LOSING FAITH IN THEIR LEADERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 December 1917, Page 5

LOSING FAITH IN THEIR LEADERS.

• LESSONS OF THE GERMAN MUTINY. | The Pall Mall Gazette prints an interview from a "distinguished neutral" on the subject of the Germany mutiny, to the effect that the outbreak was no surprise. He says: "To one who has lived in Germany for the past six months the only sensational feature of the mutiny is the confession of, its having taken place. This shows that it must have been of great dimensions, otherwise the German authorities certainly, as in the case of previous mutinies, would have suppressed the news. Germany is not at the end of her resources.' Li fact, the' Germans are better off now in the matter of food supply than they were at the end of the first eighteen months of the war. The occupation of the fertile Riga and Bukowina districts has made up abundantly for the slump in supplies from neutral sources. Nevertheless the morale of the German force is giving way. The nation has no more illusions as to the final issue of the war. This would not matter much if it applied to the civilian population only, but during the past few months the entry of the United States into the conflict has caused a spirit of hopelessness to permeate the army and navy, and oven the morale of the officers is giving way. "Army deserters are becoming increasingly numerous. Several thousand men of military age managed to escape, the 1917 draft, travelling to-an adjoining neutral State, in spite of the fact that the frontiers were guarded carefully. At present there are more than 400,000 German soldiers in the so-called 'strafe' battalion, men who failed at the front through lack of moral stamina. At the beginning of the war men of this kind were shot down mercilessly by their own officers. This is done no more. Too many German officers have been found dead with German bullets in their square heads. The men of these 'strafe' battalions are employed all over Germany in the most menial tasks. They are treated worse than prisoners of war. *Hunger brigade' is an appropriate German term for the men belonging to them. Just before I left Germany the Kaiser visited the Flanders front to inspect the sol-1 diers behind the"fighting line, but on this occasion the soldiers were told to parade without rifles—the' first time such a thing had been recorded in the history of the Hohenzollerns. A week before Hindenburg had been booed by tne soldiers on the Russian front in such an unmistakable way that the inspection he had begun was brought to a stop."