GERMANY'S MILITARY CAMARILLA.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 May 1917, Page 6

GERMANY'S MILITARY CAMARILLA.

KAISER NOT MERELY A'" FIGUREHEAD. GENERAL VON FALKENHAYN THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE.' (By Cuncliffe-Owen, in the New YorkSun). There is so little statesmanship displayed by Germany in this to her the most critical period—the climax, so to speak—of the war, an indication of such utter disregard of political, and about all of economic consequences, that it becomes interesting to consider the moving spirits and the controlling agencies in the affair. The first thing' to be borne in mind is lhat the seat of the German Government is no longer at Berlin, within the reach of the Reichstag, of the Diet of the Kingdom of Prussia and of popular sentiment. It is at the Castle of Pless, in Silesia, a great feudal stronghold some sixty miles to the south of Oppeln, and belonging to that Prince John Henry of Pless who has an English wife in the person of that beauty of international fame, Prince Daisy of Pless, daughter of Colonel and Mrs. W. Cornwallis West and sister of the Duchess of Westminster.

Pless has been for some months past the imperial headquarters, and it is from there that the military, the naval and ;the political activities of Germany and of her Allies are being directed. The Emperor and his military junta are entirely out of touch with the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Wilhelmstrasse at Berlin and with the foreign diplomats accredited to the v Kaiser's court. Occasionally the Chancellor, von BethmannHollweg, or else Dr. Zimmorniann, we Secretary of State for Foreign Avail's, is called to Pless in . order to report and discuss matters. But these summons are becoming more find more rare. The military camarilla surrounding Emperor »:i----liam objects to any outside influence, anything that can disturb or impair its hold upon tli© Kaiser, while as for the reflection of public opinion, which, despite the strict censorship', nevertheless appear from time to time and now with increasing frequency in the Press, NOTHING IS PERMITTED TO REACH ■. him. . It may be recalled that this court camarilla managed some fifteen years ago to keep him, while at Berlin and at Potsdam, in complete ignorance of the horrible Eulenburg scandal, at the time when its unsavory revelations were filling the columns of every newspaper in Germany and abroad; aiid that it was not until the Crown Prince brought the matter to his cognisance that he realised what was going on round about him, and above all what was being sai-.l by the public. To-day at the Castle of Pirns, remote from any big city or town, surrounded as if with a Chinese wall, ho is even still more cut off from all contapt with the outer world and ignorant of the real condition of affairs at home and abroad.

It is necessary to emphasise this in order to comprehend what would otherwise appear so altogether inexplicable, in the absence of statesmanship and of economic foresight and prevision in the [•policies of the German Government, ;f policies indeed they can be called. In times ,eono by Germany suffered under the Eulenburg. or Round Table court camarilla, which made its headquarters in the Eulenburg Castle of ftiebenberg, in the province of Brandenburg. Today the German people and those of their unwilling allies are the victims of the far more dangerous and nefarious military camarilla at the Castle of Pless. It therefore becomes of timely interest to *jhed whatever light is possible on this clique, the members of Which, as usual, are all inordinately jealous of one another, and united only against everything in the nature of interference from the outside. If we are to believe the despatches whieli have readied us through Switzerland from German inspired sources, its dominating figure at the present moment is the QuartermasterGeneral of the German Army, Von Ludendorff.

The General, belonging to a bourgeois Prussian family of the Province of Posen, served for a time on the staff of Field Marshal von I-lindenburg when the latter, several years prior to the. war. was in chief military command of East Prussia. It may be recalled that von Hindenburg devoted himself at that period to a profound and exhausting study of the extensive system of the Mazurian Lakes as a means of

DEFENCE AGAINST RUSSIAN IN- , - .VASION. He was for over manoeuvring his troops among the lakes, until he and the members o£ liis staff acquired the. most extraordinary knowledge of every path and causeway traversing the deep and interminable chain of morasses. Hindenburg in fact, became so wrought up about the matter that lie was nicknamed "tlio o!.i Man of Mazuria," and was shelved two years before the war as.a crank. Lmlcndorff was transferred to the staff of me command at Cologne, ar.d as a member thereof took part in the invasion of Belgium. On the. occasion of the fall of T/iege lie happened to be on the spot when the Major-General at the head of his leading brigade was struck low by a bullet, LudendoriT assumed command ill hi* place, led the. brigade forward, and was the first man to break into the stronghold, thereby commending himself to the. notice of the Kaiser, who promptly bestowed upon him the Order of Merit, founded by Frederick the Great, and attached him to the Headquarters fttaif. When later on, in the fall, General von Frittwitz, commanding in the east, retreated before the advancing hosts of Russia, and allowed the Muscovite armies to overrun the provinces of eastern Prussia and of Posen penetrating to Silesia, and threatening Breslau, and even Berlin, Ludcndorff took;' advantage of his presence in the immediate entourage of the Kaiser to recall to the latter's minrl the until then entirely forgotten "01:! Man of Mazuria" and the latter's hobby and specialty of the system of eastern defence against Russia. The Kaiser .literally jumped at the idea. Ludendor'l was sent off by special train to fetcii von Hiiidenbnrg from his retirement at Hanover, to assume supremo command of •the eastern front, where., in a series of battle in the lakes, he managed to compel the Russians, hampered as they were at the time by lack of arms and munitions'; to evacuate not only Prussian territory but also the. westernmost portion of Russian Poland. It was only natural that under the circumstances Luden ■ dorff should become the Chief of Stall jto his old commander von Hindenburg. When in the early stages of the war tlie l Emperor'a cherished jplan of entering

