U-BOAT BLUNDER

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 13

U-BOAT BLUNDER

BERNSTORFF'S ACCUSATION.

Public opinion must become the real sovereign in Germany, but it must be enlightened opinion based upon democratic development and conscious of its great responsibility (says a Berlin message of 9th March). This was tho central idea ot a speech made by Count yon Bernstorff at a meeting to organise "the democratic Ho said that when ho returned to Gormany from tho United States ho endeavoured to learn why ruthless submarine warfare, which, ho said, was responsible for Germany's downfall, was decided upon instead of tho acceptance of a less severe course. Ho added: "The answer waa regularly that public opinion in Germany would not have suffered any other solution. I will not disucoss whether this judgment can stand before history, but in any event it demonstrates how highly, public opinion was even then regarded by us. An elemental movement lin favour of peace at that timo -would have secured peace with- ■ out victory." If a similar movement had come earlier, tho Count continued, it might also have prevented tho carrying out of many undertakings in. America v.-hich compelled him to appeal to' tho Germans there to respect the laws of the United States. Public opinion, ho added, must be so developed that no Government could stand against it, but it must not disregard the ideas and habits of thought of other peoples. That German public opinion had failed to do this, he said, was demonstrated by tho fact that all Germans who returned from America with him, with one exception, wero opposed to U-boat "warfare, and deemed it a fatal mistake, as did also most Germans acquainted with American views of life and ways of thinking.