ROMANCE OF HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1931, Page 8

ROMANCE OF HISTORY

Celebration of United Germany's diamond jubilee is a reminder of the fact that the Bismarckian policy of crushing Austria and then France culminated in 1871 in the declaration of Wilhelm I. as first Emperor of Germany, in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles. Over a trampled France, they built the German Empire, which a revived France (with Allies) knocked over 47 years later (1918). But United Germany survives as a Republic—less, of course, the parts taken away by the Versailles Treaty. President Hindenburg was a smart young Prussian officer when France was defeated in 1870-71, and his "Memoirs" of the Great War include some glances back at the older campaign. He recalls how he had formed the opinion that Napoleon 111. was in the Sedan trap, and, when the trap was closed, he gave his opinion voice. Older officers laughed at him, but he turned out to be correct. Thus, right at the outset of his career, he saw the fall of an Emperor. He. was destined to witness . the , flight of another. Stranger still, he, Hindenburg, the devout follower for half a century of the All-Highest, was destined to sit as President, holduTg the reins that his All-Highest threw away.