GERMANY

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1919, Page 5

GERMANY

ftETHMANN-'HOLLWEG BLAMED. VON TIRPITZ'S BOOK, Received May 7, 11.30 p.m. . New I'ork, Hay 4. The Sun's Berlin correspondent slates that an intimate friend of Admiral von Tirpitz says that the Admiral's hook will blame tlie late llerr von BetbmannHoliweg for the policies which resulted in war as well as the failure of the Üboat warfare. Tirpitz wiil say that llollwcg favored ruthless li-boat activities, but his vaccillating policy gave Britain an opportunity to organise vast defensive measures which defeated Germauv.—Aus. N./C. Cable Assoc.

HINDENBUBG RESIGNS. Received May S, 1.10 a.m. Copenhagen, May 3. Marshal von Hindenburg has written to President Ebcrt resigning the Gencralissimoship of the German Army, owing to a desire to retire to private life. President Ebert has accepted the resignation. —Reuter.

•JLIMPSE OF DANZIG. A GERMAN FORTRESS, j i Danzig is a far north Venice, cut j through with streams and canals, and equipped also with a sort of irrigation systi'io. to tlood the country for miles about, not for cultivation, but for defence- in no other German city is medieval architecture to be found in such variety anil preservation as Danzig. Conspicuous both in German and Polish history, Danzig was of the four principal centres of the Hansatic League, while not far up the Vistula is Marienburg, capital of the Teutonic Order of Knights, which flourished in Danzig. Physically, Danzig escaped many ell'ects of the Reformation. Even in her famous St. Mary's Church, one of the largest j Protestant edifices in the world, covering an area as great as the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, are to be found reliquaries and manuscripts, embroideries of Roman, Byzantine, and Gothic designs, treasures in precious metals, stones and ivories, and a noted collection of vestments. Among its art works is the famous Last Judgment of Hans .Memling. In appearance almost as much like a fortress as a church, bringing to mind Luther's militant -hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," the church has been called one of the most German tilings in Germany. In many ways it suggests the Prussian militaristic spirit. From the vaunting, for example, projects one of Napoleon's cannon balls. "But the Danzig visitor needs no indirect intimation of militarism. The city was one of the most stvngly fortified places in the now shattered German Empire. With Konigsberg, Thorn, and Posen, Danzig helped to form a mighty chain of fortifications. To the east and south of the city older defences were supplemented in recent years by a score of bastions. • Along the Vistula, on which the city lies, to its mouth at Neufa-hr-wasser, four miles tway, stretches a line of forts. In addition, three sides of the town could be inundated by the garrison. Streets are lined with ornate old houses of the. Hansatic period, crowned with high gables, often profusely ornamented. Balconies overhang the streets, and in. spite of the impediment they offer to traffic, many of the elevated stone porc-hea remain. Gargoyles grin from ancient walls. Vistas abound. There are many old water gates. One of these, the Hobe Tor, is fashioned after a Roman arch. Another, the Kran Thor, with each successive story projecting farther than the one below, looks like- the leaning tower of Pisa"Danzig's beginnings are not known. Poland, Denmark, Pomerania, and Brandenburg held it at various early times. In the fourteenth century it came under the sway of the Teutonic Knights. Not long afterwards it became one of the four centres of the Hanseatie League. With the decline of the league it allied itself with Poland, retaining most of its rights as a free city. It had a flag derived from the red and white emblem of the league, employing the red as a ifield upon which were three gold crowns, arranged vertically. Russians and Saxons took the city and the score or more neighboring villages it governed in 1734. When Poland was partitioned, four years before the American colonists signed, the Declaration of Independence, Danzig was separated from Poland, and twenty-one years later Prussia gojned possession of it. Again made a free city by Napoleon, it passed once more to Poland, then back to Prussia in ISI4. Danzig became the capital of West Prussia. Government and private docks were located there. Shipbuilding and the making of munitions were introduced, and amber, beer, and liquors were other products. Its granaries, built on an island, were erected when it was the principal grain-shipping port for Poland and Silesia.