GETTING NEAR THE TRUTH.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 177, 31 March 1915, Page 7

GETTING NEAR THE TRUTH.

j GERMANS DISILLUSIONED j WITH KAISER. | NO HOPE OF A FINAL TRIUMPH. By REN 10 H. FEIBEEMAN 1 (Express Special Correspondent). OLDENAAL (Holland), j “The Germans are getting panicky. ; ’ j Thai is the remark I heard from every ) neutral I have met on his arrival from j Germany for the last few days. ! Here on the border, the impressions | of these neutral travellers are fresh I and untainted; they cannot conceal the / truth, and the truth is the Germans - ure getting frightened of what is ahead ■ of them. The people generally, liow- ; ever, take things with courage, and make ready for the worst. That is j what they will got, too, and they know : it. ; Some of my informants have travel--1 led straight down from Konigsberg, | through Berlin, Hanover, Hamburg; ! some have seen Munich and the south : era cities; others have visited the Rhine province, looking after then i business. But the latter wore greeted i everywhere with gloom by their burn- : ness friends. "There is no more busi- | ness." That sentence has been repeated to them continually—no business, except for the manufacturers ■ who work for the army. 1 All along the Rhine, in the district i once humming with industry, factories i are silent and workmen idle. Misery, \ in spite of uncountable relief commt- , tees, is spreading rapidly. It has Ion;; since put its grip on the poor, and is | now sfarvng the middle classes. | Food is terribly dear. The poor have j had no bread that is lit to eat for months, and now the "bourgeoiso ” j must feed on "war bread " which a j French horse would not eat. NO CAVIARE! People feed on horse meat, and there is not much of that, because nil the horses available are snatched nwa\ ■ by the military authorities. In main cases horses that have boon wounded o: 1 worn out at the front, and are no longer of any use for military purposes, have been sent back to Germany and : put under the butchers’ knives, i Nobody speaks of delicacies, of pastry, of expensive fish. Even the i wounded cannot get such fare. Germany used to pride herself on the fact that hers was the country where Lae largest quantities of caviare were eaten. Now the people do not dream of eating caviare. They cannot pay for it. and even if they could pay, they could not got it out of Russia. The loss of tins caviare is perhaps one of the most trying of all privations the Germans : have now to put up with. The possibility of a final triumph is | only entertained by professional Pun- | German enthusiasts. The German poo- ! jde 'are sick of their own "victor- ! ios: ’ ’ They know that, with one or two exceptions, these, victories never occurred. They are not so stupid as : not to come to the conclusion that if 1 only 50 per cent, of these alleged triumphs had actually been true, the Geri mans would have been in Paris, and i even in London, long ago. ; And the Germans are beginning to discover that they will never be in i either city. "Then," they say, "why i start, this war?" For many years past the fooling of the German was: "The Kaiser will only make war when he knows for cor tain that we shall win." The Kaiser in former days was infallible, and his military genius was an ailcle. of faith. But now, the truth, even reaches the uneducated East Prussian peasantry. "KAISER PANNOT DO IT." One of my informants here spoke D a peasant in a little place near Danzig, at Kreisdorf. The old man, who had fought in 1870, and who has five sons in the war, said: "Der Kaiser kann’s nicht sehaffen." (The Kaiser cannot no it.) There was no anger in his words, but they simply recognised that this time. Germany, according to her popular saying, had had "eyes bigger than her stomach," and that she could not "digest" all her enemies. In Berlin, I was informed, the cei; tral part of the city does not appear to have changed very much. The same people shout the same patriotic songs in the same cafes as they did in August during the first weeks of the war. But they fail to represent the real Berliners, just as the.people on the Boulevards are not the Parisians. If you simply drive away from the

Lindens” to tlio eastern or western . sections of the city, you will notice the change the war has brought. In the east, where the labourers live, everything is silent. There are beggers everywhere, and the streets are dirty, for the scavengers —old men and • >l-i i women —only come out twice a. we<•'!•:. ! the regular road-sweepers be : eg at th j front or—killed. Hundreds of thousands of the ouster. Berliners are dependent on public ot official charity to live and feed tlubr children. Unemployment is iuercas-ns every day, and many elderly men have gone to the front as volunteers simpL because they knew that, as soldiers they would at least be fed and thejj wives provided for. WOMEN WANT PEACE. In the streets one sees nothing but seoplo in mourning or cripples or men with an arm in a sling or bandaged head. The Berliners have long since I given up the practice of hoisting 11; gs when Wolff telegrams announce ‘ 1 victories. ” But they all say they will only put up their flags whoa Wolff renounces peace. They have had enough of the war, especially the women. I have heard much of the derm an woman ’$ strong desire to make peace peace at any costs. They have bran the principal losers in this war. Tmy have lost those dear to them, and -vh<v their husbands, their sons, their broth- - •rs, or their sweethearts have be.--brought back alive, but crip).led for life or wounded it has been their ]<»t to nurse and to comfort them. They have had to be "saving” in their household and in their dress.} which is a most difficult thing for n \ German woman. They have fried all their tears, they have sacrificed eve-y----thing, and while the men at least have the consolation of dying "a hero’s death’ ’or getting Iron Crosses, the i women have had to sit before a desired hearth, and console fatherless children, and live. And live—that is the worse burden of all.