AUSTRO GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1918, Page 5

AUSTRO GERMANY.

GERMAN MUTINEERS. 'ifISFUSE TO <SO to the west froxt PITCHED BATTLE WITH REGULARS. ; geceived Jan. 12, 5.5 p.m. New York, -Jan. 11. TheiNew York World's Petrograd correspondent interviewed deserting Herman' officers, who confirm "the story of the mtitiny. Twenty-five thousand fievroan soldier mutineers continue to seiie trains, arms, and 'oo<l. They killec three hundred regular troops in a pitched •battte. The officers added that tiie troops consider .the Weßt front means certain death!; Artillery is in constant readiness in Berljn to "meet a proletariat uprising.

TKiPITZ INTERVIEWED. rfcAN'DERf COAST MUST BE -GERMANY'S. .■fHB LUDENDORFF FIASCO. ■ j:-' —— ■ Received Jan. 12, -io p.m. ■ ' 1 Amsterdam. Jan. 11. , Admiral von Tirpitz, interviewed, said that while Germany must keep the Flanders coast, the annexation of Belgium was unnecessary. A solution co'iid be •found. • He declined to make a stat-ment ahout the reported resignation of mi vo?i Ludendorff. Hi refused to believe that things would' be allowed to go far as to pi event von LpdenicrfT and Marshal von Hirtdenburg from;obtaining a definite victory. GERMANY'S FOREIGN' MINISTER. -Interesting character : : •; ; •' SKETCH. M. Courdurier do Chassaigne, the well-known London correspondent of the Paris Figaro, anil president of the Foreign Association in London, had many excellent opportunities of studying Baronvon Kuhlmann (Germany's now Foreign Minister) and his nuthoiLs during the «« year* the Baron was Councillor .of the German Embassy in Carlton House, Terwe, London. In an interesting character sketch in Land and Water, M. Ghassaigne says of the baron:— ."Bis method is to surround himself withfl first-class body of informers, and to gives to tihe press of the country where he is, and of neighboring countries, the information that serves his own purpose, presented with an air of innocence that would disarm the most suspicions. Hr l«, in fact," the model of the ultra-model diplomat. He knows that in a well-or-ganised country effective government depends «n two essential instruments, a docile press and a sound system of police . With the one you impose your ■yWM|« on tlie mass of individuals, and tf>t& the other you render powerless to vinjtsre you tfiose few persons who refuse to be convinced bv arguments that are sufficient to carry the crowd. "But if Baron Von Kuhlnn> D n had only those two cjualities of ths Prussian atsteeinan, we might then regard his rise to poorer without great uneasiness. However, hj» has already proved sinee his sojourn in London, that this more or less mechanical part of his method of govern-iog-wae only on a par with the rest of policy- The new Foreign Minister lug & wider conception of the true intereftts pf Ms race. All the resources of cotawtion and of the iron band are only aukm(try instruments in the service of 3 great idea. The future of the German jgmpire seems to him to lie in tiie unSauted economic effort of this prolific sod hard-working people, whose armaments exist' Only to levy blackmail on tiw rtst at the world. 'Kuhlmann was «bc of the instigators of the Agadir crisis,'and tiie policy of threats was the one which te believed would serve his oouAtry best. But for nothing in the worlig would he have wished that a single Mot should have been fired. "Kallmann's plan at the time of the Agadfr crisis was to intimidate France jMRto obtain, by bluffing, and without striking $ blow, economic advantages and certain concessions of territory. His object would have been quite genuinely defeated if war had broken.out. This waa-hls own policy up till August, 1914. August he said to a friend of mine; >fl cap. speak to you to-day as one map to another- I shall telljrou frankly sivftm&thfak. Whatever maybe the reig a criminal blunder for Ger-' manjt; If we "Bad-bad ten morb years of peae&we vwuld be-masters of the world •wittalnt lnuring to shed one tirop of blootf' "I am convinced that Baron von Kuhlmapn tbinfa to-day as he thought three yeara ago. He will make peace as soon as ?veptfl permit him to do so. He ha# .an in the orofooqd'

resources of the German race; his only desire is to recommence the work to which he and his friends, the great capitalists, the great leaders of industry, had devoted themselves twenty year 3 ago, and wlycli can be resumed along two lines, economic conquest of the world based on the tihreat of Germany's military power. Fortunately for us the junkers defeated the commercial interests, and the war has opened our eyes, let us hope, for ever. '"Kulilmann is a practical man; lie will concede to the Allies empty honors and. even political advantages. I should' not be at all surprised if he gave up Alsace-Lorraine, perhaps even Poland, provided that Germany, or more precisely the Central Empires, obtain economic compensations. He will be the convinced and oven loyal upholder of a peace without bitterness.. Ho will shake hands cordially with his enemies of yesterilav on condition that his one nightmare is destroyed, namely, the economic boycott of Germany after the war. He knows that in a relatively short time the German people, if all the markets of the world are open to them, and its commercial travellers can go freely in the Allied countries, will regain slowly but surely, I the place they had occupied before tlje j war the industrial and economic life of the whole world. A peace without j bitterness will allow the Germans to ' recreate their army, to augment their I fleet, which they call commercial; even ! if deprived of some of her-'provinces a Germany conquered on the field'of battle will triumph through peace; for its workers, its chemists, its capitalists, united in a common ideal of industrial pan-Ger-mansm, will work night and clay to reI construct and renovate their fatherland. | and in thirty, forty, or fifty years our descendants will be faced by a Germany that has learnt by experience, and wij] next time know how to use its commerJeial victories. "Such, let us make no mistake about it is the precise scheme of this man who is. above all things, practical. He will hare behind him his whole country, for German Socialists are. above all. Socialists in the interests of Germany, and his democracy ha s no sympathy with demagogy ' What sort of statesmen have the Allies to oppose during and after peace negotiations to Baron von Kulilmann, this young, active, energetic man, who knows every question from top to bottom. who is thoroughly trained in busitom, and who knows beforehand exactly what must be retained in every sphere and what may be sacrificed?"