LUDENDORFF'S WARNING

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 7 (Supplement)

LUDENDORFF'S WARNING

PREDICTS RUIN FOR GERMANY

IN" WAR FOR REVENGE.

GRIM CAUTION TO HITLERITES

If there are any men left in Germany who hanker for a war or revenge with France, they ought to be completely cooled off after reading General Ludendorff's new pamphlet, "World War Threatens." The man who was at one time considered the brains of the Kaiser's legions has suddenly turned pacifist, for the simple and good reason that he has become convinced, he says, that war is never a paying proposition, and least of all for Germany at this time. Ludendorff, the master strategist, shows in his warning pamphlet to the German nation that he has lost nothing of his old strategical vision and he gives a graphic picture of what a new war would mean. A member of the French general staff, General Buat, who is also the author of biographies _ of both Hindenburg and Ludendorff, writes that Ludendorff's sketch of the probable course of another European conflict is "a fascinating recital based upon a perfect military comprehension of the present world situation." The Kaiser's ex-Quartermaeter General tells his countrymen that a new war would be fought out on German territory. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and other great German centres of population would be razed to the ground. "Our soldiers would be hopelessly outclassed at the front, and the interior of the Fatherland would see civil war and revolts from one end to the other." Sees Berlin in Chaos. Ludendorff's picture of Berlin in the eventuality of his hypothesis is one of abject misery. "Berlin," he writes, "would be caught between the French and the Czecho-Slovakian army. Even if the objective of those armies should not be the capture of our capital, they could without trouble shut off Berlin's food supply. In this case the capital would be a howling chaos of anarchism within a week. All that the German people have built and achieved in the last quarter-century would be destroyed in one blow." The general's diatribe is obviously directed against his former companions in the Hitler organisations, who are pleased to vaunt the new strength of Germany's defences. "Let us not be deluded," writes Ludendorff, "within five weeks after declaration of war the French would have over-run the whole south of Germany and linked up forces with the Czechs and Poles. Germany would simply be squeezed to death in this formidable vice." For the sake of argument and to illustrate his warning, Germany's forme" military leader supposes two opposing systems of alliances in Europe. On the one side he places France, Belgium, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia, and on the other side he places Britain, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austria, Hungary and Turkey. He then examines in detail the man power and technical equipment of the combatant nations and demonstrates conclusively with figures and facts that the Germanic side is no match against its opponents. Thinks France Impregnable. The new chain of fortfc now being forged around France and Belgium precludes any possibility of a German attack on France. "We could not break that girdle if we were a hundred times stronger than we are now," he writes. Uhe only advantages that the forces leagued with Germany could gain would be by aerial attacks. But this gain would be only temporary. Retaliation for air attacks on Paris, Lyons or any other French city would be promptly revenged in a most terrible manner. Ludendorff gives a graphic description of what an aerial bombardment with high explosive and gas on a great city like Berlin would be like. With a touch of rancour, the ex-war lord examines the forces of Italy, their strength and morale. He slams the lid on all further Hitlerite talk of an alliance with Mussolini with a devastating criticism of the Italian army as constituted at present. He shows that tactically the Italian army, in case of war, would not have room to operate or to retreat. Why General Ludendorff wrote his sensational pamphlet becomes clear when he warns his readers in the end that "powerful secret forces arc_ at work in Germany to create a sentiment for a war of revenge." These forces he rifles as: Freemasonry, Judaism and Catholic Church. He calls upon the Germans to keep cool and to turn a deaf ear to "the disrupters of the Fatherland." "Work and more work is the only cure that will lift Germany from the economic and moral degradation in which enemies on the inside plunged her in 1918."—(Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.)