GERMANY'S PEACE PLOTS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15770, 11 December 1916, Page 8

GERMANY'S PEACE PLOTS.

CEASELESS ACTITITIES

AMONG NEUTRALS.

(SPECIALLY WRITTEN" FOR !! THE NSES3.")

(Br Mrs Juxiax Grande.)

BEKXE, September 2S. During this year Germany has issued numerous more or less discreetly veiled peace feelers, most frequently through the medium of the neutral Press. In other -words, she has been endeavouring to sound public opinion in the Allied countries as to whether there, -were any immediate prospect of it being possible to propose peace negotiations,* and, if so, upon what basis. It is. of course, well known that she has attempted to seduce certain of the Allied countries to conclude a separate peace with her, and now that these attempts havo failed one. after the other, and each of tho Allies individually and all collectively have let it be plain that they intend concluding no separate peace, she is en- = gaged in another peace plot. In other words, she is doing her utmost to impress upon neutrals the terrors which the prolongation of the war will havo for them, and the desirability for them, in their own interests, of uniting together to hying collective pressure to bear upon the Allies in favour of a speedy termination of the war. There are various methods resorted to by German agents in neutral countries for bringing public opinion to bear upon the Governments to indue© the latter to take action in favour of peace. Committees, for instance, arc no one quite knows how, composed, ostensibly at any rate, of neutrals; and there is also tho trick of inducing well-known persons, who may or may not give their name, to insert articles in important neutral newspapers suggesting bases for peace negotiations, these articles being certain, Booner or later, to be quoted or summarised in the Press of the belligerent countries. To take first the Committees, these are composed partly of genuine pacifists who were pacifists from conviction long before the war, and who at least have never made anything out of pacifism, much more probably lost by it; and partly of paid pacifists, that is to say those who act as secretaries and organisers of tho Committees. A fair number of pacifists in Switzerland are ■paid out of the Ford fund, but far more are in reality German agents. Sometimes it happens that theso pacifists are neutral subjects whose money is wholly or largely invested in Germany or in German enterprises outside Germany. -Others, again, who are perpetually crying out for peace, do so because they have to pay twice or thrice as much for their potatoes as they did before the war, and considerably moro for other principal necessaries. Incapable of looking beyond their potatoes and their sugar, and with a horizon bounded by the cellar and their storeroom, they are equally incapable of considering what would be tho effect upon the world of a premature peace. i It is upon these people that German , agents and their peace propaganda I chiefly work. ! The devices of these German agents , and their Press propaganda are various, and when one fails another is quickly found. Atone time they put forth peace feelers by way of indirectly sounding European public opinion as to the possibility of peace. Now. however, as I have said, they have begun to explain to neutrals the dire effects of the war being prolonged—which they hope will be more effectual. Thus wo find Alexander Prince zu Hohenldne, who has already distinguished himself by his peace .propaganda articles on behalf of Germany, writing in the "Neuc Znercher ZeitungV an article entitled "The Suicide of Europe," in which ho paints in lurid colours the distressful state of the world, and the havoc wrought and waste entailed by the war, and suggests that there ar© two men capable of warding off tho cataclysm which will inevitably ensuo should the war bo prolonged. One of these men, he says, is the. Pope, who possesses the neaessary moral authority, and the other is President Wilson, who carries weight with practical and business people. With great promptitude there has appeared an article in rejoinder to that by Prince zu Hohenloho. and this riot by a subject of any Allied State, but by a Swiss, consequently by one of those very neutrals to whom tho appeal is primarily directed. To this rejoinder the "Xeue Zuercher Zeitung" gives much prominence, and «s it obviously comes much more .fitly from a Swiss than from anyone belonging to an Allied country, I briefly summarise iLs conclusions, which I do the more willingly because I believe tliem to represent tho views of all intelligent neutrals who understand Germany and German designs, and who know what a patched-up peace would entail upon the world. As the writPr points out, Prince Alexander vm T-Tohrmlnbr» has once moro isistccl upon the favourite German ioctrine that in the present war there rill be neither victor nor vanquished. 3ut, he asks, i;; this so certain? And vha't does the eternal German phrase, 'an honourable peace" mean? Is not Germany, with her incessant bickerings tbciit the objects of tho war. the best iroof of how difficult it is to define "an lonourable peace?" What might apJear honourable to one belligerent vould b.?_tln> depth of disgrace to number. The writer then reminds ids radcrs how the Germans scoffed at /ord Kitchener's declaration that the rar would last three years, whence ho nfers thst even in August, 1914, the Jniish authorities were convinced that >nlv by a long war could Germany be educed. When England entered upon ho y.a:-. she did so with tho iron deormiration to raise a mightv army md. wnen.at length it was readv to ■ nrr,v: if, into the balance. And now, ust at tho time when this enormous vork or preparation is completed, and -.upland is lull „f arms and munition aotones. is she to sa v that it is all in ram. -because- a long >var i s leadinluiropo to suicide':- And the write? ■'-•minds his readers—nrnnv of whom 1 '»':-t never be forgotten, are Gt!'an3T°i I , fcrr von . Jagow's justifiea:ion oi tno. Germans irruption into Bcl;iuin : that Germany* gnat trump card :va s sped that is to «ay, a short war. tthenrc the obvious deduction is that -..igland s trump card must op a lone var -It is csc-eodinglv satisfactory" .ondudes this Swiss, "that these "lamentations should proceed primarily ti-om that country in which the greatness and saoredness of the war were pr-x-.a.med with positively religious pathos. In ether words, it i s tho Germans, who waxed ecstatic about the glory of war, wno are now bemoaning its continuance. |

