A GERMAN ON GERMANY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 90, 17 August 1915, Page 6

A GERMAN ON GERMANY.

i«THE HOPELESSNESS OF IT.” A .correspondent in Rotteidam sends tlie “Xsiynl and Military Record” tlie views of a German in that city which are worth noting. ■ The German in question, it should he said, was a deserter from Posen. He had spent some years in London, and was an experienced journalist, having been on the staff of the Scheri group of papers in which the “Lokal Anzeigei and “Der Tag”, are included. After recmlnting his personal experiences during’the war, aiVl making reference to the German system of. espionage in London, lie proceeded “After ten months Of war, the German at homo is beginning to realise that his conception of the British people is utter-, ly Wiring. In England there is an inclination to index 1 tlie German, race; from the waiters: aiuLthe’off-semirings; of -the German Empire battened on vour cities; in Germany, the Engiislimau is pictured bulging with money, lounging in a helpless blase attitude, or playing a .mi id field game. The impressions are equally wrong. Ihe fine upstanding qualities of the northern race of German soldiers is ■as ipmressjve. and their tenacity of puipose, and reckless bravery yield nothing to the British. The German reserves of ’men are almost exhausted, yalid the losses have been ghastly. “Tough, patient,* disciplined the German nation has exhibited an implacable countenance. There is an upaprent internal unanimity and uudimihisiied national optimism. In possession of Belgium, all hut the strip of sand-dunes, with the organisation of Flemish trade and municipal affairs under German control, with a rich area of industrial France under tribute, with no alien foe lighting on the sacred soil-of the homeland, and with the daily chronicle of \specitic victories, thereTs reason lor this optimism; hilt beneath the surface the change is working—the cracks are showing. Lack of cereals, lack of copper, petroleum, .saltpetre, lack of explosives, lack of money—none of these will conquer Germany. Dismiss the delusion. There is abundance. ‘ln our arsenals there are forty years’ accumulations; the German national sinking fluid has been in ammunition, and the prognostications ol the highest economies hey;* been confounded in tlie effect of finance on the campaign. “Where Germany will lie vanquished is in Flanders. They win or die there. The attention of the forces is frightful, every village' of 300 inhabitants in empire lias ii crowded hospital! But conquer tlie British, aiuj the Germans think the road to conquest will he rosy. No sacrifice in lile is too great ; their honor has been shattered like chaff before the winds, every device respited to by a wild animal is in use, the skilled chemists are in collaboration, the greatest organic chemists are pt work to spread poison on the path of tlie foe, to defeat this once despised British army, hut in the maze of diverse currents tile Kaiser and his legions have lost their hearings. Tlie flower of the German legions is decimated, and still tlie manhood flows forward to destruction on the pitiless, unerring, unwavering British guns. Staring with eyes of the soul on these hatfaliops passing out to the attack, which never succeeds, to the rapid moving parties carrying hack the muffled' figinVs on stretchers, to the lumbering trains packed with wounded, trains which pass away in the night, and drop their mangled burthens at little known wayside stations, the hopelessness of it all strikes home.” There'is much one knows and more one would like helieVe to lie true in this statement from Rotterdam. It almost appears as if the Kaiser is obsessed with the idea that if he can manage to defeat the British armies, under Sir John French, ho can then dictate terms of peace to Europe. There is every evidence that some attempt of this description is in hand.