The Evening Star TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1918.

Evening Star, Issue 16823, 27 August 1918, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1918.

Nuaki-T six months ago tho German

What Germany is Fighting For.

Kaiser was assuring the director of the North German Lloyd

Steamship Company, j in one of the many telegrams ho was then sending to the most prominent men in his Empire, that the German sword is Germany's best protection. “With God’s help,” ho wrote, “it will bring us peace in the west, and, indeed, the peace which, alter much, distress and many troubles, the German people need for a happy future.” In the course of his message to the President of the Reichstag tliree- months later it was possible, in view of the success of his armies, to write: “ Our troops have gained fresh and great successes in the, most severe struggle. . . . The German people, which has displayed a bold front to the entire world in these long years of struggle,, is destined by God for great things, not only for itself, but for tho whole of humanity. With this faith we sliall endure this last struggle till a victorious peace and a blessed future are assured. May God grant it.” Less than another three months afterwards the messages that "are coming through from many sources tell not of battles gained nor of victories achieved, but, sweeping clean round to tho opposite extreme, talk of the possiblo retirement, of those same irresistible armies to the Rhine, and of Germany nowbeing engaged in a campaign for her continued existence. Whence the reason of so sudden and violent a change? A glance at the contrast presented between tho contents and the tone of the messages wo are receiving to-day and those of two months since should, in the rough, furnish a sufficient and satisfactory answer. The tone oi the later messages is as notable ns are the successes of which they tell. In tho past years the generality of the Allies’ victories were invariably haunted with tho thought of tho next jxissiblo move of the enemv. "here was always a more or less uneasy feeling that something on which wo had not counted might happen and largely nullify our gains. To-day that clement. of doubt is almost absents The reason, we think, is simple. Germane has exhausted her possibilities for evil.' There are no longer any rido road.3 bv way of which there is a chance of snatching partial victory, or at least enough to servo us a basis for an “ arrangement by negotiation.” To-day Germany stands, sore shaken and alone, fronting a world of enemies. She has none on whom she can call for help not one of all the Powers on earth, whether small or great. that m prepared to spend its treasure and manhood on her behalf. Tho cost of exasperating Dm whole of civilised mankind, of insulting and defying the human ia.ee, of trampling the faiths of others iu tho mire and of waving above them an ever fresh dripping sword, has now to bo paid. The sword, to which she made her presumptuous appeal, having failed, Germany must make despairing shifts’for a sulkilnte. That world for whose cause her Ministers of State unbluahingly declared Germany was fighting against the brutal tyranny of England, the war clique of T ranee, and the hypocrisy of de-llar-hunting America will have none of her or her championship. Herr Hellle-rich, echoing the words of president ’Wilson's famous declaration, “ force, force to the utmost, force without stint cr limit,” may answer back: “Ho shall liavo it, farce to the utmost. Ho shall have it, and he shall bear tho responsibility and the consequences. Ho shall answer to history' and. mankind. But of what avail are such idle tlireate today? Tiie world will have none of him nor of his colleagues in crime. That world has long decided; its choice is made, and. whether actively or passively, by that choice it will stand.

‘•The past week,” writes the Rotterdam correspondent of the Loudon ‘ Daily Telegraph,’ “ will rank as one of the most important of the war. The events on the western front will have a tremendous effect on the people of Germany.” It would ba well for them if it really were possible to -believe that from out the chaos arid slaughter and ruin into which they are now' plunging will emerge the definite assurance that the people were at last determined to Uuk© a hand in the shaping of their own destiny, and to dliaka themselves free of that power aud that policy whidh have at last brought them fare to faoe with a struggle that is now reduced to so pitiful a. pass as one for their own existence. This, possibly, is too much to hope, Germany for more Ulan a generation has been over-educated in a contrary direction, and the iron of abject submission; to her military rulers lu« entered, too deeply into her scad. All classes alike have been bitten by tho one disease. Neither Minority nor Majority Socialists remained, save In individual instances, immovably loyal to tho faith they boasted was theirs when the tide of German victory was at the full, and when tho British wore falling back, "Paris was within gun range, and Russia .an easy prey to tlio aiaiexatioralsts. “ Wo b.uvo no right to complain,” said that mocking satsristi. Holt Maxiniiidani Harden; “all tho German forces are united. All who have airy claim to power —the Reichstag, German capital, the leaders of Labor—back the decision of the Government eithci - noisily or stealthily. ‘lf the Russians will stand it,’ they say, ‘ why not. He who does not seize a spoon can at best hope to lick the plate.’ ” To-day the satirist has the poor satisfaction of knowing that Ida predictions are being realised. Germany jis learning that democracy is something more than words, and that other weapons than those she has so fair used must be brought into play if she would hope not to defeat but only to placate that -world coalition, that now encircles her.