THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 74, 25 September 1917, Page 6

THE WAR

M. Marcel Hutin's description of the Ypres fighting marks it as being, at the very least, a pronounced local success, giving to the British a commanding position and good dry wintering ground. Conversely, the Germans have been pushed into wet country, and will winter in swampy trenches with none of the comforts of the home which they have just left. Positional advantage of course aids the process of attrition by which a stubborn enemy is being worn down. That the Kaiser had some pre-vision of this wearing down is proved by his chagrin over the entry of Britain into the war. In the earliest August days of 1914 he had hoped For a speedy victory, but the entry of Britain, he immediately recognised, made that hope impossible. "The English," declared the Kaiser, "change the whole situation; an obstinate nation, they will keep up the war. It cannot end soon." And that prophecy was made on 10th August, a full month before the German defeat on the Marne.

It is announced that Hie Russian Government lias absolved General Korniloff from blame, and attributes hie march on Petrograd to a "misunderstanding." The history of rebellions shows numerous instances in which the rebels had negotiated more or less amicably with high personage* in power, so that, at the critical moment it has been an .open

question whether the Government would be swung to the revolutionary side ov remain attached to the existing regime. If tho former, the rebels have a chance to become heroes; if the latter, they generally remain rebels. Many a rebel has lost his life as a political criminal merely because someone higher up played him fake. Kornilofi's "misunderstanding" could hardly have been anything else than an impression that he had more reliable friends at Petrograd than he had. But friendship has apparently come to his rescue since his fall, and has pronounced absolution.

The bourgeois leaders who are endeavouring to govern Russia —her reactionaries, her moderates, her proletariat, and her Socialist' extremists — must often be in some doubt .as to who their friends are. It is a question, whether a Government 'is better off when saved from an extremist by a reactionary, or when saved from a reactionary by an extremist. At the critical time the Petrograd Government needed a partner, and the Socialist elements, being nearer at hand, got there first; but there was some flirtation with the Kerniloff faction, all the same. Petrograd papers now accuse Kcrensky of having been the centre of this flirtation, or at least of having been uncertain in his mind. By this means the jealousy of the Petrograd proletariat— peculiarly susceptible to extremist influence—has. been aroused, and the position of the Government is "precarious." In this game of "hunt for partners" the German on the Dvina is in danger of being forgotten.

In connection with the reports of ftportation of the civilian population b«hind the German line in Flanders, tho book written by ox-Ambassador Gerard contains some, interesting information. The deportations of 1916 avowedly had other purposes than the providing of forced labour. Mr. Gerard was inform<ed by the Gerjmari Chancellor (then Bethmann-Hollweg) "that.it was a military measure; that Ludendorff had feared, that the British would break through and over-run Belgium,, and that the (German) military did not proposs to have a. hostile population at their backs, who might cut the rail lines of communication, telephones, and telegraphs; and that for this reason the deportation had been decided on." If Ludendorff really feared a British break-through in 1916, his fear can hardly have decreased in the meanwhile. Nor is Belgian affection for the Hun likely to have increased.

Apparently the Germans consider that a disaffected section of the population contains potent elements of danger and damage. Zinunermann, the Kaiser's exMinister' for Foreign Affairs, who perpetrated the despatch to Mexico, apparently relied on the German-American internal menace to keep the United States out of the war, for he told Mr. Gerard: "The United States does not dare to do anything against Germany, because We have 500,000 German reservists in America who will rise in arms against your Government if your Government should dare to take any action against Germany." As he said this, Zimmermann "worked himself up to a passion and repeatedly struck the table with his fist," but—"l told him (writes Mr. Gerard) that we had 501,000 lampposts in America, and that was where the German reservists wouM find themselves if they tried any uprising." A style of diplomacy very Prussian, and also very Americari..

Whether the object of the renewed deportation is military or industrial, moral or immoral, it means a renewal of war horrors for the Belgians and the French of the occupied departments. Mr. Gerard's discovery of the deportees in 1916 was pathetic. Under German escort and tutelage, he was making an Ambassadorial visit to the Western theatre, and from his motor-car he observed peasant women of unusual appearance, and "well dressed, working, or trying to work, in the fields. Hie surprised enquiries of the German officers accompanying him were' met by the statement that the; peasants "dressed unusually well in that part of France." Later Mr. Gerard discovered the truth, and; "that night at dinner I spoke to the Chancellor about this, and told him that if seemed to me absolutely outrageous, and that, without consulting with my Government, I was prepared to protest in the name of humanity against a continuance of this treatment of the civil population of occupied France. The Chancellor told me that he had not known of it, that it was the result of orders given by the military, that he would'speak to the Eiqperor about it, and that he hoped .to be able to stop further deportations."

Thereafter there was some dropping of^the practice, but, like ruthless submarining, it grew up again, perhapsthe most interesting element tx Mr. Gerard's story is the subordination of the Chancellor and the civil Government to the military. Mr. Gerard is convinced, that Bethmann-Hollweg "did not approve of the manner in which prisoners of war in Germany were treated, and he always complained, that he, was powerless where the military were concerned, and always referred me to Bismarck's memoirs The military .have always claimed to take a hand in shaping the destinies and foreign policies of Germany." This explains nearly everything, and among the things explained is-the' gradual pushing of BethmannHollweg into this year's ruthless submarining, campaign, which added the United States to Germany's enemies.