Referring to tho gradual and enormous development of the resogrces rf the All.cs. tho u-nter sajrs now that these resources arc being m ore and more unfolded, arc we to tell these Powers (the Entente), who are quite as u-eij aware why they are fightin" as were their enemies in August. 1914 to Jay down their arms, and that "everything must be forgotten and forgiven '-'> That, as even an impartial neautral ad-

mits is altogether too puerile a mt of looking at the question T ho reminds us. Europe strusried for fifteen years against V despotism ot trance under Bonaparte but Prussia then took no notice even** , her great Goethe when, ho told her ' ltattlo her chains a> s ho would V.' poleon was too great for her." rattle her chains, and -Yapoleon did n2 provo too great for her. Then .{£* there was much talk about the suicid* - of Europe, especially in America | Now. America was very shortk thave her own experience of war in tk! A\ar of the Secession, which lasted fonr lull years A parallel might be di££ between that war and the present Th Sonth had been prepared tor war" tan? beforehand, and was thoroughJv armed and equipped: tho .North was surprised by the war. had to create an armv and a t hrst met chiefly with reverse*-!' Abraham Lincoln, however, was deter' mined. The worst enemies for him were not the soldiers in tho Southern camp, but '•well-meaning persons" who in ISG'.\ were already crying out that tho.war had lasted too long,'and point, ing out that the two adversaries wero absolutely evenly matched, that this even match could not bo altered' and that it was the moral duty of .Lincoln to put an end to ihe slaughter. Lin- ' coin, bo it remembered, was not by nature a militant man; lie i'o-;ght onlir when compelled to do so by stem wnse of obligation. lint h e had with him tho majority of the American people and, moreover, lie know wlm* was at stake for the North. Asked onco how long the war would last, he replied that the North had agreed to fight in order to attain a specific object, and the vra: would ceaso when that object was attained. As the war proceeded ho had the mass of the people more and more upon his side. Even after it had lasted three years, measures were taken to givo it greater extension. Had tie peace agitators prevailed and been ajblo to overthrow Lincoln, the result as everyone now sees, would have been a patched-up peace: and it may well bo asked, in that case, what would the United States have !>een to-day? President "Wilson, as this Swiss writer points out, is very well aware of all these lact.s. having himself written a history of his own country. At a certain period of the War of the Secession England, and France showed a disposition to intervene; but wcro met with a decisive "hands off" from Washington; and is it for President Wilson now to intervene, against the will of that belligerent with whom the groat majority of his people most warmly sympathise :* * Dealing with the assertion of the Germans through the mouth of Alexander, Prince zu Hohcnloho, that "President "Wilson need only say tho word and the war would ceaso to-morrow if ho vigorously opposed the despatch of any more war materia!, whether array or ammunition, from the United States" —of course to the Allies tho j writer says this is attaching immensely too much importanco to America's supplies, which may have been exceedingly valuable in the early stages of the war, but are now only comparatively so —witness the. German reproaches ag to the way in which French and British expend ammunition. It is remarkable that German writers speak of tho profound desire for peaeo among the belligerent peoples, insinuating that the latter continue fighting only becauso ordered to do so by their Governments. This may bo the care, of course, with the Germans and austrians. but certainly not with tho Allies. Any Government in France or England, as even a Swiss v.'iiter sees, would be simply swept away if it persisted in continuing a war which had become intolerable to the people, or if it entered upon peace negotiations For peace sake. Tho mattcr-of-eourse way in which England proceeded to ixdopt universal service ought, says tbo Swiss writer, to have opened the eyes al' every German to tho real state of "ecling there, and if the Germans truly J lesirod that this feeling should be less H ntense against them, they should ro- j "rain from dropping Zeppelin bombs J

upon the British Isles. True, all na- « tions do lon<£ for peace, but does anyone, asks th% neutral writer, deaira peace at any price? As for that pease "honourablts for all" on which Germans are so fond of insisting, all those boundless efforts have not been for it. ihat i "it is no use fighting any longer" was ' already stated from a German sourco a year ago and more, yet no one could say that tho situation has mcanwhilo remained stationary. Above all, what Europe must desire is that after tbo last chapter of this war there shall be nothing to show that it is ever "to bo continued."

It may not be wholly true that Germany's endless pcaco plottings deceiro none but herself,, but it is true that they deceive no intelligent and unbiased neutrals, all of whom sco thai sha realises that the tido has turned, and that the sooner peaco comes th« better it will bo —from her standpoint.