IS HOLLAND COMING IN?

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 22, 24 September 1915, Page 5

IS HOLLAND COMING IN?

A SIGNIFICANT MESSAGE. t ? The Christcliurch Evening News on > Saturday last stated: I We published a month or two ago - the story of a Christcliurch man whose . son was in ;i position to know some ; thing of the movements of. at any , rate, a section of Kitchener's armies'. It was mutuary arranged that when . Kitcbenei's men began to cross the Continent, lie djiould send a certain • cablegram regarding his mother's % health. That cablegram was duly sent. ,and there is reason to believe that that ' inference was correct. When Major de Martini, now with the famous Belgian 1 Guides Corps, was in Christcliurch. be received letters from, highly-placed ' friends in Holland, who were firm in ' ■ the faith that a way would be found for British forces through Dutch territory, in spite of the German Prince ; Consort and the German affiliations of Queen Wilhelmina.. While Holland knew that a premature entrance to the war-would mean her being swept over as Belgium was. she also knew that her coming in at the crucial moment would he a most important factor in the Allied strategy, and it must have become Clear to her that a victorious Germany spelt disaster'fbr the smaller States—especially for that State which controlled the estuary of the Scheldt and the mouth of the-Ehine. both of which it has been plkiiily stated by G»efmail/ authorities weie essentia! to • Germany. Further, there has been a|| belief afniohg military mUiL that Holland would "come in" before;the eiid, and ".;'. disposition to interpret 1 ? Hie holding tactics in the West : is in part due to this; the desirability,'from the western point of view, of having as great a German force as .possible entanagled in the elusjye chase after the Russian, armies; and the urgency of forcing the Dardanelles. Meantime . Holland ha& been training and exercising'her arfiiies; giving general hospi- Vitality to a great part of the Belgian people and looking after-interned Bri- *'|:J ; tish soldiers and sailors .and Belgian"';! soldiers, chiefly those' who ! lrad to cross 9 I the border alter Antwerp.. Our cables have been telling of a feeling that I great events are shortly to transpire hi -the'West: The one great possibility 1 of ending the deadlock there effectively. ' t and ■ hurling the Germans" hack to I wards the Rhine, instead of merely to] : anotheri set-• of trenches a little behind their present ones, is a 'flanking movement. ' Xo such movement is practicable except through Holland, where the seas would be open for sup plies and the landing would he (were the Dutch in) on a friendly shore. Moreover, it would command the gerous that the Germans would prob-. shortest road to Berlin, and make the further occupation of Belgium so dangerous that the Germanas would probably have to scuttle out of it or the gueateJ- part of it, and to do this, under pressure.of the combined Belgian, ,Bri- ; tish and French armies along its present front. It is the one possibility of great and decisive disaster to the Germans in; the West, a possibility which a similar movement at the other end of the line, through Switzerland, did the Swiss consent, would not present. All this by hvay of preamble to another lit'tle story, which we again give for what our readers may consider it worth, but which is vouched for to us by a respectable and well-known Christcliurch citizen. There is in Christchuich at present a gentleman who has a son in Holland in a position to get information. He has also been convinced that sooner or later Holland would come in. Before leaving for New Zealand he arranged with his son a private code ostensibly about butter, hut really covering the situation in Holland in regard to war. If Holland was finally coming in he was to send a certain cable. That cable has arrived. It reads: "Butter rising."