THE GERMAN DESERTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1918, Page 3

THE GERMAN DESERTER.

"THANK COD I AM OUT OF IT!" The news that the number of desertion* from German army is increasing 111:1 y lie more or less correct," lint it will havdly alt'eet the cllieieiicy of the lighting power of the <»iip»ny armies. Iloilod down, it only moans thiit the number of chances given to the war-weary soldier to try .1 change of scene Has increased for the time being, and lie Ims taken tliem. Every nation Has it* warweary sohikrs wlio have not nuicli time to spare for the country they are fightiiiLj for,~Miid Germany, perfect as her organisation ar.d discipline may he, is no exception. There is also the "dererier" who successfully manages to He taken prisoner without being injured, and his remarks on the general situation may he enlightening, if not representative. Each new Uritish thrust has ■helped these men (0 the quick decision that it was time to yet out. not been use they loved the Katherland less, but because they loved self more. Some idea as to the feeling of at least a big number of the German soldiers may he ganged from the remarks made liy an enemy prisoner taken during a British offensive, to n Hriti.h otlicer. Said thiGermaii: "Many Germans fall every day with German bullets in them. They arc driven like dog* to the fight ins. And to what end? liceause our cursed Kaiser and the creatures we call statesmen are afraid of their lives for what will happen 'to them when the people know it's all up. The Central Powers' casualties now must lie KUUV.O a week. And all for what ? The crazy dreams of a few bankers and merchants, and the cowardly fears of a politicians and of the Tlohenzolleriis. They say the Hapsbiirgs, too; but th./ Austrian* ■ would be thankful to make peace |>- morrow, but they cannot. They are as much sacrificed by Kerlin as we poor devils are here 0:1 the front. 1* m'. that the greatest crime the world has ever known'; And is it not strictly true? Does any sane German suppose the appointed end can be altered when the whole Xew World is ranged against Germany, as well as the (ill? They know all about the hundred million men in the Slates, and the millions of money, the innumerable factories and shipyards They know that America can put hundreds of thousands -of fresh troops on this front next spring, and that the exhaustion of Germany long before then will be frightful. Xever before since the world began has a twentieth part of such sulVeriusj been allowed to continue day after (lav and month after month to protect a handful of exalted criminals from general voco"nition of their crimes. The Russian people rose and smashed the bonds that bound them. Yes; but not our people Our tyrants have been cleverer. It wn s only the bodies of the Russian pcopV. that were lettered. Their minds were free No German mind in Gcrmitnv has ..been free since ISiil. The Hcriin 'erhnjiuals have seen too well to that* Our 1 people think they have bee,, well educated. So they have—very well, very : carefully—for just what thev are do,111? now; for the blindest 'and most I damnable kind of slavery the world has I ever seen. Germany to-day is one vast prison, full of starving slaves who cinnot lift, a hand to help Ihemsolvcs, and that it will remain while William (lie Murderer can go 011 buying a daily reprieve for His own miserable family in return for the blood of ten thousand of his slaves. Thank God lam out of it!"