THE MENACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 145, 15 December 1911, Page 4

THE MENACE.

A while ago we were told that the military critic of the London Times had said the German army was not the fearful machine it believed itself to be and that it was "stale" with overtraining. Making due allowance for the very natural bias of a British ex-officer, the alleged fact might have brought comfort to thousands of people who were expecting complete German domination. The Times' critic has said that the German army wants a rest, that it is living on its past. He infers also that it has become so mechanical that thinking hurts it under the helmet. Everyone will be sorry if this is true, because it is good for the world to have a bugbear. Germany evidently believes the Times' critic, too, for it is about to forget its navy for a little and to spend three and a-half million pounds on increasing its army. In the article, written quite a long time before Germany decided to get to work on the army, the Times' critic advised it that this was the best thing it could do. The Times' critic's condemnation of the German army as a i great fighting organisation is not really the most forceful 'of his remarks, for no manoeuvres or tactical exercises are a criterion on which to base an opinion of an army's fighting capacity. He accuses (and with every reason, if one may judge by German newspapers) the people of Germany of a growing passion for luxu- ' rious living that means atrophy to any nation. German; indeed, sleeps in perj feet content in its belief that its giant army is supreme. It believes it is supreme because it has been so regulated that it works like a well-oiled fly-wheel. There are regulations for every movement, a never-ending routine that becomes as ha/bitual as a policeman's step, a soul-destroying, devastating sameness that leaves individual officers and soldiers as efficient as a cog in a wheel, but as incapable of thought. The Times' critic touches on a matter timorously alluded to in these columns, saying that the German people are utterly changing, that the Imperialism of the upper classes is not so strong and the dependence of the lower classes not so apparent. Quite apart from the military view, the fact that a remarkable sane social understanding is prevalent in Germany is at bottom the reason of the revolution of feeling. That is to say, the people have demanded and have obtained better wages, and are therefore more inclined to luxury and have become better educated and liable to "kick." The wrath of Germany has grown, and the indulgence of the stern ruling classes has enervated them. They are more braggadocio, but less brave, bigger boasters but not so chivalrous, greater swashbucklers but smaller fighters. Germany gives half its men folk to the army, and the army makes every man a soulless cog in a great wheel. The interest of the German Government in its army is not the interest of a great critic in a notable work of genius, but the interest of a mechanic in the more workmanship of a machine. Germany can force an unlimited number of men to join these new infantry brigades she contemplates embodying, but she can't manufacture brains by any hard-and-fast line of training. Tho profession of arms for the brightest young Germans of the educated classes is not now so popular, fot army life is inexpressibly dull, appallingly slow and miserably paid. So it is found that Germany has great difficulty in attracting officers to its big machine, and therefore contemplates "re-organisation." To say that "Germany is standing still" is, perhaps, not true, but to declare that her strength is not so great as her belief in '

it is a reasonable declaration.. As the world is watching the terrible mailed fist,

it is interesting to gather from Germany's latest action the belief that she is not so sure about her armed supremacy as she alleges.