately that she does not care one jot or tittle whether she relieves the pressure in France or not. Her first and pressing concern is the smashing of Austria. She will pursue this task methodically and slowly, and when it is complete, it may be in a year, she will take such steps as she deems necessary to prevent Germany resuscitating a moribund Austrian Empire, ft is on this delay that Germany counts. . . . Having put your hand to the plough, you cannot draw back; and whether it takes you live or fifteen or fifty years, England cannot end the war until Belgium stands where she did.J . . . ft is the English who will have to take in hand the invasion of Germany, and that invasion must be by way of -Belgium. And it is only when the Germans have been roller back into their own country that the real struggle will begin.” There are points the writer has missed, and some happenings lie never anticipatedj which tend to modify the above view | as to Russia’s attitude, and one ofj them is that the Czar at this time realises that his real enemy is Germany after all: the smashing up of Austria is an easy matter by comparison.