WILL GERMANY FIGHT TO THE END?

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 29 January 1917, Page 2

WILL GERMANY FIGHT TO THE END?

j o. i J (By Professor T. G. Masaryk, the exj iled Austrian M.P.). I Will Germany fight to the end? My ! answer is a decided "Yes." Germany J will fight to the last man and the last 5 shilling. In this war she has every--1 thing at stake, aud she will need to j be utterly crushed before she will re- \ linquish her grip on the territory she ' has invaded, and on the countries over ( I which to-day she exercises practical j j control. j '> I think I know the Germans. I un- ■ I derstand the psychology of the German 1 people, and I say there was truth bcI ; hind the boast that Germany in the ;' I onj will, metaphorically speaking, arm . every cat and dog in the Empire. i i Wc make too much of little things; j ; we are too apt to jump to conclusions i I on the flimsiest grounds. A few dole- \ ; ful letters arc found in the possession j : of German prisoners. Immediately the cry is raised that the German morale is being lowered, and that the army j is listless and lacking in spirit. We do j not stop to inquire what relation the men on whom these documents were found bear to the rest of the army; whether, in fact, they are solitary or typical representatives. We never think of asking ounselvcs whether no lugubrious letters are ever found on soldiers of the Allies. FALSE HOPES. Soldiers are creatures of mood. They may be depressed to-day, while to-rnor-I now they are all gaiety and cheerfulI ness. So much depends on individual i circumstance. How can wc argue from ( a dozen letters found in a 200-yards-long German trench that the Germans extended on a 540-niiles front' in France and Belgium are as a whole despondler.t? If we do are we not buoying ourselves up with false hopes? A few hundred Germans desert; does that prove anything? These men may f have, been bad soldiers or lacking in patriotism. They may have been ill. A thousand and one explanations are possible. Why take the most comfort- ; able one —that moral decay is at work? Even if there were a chance of moral depression in the German army, the Allies fail to fan the symptoms. When Roumania came in on the side of the Entente that was decidedly a blow for the German army and the civilian population. The more thoughtful element must have wondered what Germany had done to attract so much active hostility in the world, and they would have been under no delusion as to the enormity of the Fatherland's task. J But mark what happens. Macken■j sen makes a whirlwind progress through " the Dobrudja and Falkenhayn recovers all Transylvania and begins hammering his way through the passes. The Germans argue to themselves, "we must be very strong, foil even with a new enemy in the field against us we have \lctorics," and their spirits in consequence rise and the influence on their nerves of Koumania's intervention is largely discounted. The German leaders are shrewd men, who understand their own people. They arc never lacking in the means to infuse new nope Into the breasts of the j3oci£e population, and the machinemade army. The designed interaction of light and shade is something worthy of our,, acknowledgment. And just as the leaders of Germany can control by spectacular events the spirits of their own people, so they are able to influence the emotions of their neutral neighbours. They suggest that the battle of the Somme is one huge holocaust for the Allies, and contrive to concentrate main attention on the Roumanian front, where Falkenhayn and Mackensen, thanks largely to superior artillery, have certainly brought off effective exploits. The neutrals find themselves believing that Germany is able to rise to every occasion. The British fleet commands the sea, but by the skilful use of the publicity gained by their submarines, their torpedo craft, and their under-sea merchantmen, the Germans manage to hold the centre of the picture, and everybody says, "What a clever and resourceful people they are." That is the German way, and frankly it answers' its purpose The Germans have made many mistakes; thein whole war plan was a mistake, based as it was on an under-estT-matc of the spirit of France, the military possibilities of Britain, the mobilisation capacity in a given period of Russia, the extent of Austria's preparedness. But in one thing the Germans have never, made a mistake —they have never misinterpreted the psychology of their own people. They know, and we should know, that the greater the danger to Germany becomes the more devotedly this nation will fight. The 'Allies nearing the Rhine will have no walk-over. Apart from the military progress of the Allies, the rulers of Germany are conscious of one great danger—the pGs? sibility of starvation. It may be that this danger has been provided against; if the latter be the truth, then when .. the p.'riod of starvation arrives Germany is beaten. I do not base this view on the effect of the inevitable food riots —a starving rnan being indifferent as to his fate—but on the effect on hundreds of thousands of war workers. Without sustaining food they

