"LAST GREAT GAMBLE."

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 201, 25 August 1919, Page 5

"LAST GREAT GAMBLE."

GERMANY'S FINAL ATTACK. VANISHING MORAL OF TROOPS. LUDENDORFFS STORY OF • DEFEAT. (By Cable.—(Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 9.20 a.m.) LONDON, August 24. General LudendorlT's book on the war is strikingly candid. In it he recounts the chain of causes leading up to the offensive in the spring of 11118, which he describes as tho last great gamble of the war. Austria was obviously worn out and verging on revolution, Bulgaria was unwilling to continue lighting, the moral of the German troops was going to pieces, and Bolshevism war. threatening to spread westwards. It was only a wild hope that the Germans would win somehow that kept the Quadruple Alliance together. Ludendoiif refers impatiently and contemptuously to the Bolshevik demands, and believes that the Allies regarded attempts at negotiation at Brest Litovsk as farcical, only disclosing Gerweakness. The Bolsheviks were not in the least interested in self-deter-mination. They merely wanted move power. The indeeisivencss of the offensive on March 21 is attributed by LudendorlT Ito the 117 th army's failure and to the heavy losses'in the onslaught, which i otherwise wius a brilliant feat. His second big disappointment was the failure to capture Amiens, leaving the enemy astride the Somme. Thp decay in moral of the Germans in the later months of the fighting is repeatedly mentioned. Germany's black day in the history of the war was August 8, when tli« British, Australians, Canadians, nnd French attacked with terrific violence. The Germans between the Somme and the | Luce allowed themselves to be com- ! plotely overwhelmed, the tanks surpris--1 ing even divisional headquarters. "I was j ■ deeply confounded and summoned the ' j enmmauders. I then heard of deeds of j brilliant gullrntry, also of conduct which I had not believed possible in the Ger- j man army, including instances of whole detachments surrendering to tanks or single troopers."—("Times.") !