The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1918. A FACTOR IN GERMAN DEFEAT.

Taihape Daily Times, 4 July 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1918. A FACTOR IN GERMAN DEFEAT.

(With which is tECorporatefl "The Taihape Post and Walnmrlso News).

The Czech-Slovak movement in Eussia has hitherto been something that we had very indifferent information about. Irregularly intermittent messages of Czech organisation, and of victories and defeats have come to hand, chiefly .through German hands, but a message arrived yesterday, via Tokio, that indicates the real potency of the Czech rising as a war .machine. It seems that Czechs are not only able to overthrew the Lenin-Trotsky parody on Government, but they are also evidently confident of a power that warrants them threatening their erstwhile Austro-Hung'ariaEj .masters with dire perils. In the late offensive against Italy a number of Czechs were taken prisoners by Austria, and one of the leading Austrian newspapers was so indiscreet as to boast that a Czech captain and three hundred men, captured in the Piave battle, were summarily hanged; the worst military in- i dignity was thrust upon them —they were not shot; they were hanged. The processes employed by the Kaiser to instil and foster a love for fatherland was resorted to, and. probably through the columns of the JSTieue Erie Presse, Colonel Huban, the leader of the Czechs in Eussia has notified Austria, and the world, that the Czech forces in Siberia have two hundred thousand Germans absolutely at their mercy and he will exact terrible reprisals if Austians dare lo repeat the outrage on humanity in Italy. This threat by the Czech leader is redolent of a confidence in strength that cares nothing for what Austro-Germany is now capable of; it points to a conviction that German lust for world dominion can only end by the people of the German Empire being dragged into the dust; that the cause of small nations is flourishing, and that the day is near at hand when people of all states will be given free play to work out .their own destinies in accordance with their own national aspirations. Dare Austria, or Germany, pick up the glove Colonel Huban has tossed towards them? The direct nature of the threat is evidence of its meaning and of the. potency to carry it out to a terrible extreme. Now we know that there are armies in Eussia that must be a source of vei'y great concern to the German High Command. The German Emperor is daily Avatching the walls of steel around his dominions mount higher and higher and mortal fear of the consequences of his having bathed Europe and Asia with human bloo'd is troubling him. With Americans piling up their millions on the west, Czechs and Eussians building up a hugely menacing force on the east front, Italians inflicting humiliating defeat on the greatest concentrations of force Austra is capable of, action threatening the Central Powers in the Balkans, together with Japanese intervention hanging in the balance, the outlook for the Hun demi-god is anything but comforting. It has even fallen to the lot of a despised Czech to give German culture a lesson in humane practices; a terrible lesson truly, but the Czech leader knows from long experience that the brutal can only understand brutality as an antidote to the malady, and he has, in unmistakable language told the Austrians that they are only to try the hanging of Czech prisoners once more and ho will exact terrible reprisals on two hundred thousand Germans who are now entirely at his mercy in Siberia, The threat implies the power and the determination to perform, and it is in this fact we can realise what immense progress is being made with the regeneration of Eussia. Colonel Euban dares the Central Powers to do their utmost; he does not fear that utmost; he has issued a challenge that will not be accepted, because Austrian engagements are at present too numerous to keep despite their pressing nature. This Czech incident will also help the Kaiser to. realise that he may conquer but cannot make citizens by

conquest. NoXtwtt .civUisations have developed on precisely similar lines; it would require many centuries to absorb Czech civilisation into that of Germany or Austria, and Britain has similar experience with Ireland. To try making citizenship by conquest is almost parallel with entering into conflict with natural laws, but there will ever be those so saturated with lust for power and riches who would not hesitate to emulate German effort for world dominion if opportunity arose. The value of the Czech incident is of vital importance, as it makes us fully aware of the far-reaching nature of the work already performed in repairing the Russian Juggernaut that was so gloriously in evidence in the early stages of the war. It also impresses upon us that fact that without overwhelming power to enforce obedience Germany cannot hope to control the various national elements of which the army is composed. Devolution and disintegration are in a forward sta£»e in the armies of the Central Powers, and we have Only to estimate the prodigious fall from loyality of the Czechs to realise the enormous losses Austro-German armies have sustained, and when we consider that Germany's loss is the Allies' gain its importance is doubly impressive. Czechs and Slovaks in the Austrian army constitute an enemy within the gate that is going to provide a very considerable factor in the final stages of German defeat; a problem that Germany can only deal with by withdrawing those still under his power from the fighting line. Even then they are not to be trusted for they destroy munitions and equipment in the rear. To put them into internment depletes the. fighting force to a dangerous degree; Germany dare not destroy them as that would be reflected on the lives of two hundred thousand Germans at the mercy of the Czechs. The fact is that Germany has no longer that overwhelming force that is absolutely essential to compel the loyalty of utterly dissimilar peoples, and their armies are rapidly falling to pieces. With the break away of the Czechs and Slovaks and the defection . amongst their own people the Central Powers are indeed in a parlous .position. "While Germanyhas no, further reserves to call upon hundreds of thousands of Czechs, and others, are leaving the standard and enlisting' under the standard of Germany's enemies, and hundreds of thousands of Americans are rushing in to aid the Allies, constituting a dual augmentation of Allied strength.. The regeneration of Russia with the assistance of Czechs, and possibly of Japan helps in scaling Germany's doom.