KAISER AND HIS GENERALS

Evening Star, Issue 15678, 17 December 1914, Page 4

KAISER AND HIS GENERALS

REPORTED DISSENSIONS. Stories alleging acute dissension in the German Headquarters Staff, and describing the difficulties encountered by the Kaicer's generals in restraining their Imperial master's impatience and impulsive commands, are in insistent circulation. It is even hinted that it was only by utter disregard of the Kaiser's orders to continue the advance that the retreat from the Manic was eared from developing into a grave German disaster. ft is recalled that the strategical methods commanded by the Kaiser are precisely those which he is so fond of employing" at the German grand manoeuvres. In "tins connection attention is drawn to certain remarkable observations addressed to a member of the Reichstag after the German manoeuvres of 1837 by Count Haeselcr, who was then accustomed to be referred to as the second Moltke. "These grand battles arranged by His Majesty are," he said, "magnificent. They have but one fault: they all terminate like the legendary combats between two lions, of which only the tails remain on the field. As to the dead, supposing the theories of the Emperor were put in practice. I ask myself who would bury them. Admitting that the nations of the Triple Alliance took the field under the Emperor's command, the Germans and Austrlans fide by side and the Italians forming the rearguard, after two or three battles similar to these of which we have had experience in Bavaria th'is summer—battles during which, with drums beating, masses of infantry have been launched one upon the other under a hail of bullets—we should be quickly settled. I greatly fear our friends of the Peninsula would have a great chance of playing the role of gravediggers or of being docimated by pestilence. My humble opinion is that the dead never enter into His Majesty's calculations." It is stated in Berlin that on learning of the retreat of the Prussian Guard from Vitry-le-Francois the Kaiser exclaimed to his "entourage: " And is General Hausen still alive? A Samurai would have acted otherwise."—' Daily Telegraph,' October 23.