The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1925. A MISGUIDED INQUIRY.

Evening Star, Issue 18998, 21 July 1925, Page 6

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1925. A MISGUIDED INQUIRY.

A lame conclusion to a most inept inquiry forms the natural judgment to be expressed upon the reporLef a committee of the Reichstag on why Germany lost, the war. The inquiry might have had value for the Germans if it had been held in the proper spirit, but if they had been able to hold it in the proper spirit it would not have been necessary. There is no doubt that Germany did lose the war, and the main reason why she lost it should ho plain to a child’s intelligence without any need for a special investigation. it was because she made war for such an unconscionable cause and waged it in such a revolting manner as to leave her enemies with no alternative but resistance to the death, and to range all the world against the Central Powers. But for those initial errors of the Teutons, who wore the only people ready for it when it began, the war would have been won by them at a comparatively early stage. Minor reasons for their eventual defeat—the pressure ol the blockade, the military genius of Foch, President Wilson’s Notes, and the levies of Americans —could bo cited at need, but they wore relatively unimportant. Apparently it is a firm article of belief with a proportion of Germans, however, that though they lost the war they had no right to do so. The cry of “ betrayal ” has been raised as an explanation, and the search for a scapegoat has been a main concern of this latest committee of the Reichstag. The majority of the committee has been unable to find one, but its minority, consisting of Socialists and Communists, has had the satisfaction of discovering two. It has found them in its old enemies, Hindcuhurg and Lndcndorif, to whom moral and historical, though not criminal, responsibility for Germany's collapse at the critical moment is by this section assigned. On the Socialists’ part that is the inevitable reply to the constant contention of Ludcndorff, urged for ills own exculpation, that what broke down in the final hour, forcing acceptance of the treaty’s hard terms, was not the army but the homo front, having its weakest link in the Socialists. Ludendorff told a different story in the moment of crisis. In his own words, referring to the time when Bulgaria had surrendered and his army was reeling before Marshal Focli’s triumphant advance: “I became convinced that henceforth there would bo wanting the sure foundation upon which, so far as it is possible in war, I had hitherto been able to build up the dispositions of the Supreme Command. In these circumstances the conduct of the rvar assumed the character of a gamble, and this 1 had always held to bo pernicious. In my eyes the destiny of the German people was too high a stake to hazard in a game of chance. The war would have to bo ended. I felt incumbent upon me the heavy responsibility of hastening the end of tlx© war and of promoting decisive action on the part of the Government.” In the words of one of Ludcndorff’s subordinates, representing the Supreme Command in Berlin; “He begged mo to do everything possible in Berlin to move the Government to swift and energetic action. He insisted that every day of delay and inaction might have vital consequences. He asked me to use my influence with Secretary of State Yon Hintze to make him initiate peace overtures.” The fact is that the army and the home front and the nerves of Ludcndorff wore all alike shattered.

The only profitable part of this committee’s report seems likely to bo represented by the findings of Professor Delbruck. That veteran lias the reputation of being one of Germany’s chief authorities on the art of war. His most important work was a comparison of the campaigns of Frederick the Great with those of Pericles. Now he finds that the German army was undoubtedly beaten in the field. It was beaten, and its supremo commanders knew it. It is just as well that Germans should digest that truth. Apart from this finding, which may tend to ho a deterrent from faith in militarism in future, nothing could bo more untimely, or moro calculated to reawaken in past foes all their old distrust of Germany, than tho preoccupation of the Reichstag, seven years after the conclusion of hostilities, with this inquiry. A natural question would bo: Why should Gormans worry over the reasons—military as distinct from moral—why their hist war went wrong with them if they were not already nursing the hopes of another, in which mistakes made on that occasion would be avoided. Tho new evidence of a mind still brooding on the old leaven is particularly illtimed at the moment when France has been concerned to give a lead to peaceful influences in Germany by hastening the first stage of her withdrawal from tho Rhineland.