IN THE SPRING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 256, 8 April 1915, Page 5

IN THE SPRING.

ARMIES (JETTING HEADY.

SOME MILITARY HUMOR.

(London Correspondent.) London, January 13.

I siw thq most wonderful cinema war pictures to-day. They were shown at :i very private exhibition. They would brim, I 'in tens of thousands of pounds profit if thrown upon the thousand of screens of Great Britain, but there will be lio public display anywhere in them is'.cs. They mirror the whole life of every branch of the German armies fight., ing in the western and eastern theatres of war, and they were taken less than two months ago. There is no other film like this one in existence. It was made for the education, edification, and permeation of neutrals, and particularly of the United States. It is on its way to New York, and the operators and owners are alike under pledge that it shall not be exhibited in the United Kingdom. While extracting this undertaking, the German War Lords still had an eye to the -main chance. They raised no objection to a very secret and very select show of the film in London. All the Ambassadors and Ministers Plenipotentiary, all the leading politicians, all the greatest publicists, and all the most influential journalists were invited. I do not want to make out that I am in the latter category. I got there by hinging on to the skirts of Chance, and Chance, in this instance, was a leader-writer who helps to make history. Those present were bound not to let their pens divulge what thoy witnessed, because the Germans do not want the British public to know too much about their warriors.

But there is one point which I may mention without breach of confidence, and it is- all-important. The Kaiser is not the wan, weary, woc-begone, con-science-cursed and physically stricken man who has been pictured by our descriptive writers. His fiair does not seem to .have turned white, but he looks fit as a fiddle. He is brimful of vitality, his eyes are animated, his body throbs with buoyancy and vigor, and among the celebrated war lords grouped about him there was none who looked more vigorous or more virile. It is worth knowing, because the health of the Kaiser is the pulse of Germany" and the measure of Teuton strength.

A MAN FOR A MAN. At the moment, Germany is very mujh occupied attempting to arrive at the numbers of the new armies which Britain and France will be able to put in the field in the early spring. She has declared that the Fatherland is making a supreme effort, which will culminate in the smashing of the Allies both west and east, when the sun shines again in Flanders and the snows melt in the. Balkans. But the announcement has not the bombastic ring of former utterances. From asseverations of irresistible force, the Germans have turned to assertions of immovable objects. They admit—though not in so many words—that they lnvo lost the offensive, and that they are on the defensive. Von Moltke, interviewed by an American journalists, let us into the secrets of the German mind, chastened by events, by telling an American interviewer that Germany "will stick it out to the very last." Whilst Professor Perseval, in the Cologne Gazette, adds:—: "If Germany is defeated it will be impossible to get any indemnity from her, because practically the last man will have fallen, and the resources of the country would be utterly exhausted and the last penny spent. * This must be made clear to our enemies." It is rather like an appeal to admit and stalemate and call off the war. Tt is totally different language from that which the Germans used even three months ago. The Frankfurter Zeitung devotes an analytical leading article to discussing the question of our new armies in order to assure itself that Germany can match us man for man. "If we listen to the English, they are to collect about one million soldiers by the spring. We will not dispute this assurance, and we will take it to be true that the six armies, the names of whose commanders wire published recently, really already exist in England. The English, with their training in sports, have proved themselves to be good soldiers. They learn in practice quickly what was wanted in their, perhaps, defective training, and hitherto at any rate they have heen splendidly equipped. Nevertheless, the million of which we have spoken is an empty figure, which need not frighten us. It may be that a whole army will

)c sent across the Channel, but the present military position does not allow England to intervene on the continent in the way that would be necessary to satisfy the hopes of France and to give a decisive turn to the campaign in the west. Another German military expeiti has been miseroseopically examining the'man power of France. By making a very careful sweep, he thinks that France can collect a fresh army of 750,000 men, and perhaps another 150,000 from the young men who have just completed their eighteenth year. Therefore, he credits France with a new army of a million men to buttress that already in the trenches, or in reserve, but he insists that the French elite troops are in a state of exhaustion, and he continues:— "The well-organised and well-trained German armies have nothing to fear even in a year's time from hordes composed of millions of poor devils whom want has driven into the nets spread by the recruiting agents, without proper instructors and leaders." The Germans, therefore, anticipate that Great Britain and France may bo able to put 2,000,000 more men in the field in the spring. As against this, they claim to have 4,000,000 new troops ready for active service. Neutral observers cut down these German figuros to 3,000,000, and if this total is realised the Allies will still have something to beat. Of the new German recruits I cannot write from personal knowledge, but with the new British armies it is different. I saw the big yard at Charing Cross Station filled this morning with burly, lusty, brisk, and alert young fellows who will' be in Flanders before the end of this month. They looked the right sort to the give the Germans all that they Want and to provide Sir John French' with that numerical superiority which he requires before the Germans can be thrown back beyond the Rhine and be made to live on thoir own natural resources.