HERR HARDEN SAYS “GUILTY”

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1921, Page 7

HERR HARDEN SAYS “GUILTY”

GERMANY AND THE WAR. THE FAMOUS BERLIN EDITOR TELLS A VITRIOLIC STORY OF HOW THE GERMANS WERE DELUDED BY THEIR RULERS AND LAUNCHED THE WORLD WAR— A BETTER ACTOR THAN RULER. “King Edward knew that for ‘Willy’ (of whom Bismarck had said to me long ago, ‘The Emperor would like to celebrate hie birthday every day’) the army and fleet were only the toys for his pose as Warrior, the ‘shary sword/ the dry powder, and all the rest only acting, a product of his stagey craving for applause. After Edward’s death, the Kaiser’s activities were taken in earnest.” “A coquettish actor, His Majesty by the Grace of God, was hunting for a star-part to win applause in a constant succession of costumes.” —Maximilian Harden. HISTORY’S MOST TERRIBLE TRAGEDY. At a moment when Europe is presenting Germany with the bill for the wicked war which she began, it is interesting to read Herr Harden’s authoritative admission—and the first admis'sion—that the Kaiser and his courtiers launched this war against the world. Maximilian Harden is the famous Ber lin editor, and he writes this in the World’s Work : “In the beginning there was a misunderstanding, out of which sprang the most terrible tragedy in history. “Three decades of unfertile melodramatic political feints, the errors of which, smaller and greater sins, the high conjuncture of German management ever and again conceals from the nation. That the Kaiser spoke foolishly, acted thoughtlessly, and let himself be impelled by vanity and a craving for sensation, that he was better fitted to be an actor than a ruler—of these things millions of people here are aware. But nearly all of them thought and said :

“ ‘This can do no harm. Nobody can take seriously thi£“ quick-change artiste with his crown and his rattling salfre. We work with more perservance than most other people ; we are advancing speedily in all fields ; and with our welltrained workers, our technique and industry, and with social policy, which provides for the aged and the sick, we shall in twenty years be the richest nation in Europe.’ “The unpolitical and, therefore, most easily ruled people honestly believed this, and worked unceasingly. . . . TWENTY YEARS OF THE KAISER. “Twenty years of the Kaiser’s mis altered the face of Europe entirely. Inst( ad of trying by sensible and modest negotiations to seek to secure for German thrift and technical-industrial apparatus a somewhat broader sphere, perhaps in South-Eastern Europe, unrest was started everywhere, and political affairs were disturbed.

“Incapable politicians and Chauvinist demagogues succeeded m persuading the German people, intoxicated with business’ and unconcerned with politics, that the Triple Entente were planning attack, not defence. With sorrow London, Petersburg, and Paris looked upon the plans of a new Tamerlane, Attila, Bonaparte. The Germans believed that the hate and envy of an inimical world threatened the prosperity achieved by their iron thrift.

“All .this merely because a coquettish actor, His Majesty by the Grace of God, was hunting for a star-part to win applause in a constant succession of costumes.

“His mediocre and unpopular Ministers wanted to renew their prestige by repeating the role which had brought success to Prince Bulow in the AustroRussian conflict about Bosnia. His capable generals wanted to exploit what in their opinion was the last opportunity to remove with the sword the difficulties which had been brought about by an appallingly bad policy. The Ministers wanted bluff ; the generals wanted a preventive war before the superiority of the ‘enemy’ became invincible. “The Kaiser himself, outstripped by his son in popularity with the people, at the call of grandiloquent cowardice and yet the slave cf his long-standing heroics, urged on by his ‘dynastic feeling’ and his fear of assassination, was pleased to take upon himself the duty of avenging the murder of Sarajevo as the executant of the solidarity of monarchs. He dared not apepar a coward, and falling as ever, on the side of the strongest alarm ,he declared war. THE DREAM. And the German power would stretch from the Badensee to Lake Peipus, from Ostend to Baghdad, and’ would then command all the raw materials necessary to us, select the best colonies in Africa, reign behind the scenes in Turkey, and over Egypt, and, before it settled its account with the New World, dictate to the Old World its- policy and conduct.

“Thus for long years spake all the ministers, generals, and members of Parliament. In a blind faith, truly mediaeval, the nation listened. If any man dared to say otherwise he was pushed into the army, imprisoned, punished in his income, and otherwise outmanoeuvred. THE REAL THING.

“But soon metal money began to run short. The gold had gone long ago ; for the most part it had flowed over to the Turks and similar interesting people. “Hunger slunk forth with its stockings in holes. For a long cold winter the .people starved on brackish branflour and swedes. Meat, fat, fruit, jam, leather, linen, medicines—all were needneeded by the vast army and could only be obtained at home by buying on the sly and paving prices that only the few people" starved on brackish bran-flour and swedes. Meat, fat, fruit, jam wool, leather, linen, medisines—all were needed by the vast army and could only be obtained at home by buying on the sly and paying prices that only the few could afford.

“ ‘Be patient ; for a short while Still be patient ; we are winning victories every day, and the final triumph cannot surely be torn from us. It will compensate us for all our sufferings and bring us the “golden age.” ’ And still one believed. . . . “Then slowly the thought arose, ‘We shall conquer to the death.’ In other words, our victory can no longer bring us sufficient gain to compensate thoroughly for such immenn aaarifices, TUI*

opinion ate itself in, then it disturbed, like a poisonous fungus, the confidence of the ‘business p*atriotism.’ It did eat itself in. “The children, without milk and nourished by ill-fed mothers, died or developed rickets. Clothes wore out, furniture became rubbish, and a shirt, a window-pane, was so dear that workaday wages 'would not allow the outlay for their purchase. THE AWAKENING. “The shameless exhibition of thg wealth that the profiteer had so swiftly swindled unto himself aroused the starving masses. How long yet should the terrible murdering go on? “The Independent Socialists separated from the Government Socialists, who in tone scarcely, and not at all in manner, differed from the Pan-Germans. They whispered to the masses—in Parliament they were prevented from saying it : ‘ln July* 1914, the facts were not what the official tale tells us ; the chief responsibility for the outbreak of the war lies upon the policy of Berlin.’ This is confirmed even by Lichnovvsky, a Count, a hussar, the favourite and friend of the Kaiser and a director of Krupps. “When the dual heads of the army command, who had been raised to the rank of gods, at last—much too late—found it expedient to admit that the situation was untenable and were forced to ask, beg, and whimper for a speedy armistice, there was no longer a prop left. Yet once again nearly everybody was united in the same feeling. It was this : “We have been shamelessly deceived and betrayed.’ “Emperor, kings, princes, great and small, flee, thrones break asunder ; the whole military monarchy, which seemed to have been established for eternity, falls to pieces and team all its offshoots with it, and from the Mass to the Memel, through a forest of red banners, there comes the cry, ‘We want to be men again, and to be humankind.’ ’