"GERMANY IS BEATEN.”

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 30 December 1915, Page 3

"GERMANY IS BEATEN.”

AN HISTORICAL PARALLEL. The New Tork Tribune, in a leading article headed "Germany is Beaten,’-’ asks: —"After 15 months of unequalled strife, who is it that is talking of peace? We in the United States in our own experience' have an admirable standard of measurement for German military success. In the Civil War the victors were for many months the vanquished. Compare the German with the Confederate successes, makproper allowances for the ■ difference in size, and the essential fact is the same. Looking back, nothing is clearer than that the South was always doomed unless it could get an early decision on the battlefield. Outnumbered and inferior in population, and resources, cut off from sea-borne commerce. fiho South was condemned to defeat unless' it could destroy the armies before it. "Germany and Austria are outnumbered. The wealth and resources of Great Britain, France, and Russia are incomparably greater. British seapower lias destroyed German commerce and sealed German harbours, while for the’ Allies the sea brings pi’ the resources of America and the cok onies to the battle lines. At Antietan and Gettysburg the South 'bid for a decision. It failed. At the Marne and in the recent Russian campaign Germany made a similar bid and lost. A single significant fact of the military situation now is that Germany is bleeding to death.

“It may take a year or two to bleed Germany white, but the process is going on remorselessly, and as it goes on Germany continues to fail to get a decision. The German opportunity to obtain a decision has passed. “It is clear why German statesmen talk and think of peace. There is no corresponding talk in London, Paris, or Petrograd. “One unexpected weakness in the final chapter on the part of the Allies can avert the inevitable. Bernhardi foretold with inexorable logic that if Germany failed to get a decision over one of her several foes before all were ready she must lose, and she failed —utterly failed, in spite of local successes.

“Germany is now approaching what may be her last grant .bid tovictory, but it will not be made on the battlefield. That is over. It will be made in conferences, in peace negotiations and in operations through neutrals. If these fail, we shall presently see the whol'e character of the conflict change and an utterly new spirit flow from the Khine to the Vistula. ”