1 cannot continue their exertions. The mines must stop, and the great arsen- , als must languish. 3 If the resources of Germany are ! proof against the starvation of her in--3 dustrial population, then the only hope \ is in the invasion of Germany. How • far into Germany need the Allies penc- . tratcto win? My idea is that Germany, to all intents and purposes, is j beaten when the Rhine crossed.. ! Why? Because the great coal and iron- • producing zone is invaded, and Silesia 1 alone could hardly meet Germany's reh quirements; also Essen and the neigh.l bouring munition factories, on which • Germany is largely dependent, would come easily under the Allies' bombardi meat if only from the air. Besides GerJ many would have been deprived of all '.' the material derived from Belgium and \ Northern France. She would be hopelessly handicapped. Berlin is geographically placed so far ,' eastward in Germany that she wouid 1 have been beaten before the Allies had come within at least 150 miles of it. This is some consolation to those who very rightly do not forget that the war is still being fought, after over two years of hostilities, on French soil. ' I do not believe that there is any shortage of men yet in Germany; if there is any difficulty I believe it is connected with the output of munitions. The supply need uot be as great as ~ Germany finds she needs. At any rate, there are the men for violent attacks on the Russians, and for continuing the Roumanian offensive. The spirit of the resistance in Austria is not so strong as it is in Germany, but Austria also will go on till the end. The civilian population do not count. The men who might make a revolution are in the army. The military machine holds them in an iron grip, and that machine is run by Ger- • many. The Magyars will fight to the bitter end; they are fighting to save themselves; if they lose Transylvania and the Barat what is left? The Bulgars will fight to the end; they cannot help themselves now. Germany has them in grip, and will not lightly let go. Turkey fights on for Constantinople. 'lf she thought slip could withdraw from the war witn Constantinople safe she would make peace in a month. Both Bulgaria and Turkey want peace, but not on the Allied terms. After all their sacrifices the Allies cannot compromise with these two minor [ enemies. The duty of the Allies is clear; it is to smash at the enemy even harder; victory, however long deferred, must . be theirs if they are sufficiently cont stant. They perceive that .strong as . Germany is to-day, her finest troops are gone, those splendid troops, magnificietly equipped, whom 1 saw mobilised _ the first day of the war in Saxony and in Prussia. The succeeding lot are not so good; those who came after will be Still more Inferior. The attrition process admittedly is effective so far as quality is concerned. But Germany is a long way from beaten yet. and it is obviously her plan to conserve both her territorial gains , and her manhood resources by remaining on the defensive and letting the Allies use up as much of their strength as possible. THE PRUSSIAN DREAM. i The Germans have overcome their j disappointment at not being able to end th c war quickly, and those who u*derstand the military situation conceal their chagrin at the intervention of j Roumania, which takes away troops I from the vital theatres; they are plan- | ning all the time how to save their Berlin-Baghdad project. We misjudge j the Prussians if we imagine that they j will not cling to this project, their j dream and ambition for years, right to ! tlie very end. There will be no revolution in Germany. Th e military people will see to that. In any case the roots of revolution have poor soil in the submissive population. There will be no attempt to interfere with th e dynasty. But if Germany be defeated, which I sincerely hope wili be the ca,se, a great impetus will be given to the political influence of the iSocial Democrats, the effect of which will b e to increase the power, of the Parliament and lower that of the Crown. j Defeat may even turn out a good thing for Germany. After the defeat at Jena the Prussians set to work to or/ganise thcmeslves better, and we see the results in the display of strength to which the present war has given rise. My impression is that a defeated Germany will work so hard that the Allies, so far from taking things easily, will have all their work cut out to ! compete with her. The understanding of psychology again is involved. The people who preach after-tho-war preparedness in the, Allied countries are preaching a wise gospel.