Taranaki Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1918. GERMANY'S ARMISTICE MANOEUVRES.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1918, Page 4

Taranaki Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1918. GERMANY'S ARMISTICE MANOEUVRES.

In an army order, issued on Saturday last by Sir Douglas Haig, officers and men were warned against peace rumors. A similar ■warning might well be given to the people in all tlie countries of the Allies. Germany is staking her wits against those of her enemies, and hoping to win now as she has done in the past, but the Germany that we know is a pastmaster in the art of duplicity, and cannot be trusted to play the game except with loaded dice. Moreover, President Wilson has made it perfectly clear that there can be no dealing with the Hohenzollerns, presumably including the Prussian militarists. The Reuter_ message received yesterday containing the announcement made by i the Rotterdam Courent, that Germany had capitulated, and that the Kaiser had abdicated, caused a feeling of intense excitement, but the news was really too good to be true. It is matter for surprise that a sensational item of this kind, having no better authority than the columns of a Dutch newspaper (which has been obliged to withdraw the bulletin) should have been cabled to the world's end, even though a paragraph was added stating that the British Foreign Office had no knowledge of the report, which in well-informed circles was very properly rejected, and has now been officially denied. That there exists in Germany an intense longing for peace can be taken for granted, and the antidynastic riots in Berlin, which the police could not check, testify to the feeling of the masses—a feeling that is evidently overmastering the people. It is worth while to consider calmly just what an armistice would mean, particularly as far as it concerns the evacuation of occupied territory. Point 8 of President Wilson's conditions states: "All French territory to be freed, and the wrong done by Prussia in Alsace-Lorraine to be righted." If this is construed literally it involves the abandonment by Germany of the great ironfields in the Briey basin, putting the Allies on the narrowest part of the upper reaches of the Rhine, and practically delivering the enemy into their hands before the peace discussion took place. To imagine that Germany would consent to that is to regard the High Command as being bereft of their senses, and to take no account of Germany's settled policy. By the evacuation of Belgium and Northern France the Allies would gain, without fighting, at least as much ground as they could hope to conquer before the winter sets in, and if they stipulated for the right to occupy the evacuafted territory they would be in a position, in the event of resuming hostilities, to carry the war into Germany. In the case of Italy, the immediate evacuation of Yenetia would represent a dead loss to the enemy and a clear gain to the Allies, but Austria might demand the evacuation by the Italians of the strong mountain positions on the southern edge of the Trentino, and it is inconceivable that such a proposal could be entertained. In the Balkans the Allies would gain enormously by the acceptance of President Wilson's terms, as Roumania, Servia and Montenegro would have to be evacuated, thus bringing the Allies into immediate contact with the enemy's southern flank on a front of 600 miles, and depriving the enemy of the Roumanian oilfields. In Russia the evacuation would be of even greater importance to the Allies. It would cut off all food supplies for the enemy, isolate Turkey* and play into the hands of the Czechoslovaks. Turkey's position is altogether different, and must inevitably be the subject of special treatment, for it would be impossible to allow Palestine, Mesopotamia, Armenia or Persia to revert to Turkish influence or control. There are many other points involved in connection with the evacuation clause, but it is not neeessary to enlarge thereon. The outstanding features of the position are that the Allies have the Central Powers within the grasp of their tentacles; America is preparing to put five million men in the field in 1919; and the German armies, though not yet beaten, are bent and demoralised, while large captured are being made daily. It is now only a question of time when the terms of peace can be dictated at Berlin by the Allied generalissimo. By the Allies continuing the war, the German people will have the opportunity of getting rid of the Hohenzollerns and their supporters, and be in a position to negotiate peace terms. The transfer of the right to declare war from the Kaiser to the Reichstag is a mere political sham, for it can, and would, be revoked •at will. Meanwhile the Germans are looting the towns they are evacuating, and piling up the score that will have to be settled when the day of reckoning arrives.