"BELGIAN MENACE."

Taranaki Daily News, 28 September 1917, Page 2

"BELGIAN MENACE."

A GERMAN ADMISSION. Lieut.-General Baron von FreytagLoringhoven, Chief of the Supplementary General Staff of the German Army, in au article recently printed in :< German newspaper, admits the falsity of the German pretence that the violation of Belgian neutrality in the campaign of August, 1014, was due to military and defensive necessity provoked by alleged preparations of the French la invade Germany through Belgium. General ven Freytag-Loringhoven writes that, on the contrary, the French originally slatted to eoncenh-ate their armies alvng their own eastern frontier and made !v belated change in their plpn only after the German offensive was set in motion through Belgium, and the Germans profited greatly from the resulting confusion a;id delay.

.Stories of French troops marching through Belgium during the initial days of the war and of airplane and ai.tomobile attacks from Belgian Urnory. and other fairy tales which figure so largely in German justification of the invasion of Belgium, are not mentioned in General von Freytag-Loringhoven's article.

After describing the advania of the bulk of the German force westward, consisting of four armies, comprning its centre and right wing, through neutral Belgium and Luxemburg, D?}; injuring Bth August 1914, he says:

"The French main concentration was originally accomplished between tSelfort and the Belgian frontier, and Hie first indication that they contemplated a German advance through Belgium resulted in a shift to the left. . . . The En-

tente Allies recognised only on 17th August that strong German forces ako were advancing in a wide enveloping movemcnt on the left bank of the Elver Meuse, where previously they had assumed that only an array of cavalry, strengthened by some infantry, was present.

"In consequence of the original erroneous toncentration directed toward the east, the French Fifth Army did not succeed in advancing beyond the line or Dinant-Charleroi by 22nd Angus;, and was forced to content itself with holding the passages of the rivers Sambre anil Meuse."

The article proceeds to describe the disastrous effect of the sweep of that un. expected German flood upon successive French armies, and the advance to '.he Maine. General von Freytag'Loringhoven declares that the Germans retreated from the Marne because they were too weak to break through the. Frenoli lin?s, but he argues that although final success was missed there, Germany, by rci/ing the opportunity of a daring advance through Belgium, avoided war on her own territory.

The newspaper says that the article vf General von Freytag-Loringhoven, who is Germany's leading military historian and writes on the basis of the olllcial General Staff records, is circulated simioflicially in the German press.