Paris in triumph in (lie. month of September, 1914, and of reaching London from Paris by the end of October was frustrated and his armies were forced to retreat from Compicgne, that is to say. from almost under the very walls of th.i 'French metropolis, he promptly vented his bitter disappointment and his displeasure by exacting |

THE-RESIGNATION OF GENERAL, VON MOLTKE. the Chief of the General Staff, who afterward died broken spirited at Berlin, as the scapegoat of the imperial miscalculations, and appointed in his stead General Erie von Falkenhayn, who is one of the cleverest types of the courtier-sol-dier. Cold, calculating, most sauvo, an arch intriguer, scion of one of the oldest houses of the German aristocracy in Bohemia, Falkenhayn had begun by'winning the good jvill of the Kaiser's sons through his brother Eugene, who was their tutor, mentor and military governor during their boyhood. This,' together with his intimate association with FieldMarshal Count Waldersee. on whoso stall' he served in the allied march upon Pekin in lilOO, and with the American born Countess Waldersee, favorite, aunt of the Kaiserin, brought him into contact with the latter, and it was not long before he had won the favor of the Empress to ,v.i extraordinary degree. His gift of repartee, his menial alertness and resourcefulness, his various accomplishments and his readiness ol speech commended him to the Emperor as particularly well qualified to take charge of tho Department of War and to champion the cause of the army in the Reichstag after tho public uproar caused by the sabering of a lame and unarmed cobbler by a young infantry officer at Zabern. It was not difficult for von Falkenhayn after the failure of the march upon Paris and of the projected invasion of England to induce the Kaiser to pitch upon von Moltke as the most suitable scapegoat and to secure his own appointment to the Chieftaincy of the General Staff thus vacated.

As Chief of Staff von Falkenhayn, strong in the support of the Empress and of her sons, reigned supreme at the Kaiser's headquarters and acquired an

EXTRAORDINARY ASCENDANCY OVER HIS SOVEREIGN. which many ascribed to hypnotism. If was lie who first organised" the existing military camarilla. On the ground of military oxigencies he kept away from Imperial headquarters not only the Chancellor, the Cabinet Ministers and the various statesmen and foreign diplomats, but even the other rulers of the sovereign States comprised in the confederation known as the German Empire. When it seemed that a visit from, say, the Kins of Saxony, the King of Wurtemburg or the Grand Duke of Baden could no longer be avoided he would at the last moment induce the Kaiser suddenly to leave for the other cud of the Empire under the pretext of dealing with some urgent military problem that had cropped up there. Falkenhayn made, one mistake. Owina as much as ho did to the Crown Prince he yielded to the latter's solicitations and denied to Hindenburg, in the East, reinforcements that were urgently needed in order to take Riga, and sent all available troops that could be spared t.> the heir apparent in order to enable him to capture Verdun and thus open one; more the way to Paris.

Naturally the Kaiser was disposed to saddle von Falkenhayn with the blame for the failure of von Hindenburg 011 the eastern front and of the Crown Priiic-e at Verdun, and the General would undoubtedly have shared the fate of von Moltke had ho not once more obtained the ear of the Empress and of her son. Tt seems that, clever man as he is, the failure of the German armies before Verdun and before Riga had opened ms eye-i to the fact that Germany was confronted with the prospect of ultimate defeat owing Ic. the inexhaustible resources of her foes as regards man power, munitions and momy. He realised that v thc best that Germany could hope for was a draw, and that the loss of the German people of all their long cherished illusions of victory might prove

