IS IT PEACE OR WAR?

Taihape Daily Times, 26 January 1918, Page 4

IS IT PEACE OR WAR?

This is the day that the German Chancellor, von Hertling, has promised to give Germany’s answer to the Wilson-Lloyd George statement of Allied war aims. Upon this answer hangs the happiness or the chagrin of the greater portion of the world’s population. If the military are as supreme in Germany as they would have the Allies believe, a further resort to slaughter may be decided upon in a final effort to save something. To accept fully the Allies’ war aims and definitely cease hostilities is to commit military caste hari kari, for Germany will neither want, or be permitted, to ever again build up such a menace to the welfare and progress of civilisation. On the other hand, the compelling features loom heavy and dark over the Kaiser and his bloodthirsty crew. Naval and military mutiny is rife, riots amounting to incipient revolution are with difficulty being suppressed; Uie manhood of Germany is nearing calamitous depletion, starvation stalks the whole land.; the friends of militarism, Turkey, Bulagria and Austria, are down with ennui, anaemia and debility, not bled white, but starved to prostration or desperation Has, we wonder, the Austrian revolution been engineered and timed to have a bearing upon the answer Germany has promised to-day? The ramifications of German corruption and intrigue are such that no bound to their application is fixable or definable. Discarded by Austria, and with Turkey and Bulgaria unable to assist him, will the Kaiser launch upon a forlorn hope against his increasingly mighty enemies? In revolution, matters move rapidly, and events happen with almost bewildering spontaniety. The revolution in Austria is not unheeder in Italy. 'A speedy peace may be arranged upon the lines of Italy’s war aims, which are understood to go no further than a return to her old-time natural frontier line A similar arrangement may be arrived at between Hungary and Roumania, freeing Roumania to co-operate with the Allies a* Salonika. The Berlin-Bagdad corridor will be cut on the Austro-German frontier, stopping that source of food and other supplies, and completely delating Germans within their -own legitimate empire. All this is probable if hot imminent, and it is sure to be taken fully into acocunt by the pan-Germanic party. It is almost too much to hope for the stoppage or slaughter by German cultur admitting that it has' been hopelessly defeated, but in front'stand the millions of highspirited, confident, ready soldiers of Britain, France and America, anxious to strike, while in the rear is mutiny, desertion, starvation, and, worse than all, red-handed revolution on two thousand - miles of - Gorman frontier, ■shouting • --“Down with Prusslanisni.” For Germany’s decision we have hot now long to wait, x ' - ■ v]