Untitled

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

agony of those days was "indescribable." Politically, the climax of imbecility came when Zimmerman tried to rope in Mexico against the United States, a move which a Swiss friend of Bulow'e said wae like using the pleasure steamers on one of the Swiss lakes to sink the British Fleet.

The Fall. So tho drama went on to its close. "Pride conies to flower and bears a sheaf of doom, whence is garnered a harvest of tears," said a Greek tragic poet. Bulow thinks that the Germans, with all their own territory intact, could and should have held out longer, and compares tho surrender of November, 1918, with the unconquerable determination of the war-worn French. Certainly Germany had no Clemenceau, for whose moral force Bulow expresses warm admiration, but Bulow, who lived comfortably himself, probably makes insufficient allowance for his country's desperate straits. Nothing shows the French attitude better than an incident in Rome during Bulow's mission. When lie made his first call on the Foreign Minister he found in the same room the Ambassadors of three of his country's enemies—Britain, Kussia and France. They had all been personal friends of his, and the Frenchman the closest. But now, while the Russian and the Englishman greeted him kindly, the Frenchman made a dramatic gesture and turned away. A logical people, indeed! The incident is a footnote to post-war as well as war history. Beaten in the field, her home front crumbling, her Emperor a fugitive, Germany gave way, and former enemies of Germany must in chivalry respect the feelings that tore the breast of a man like Bulow as he witnessed this hideous catastrophe. Indeed one almost feels compelled to uncover, as in the presence of the dead. Think of what we would have felt if Britain had been stripped of her possessions and a foreign foe had quartered itself in London. What material for a dramatist —tragedy and irony on a

colossal scale! If another "Dynasts" is written tho author will perhaps notice that tiny piece of irony at the end of the Kaiser's flight to Holland. "Now you must let me have a cup of real, good, hot, stioug I'higlish tea."

Mistrust and dislike Bulow as you will, yon may not be able to put this book down. I think you will judge it a gripping chronicle of. the greatest victory and collapse in history. I think also you will say that Britain's mistakes were small compared with Germany's, and that ill her battle to the death with autocracy, democracy deserved her victory.

•••Priiici- voi. Bulow: Memoirs, Volume 111. I'.IDU r.IUK" 'Gi-rmiiuy's Road to lliiin: The Miildli- Veil re of the Kehjii of Ihu ICmperor William 111.," by Karl Frederick Novak (Putnam).