RATTING IN GERMANY

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 37, 12 August 1918, Page 6

RATTING IN GERMANY

Rats are cunning creatures, and have a reputation for deserting sinking ships; and for this reason, as well as others, the ratting that has been going on in Germany deserves attention. Early in July, after Ludendorff had made about four bids for a decision in the West, Yon Kuhlmann liked the outlook so little that hs dropped out of his high Ministerial post, no longer willing to wade with the General Staff, through German blood, towards the ever-receding goal of the Pan-Germans and the Fatherland Party. Did Yon Kuhlmann sense defeat? If so, the development of the Second Marne is no mean attestation of his quality of intelligent anticipation. And it is equally noteworthy that the defeat that Yon Kuhlmann would not face is beyond the capacity of Ballin and Holtzendorff to continue to endure, for both these shipping magnates have resigned from the Economic Council of the Mittel Europa scheme.

Mittel Europa is a plan for the political and economic domination of central and south-eastern Europe, with designs on adjacent Asia. It is a great land j campaign, and quite distinct from the maritime, idea of a German Empire over- I seas, to which German shipping necessarily is most closely attached. Ballin's fear of Mittel Europa is no now thing. His support of the Austrian and Balkan policy, on which Mittel Europa is based, has always been conditional 1 on the understanding that oversea and shipping interests shall not be consequentially neglected; but he sees now —probably has seen for some time—that Mittel Europa will suck Germany dry and will leave no energy for a maritime revival, Or, to put it fn another way, good markets will be sacrificed for bad ones. The important thing to-day is not the discovery of lines of cleavage in the German fabric; they have existed long enough. But it is important to know that the fissures are widening, and that Ludendorff's admitted defeat has emboldened the shipping mag- : nates to openly desert the party of ruthkssness, conquest, and Eurasian domination.