. FATAL TO THE HOHEXZOIXEEN DYNASTY. Ho therefore suggested to the Kaiserln that owiijg to the extraordinary growth of the popular vogue for von Hindenburg the latter should lie appointed lo the real eontrol of the defences of the Empire as Chief of the < Vneral Staff. Ju the event of Germany's failure to emerge victorious from the war Hindenburg could then be saddled with the responsibility for failure iu lieu of the Emperor, so that the latter's throne and dynasty might be safeguarded from the execration of the people. The very fact that the public had made such an idol of Hindenburg, investing him with ail sorts of legendary qualities pertaining to old Teuton mythology, wouW, it was argued, in the event of Germany's defeat, render the indignation of his countrymen against him so intense as to blind them to the shortcomings of the Kaiser in tlio matter and to his .share of the responsibility for their mh-ery and ruyi. This plan appealed to Emperor William, to the. Empress and to her sons, all the more as it was appreciated that von Hindenburg, n coarse, rather boorish type of the Prussian officer, bard drinking and with little knowledge of anything outside the narrow limits of his military calling, would be easy to lead in political matters and would prove ver,' useful as a figurehead. That Falkcnhayn, who is regarded by military experts iu England, France, Russia an,l Italy, as far and away the ablest of all German commanders, has not lost any o[ his strategical skill is sliowiij, by the clever manner in which he planned the entire successful invasion of Roumania. It was Field-Marshal von Mackensen—who execrates courts and everything connected therewith—it is true, who led the troops. He is the beau ideal of a cavalry leader. But it was von Falkenliayn who devised and worked out the entire plan if campaign. Meanwhile von Falkcnhayn was established at imperial headquarters in the Castle of Pless, where he was followed by his chief of stall', von Ludendorll', and they were joined in due course by vdu Falkcnhayn, who, in spite of all that has been said and cabled, to this country about von Ludendorff —the latter has been ennobled —remains the real power behind the throne, and the chief of the military camarilla now controlling

THE DESTINIES OF GERMANY AXi) HER ALLIES. Von Hindenburg is, as I have mentioned above, a rather dull man. of limited horizon and capacity, save where his knowledge of the Mazurian Lakes !; concerned. His officers, the military men, the statesmen, the captains of finance and of industry, who have been in a position to appreciate this and to realise that savs where the Mazurian Lakes are' u-pneernda, he was entirely dependent up-

on his former Chief of Staff, von Ludenilorii'. Things indeed reached such a pass that no decision rendered in the. name of von Hindenburg, as nominal dictator of Germany and of her allies, was regarded as effective until it had received the written O.K. and approval of von Luden(lorli 1 . Try as the camarilla at Castle Pless might to conceal this from the people it is gradually becoming Unown to them. The public is beginning to lose faith in von Hindenburg and to become alive to the fact that lie is doing nothing but gorge and drink himself into one fit of gout after another at the Castle of Pless, wholly blind to political necessities and having but little say in military matters. Lest this should have the result of causing the people to hold the Kaiser to account, the name of von Ludendorll' is now put forward, through German inspired sources in Switzerland, as the virtual boss at the Castle of Pless, and the utmost pains are taken in the despatches to intimate that since nothing goes without his approval he must be held to account for everything untoward that may happen now or in 'the future. To have" made

VON HINDENBURG THE SCAPEGOAT now that the legendary lore with which his name has been invested is being dispelled, would have- been too crude, Ludendorff is more suitable for the purpose-. He is a far cleverer man, a typical product of the German Gen.-'ral Staff, which in the matter of brains is the pick of the German army. The trouble about, him, however, is that while lie possesses much military capacity and administrative gifts he knows nothing whatsoever about foreign politics and is equally ignorant on the subject of the various problems tliaff will confront Germany after the war in connection with iier foreign economic policies. That is why von Ludendorff is wholly unable to comprehend tho disastrous consequences in years to come of the submarine policy now adopted by the military junta at tho Castle of'Pless. He looks at the new undersea campaign from a purely military point of view, deluding himself with the notion that lie can thereby bring Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia—but above all Great Britain—4o their knees in short order, and that this will offset any hostility that Germany may incur thereby iii America and in other neutral countries. He is unable, because of the professional narrowness of his vision, to comprehend that no matter how many allied or neutral/ ships may be torpedoed Germany's submarine campaign in the end is bouifd to fail, and that after the war is over, When Germany is endeavoring to build up once more iier formerly enormous foreign trade, the United States and the other neutral Powers will remember for generations to come the intolerable, insolent and wholly unprovoked treatment to which they and the other neutral nations have been subjected by their former German friends.

Recent cable despatches about von Ludendorff are intended merely to indicate that he, rather than the Kaiser, is responsible fdr Germany's new submarinepolicy, and that since von Hindenburg and von Bethiuann-Hollweg can 110 longer be held accountable it is against him that American odium should be directed. The real brains of the military junta and the power behind the throne at the Chateau of I'lcss is the somewhat sinister figure of the Empress's, and Crown Prince's favorite and former comrade of the American officers who took part in the relief expedition .to Pekin in 1000, namely, General Eric von Falkenhayn.