SIDELIGHTS FROM GERMANY.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 35, 11 February 1916, Page 3

SIDELIGHTS FROM GERMANY.

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN '8 < < PESSIMISM."

VICTORIES THAT ARE NOT VICTORY.

Maximilian Harden lias come out as i war lecturer, as certain writers in this (England) cevrtry have done. On a recent Saturday be filled the U-rgg hall of the Philharmonic in Berlin aud the huge aud'.en.;?, we are told, followed his lecture with breathless interest. His lecture is interesting as an example of German "pessimism," and is worth giving, if only as a set-off to the gloomy prophecies of our own pessimists. The following summary is drawn from next day's Berliner Tagc n blatt:—

".So far the German victory has been a victory of the Meyers, Krausis, Schulzes. etc.: a victory of the German people. Without the genius inspiring the people th e great genius could not have pulled anything off.

"The first decision of the war occurred in the fighting of September, 1914, on the Manic, in which the French believed thmselves to have won. It had led to the abandonment of the plan of fighting France down and holding a defensive line against the Russians; this Schliessen-Moitke plan, which was in. direct contradiction to the conceptions of the old Moltke. ■was found to be impossible of execution.

"The second decision had smashed the very successful plan of an 'industrial war through enormous material masses' (i.e., munitions war) in the breaking through of the Russian lines at Gorlice and Tarnow. The final aim of every war—the destruction of the •enemy's fighting force—has apparer.tly not been achieved, despite the brilliant successes of the German sword.

"For the third great decision of the war we have to thank t-he mistakes of our enemies, especially in Balkan polities. The German succeses here was not the result of a 'diabolically cunning diplomacy'; neither"was it basAl rn calculations from th-3 throwing- back of the Russians; but it came ab~u f from the Anglo-French retirement—also made possible through German energy —at the Dardanelles. " —YET NOT VXTORY. " "At present complete success over a single one of Germany's principal foe?. not to speak of the whole lot of th«m together has not yet been achieved. Germany has ever to keep in consideration the fact that a population total of 120 millions is fighing against a population total of 800 millions, and it has attained this superiority: that the war is being conducted entirely on foreign soil. Victory, however, must be attained under a,ny circumstances. The task, despite all our winnings, is enormously difficult. According to their embryonic plan, which they have in hand, as once Wellington did agaist Napoleon through his campaign in Spain, to exhaust us and bring us down by*a campaign based upon Salonika. That must be guarded against, and therefore, in particular, must our

people at home regard no privation and no sacrifice too great. The Government should clearly expound the situation, and take the strongest measures to assure the feeding of the people. We have, above all, not yet 'gone

short'; even yet we are living far too luxuriously.''