POST-WAR GERMANY

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 January 1933, Page 12

POST-WAR GERMANY

INTIMATE REVELATIONS Col. Stewart. Roddie’s first essay in authorship-»-“The Peace Patrol,” reveals him as a first-rate official observer, an adventurer-born, by turns an “agreeable rattle” and wise in the wisdom of the world, sympathetic and large-hearted towards the vanquished and always an admirable raconteur (writes J. B. Firth in the London “Daily Telegraph”). From January, 1919, to January 1926, he occupied “No. 133” at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, with many intervals of absence, but engaged continuously on one official mission after another on behalf of the British Government. The first two or three years were much the more sensational, for they comprised the period of Germany’s Disarmament. The “Peace Patrol” was carried out in a distracted, exhausted, dispirited Germany, where the Spartacists and Red Revolutionaries seemed for months to have more than an outside chance of overthrowing the new Republic.

The author’s conclusion is that successive German Governments did their best to carry out the disarmament terms, but were desperately afraid lest the military forces allowed to them might be inadequate to deal with the Revolutionaries. Great stress is laid on the harm done in Germany by the agitation in England and elsewhere for bringing the Kaiser to trial. Nothing helped so much to strengthen the Monarchical party, which had been shattered by the Kaiser’s flight to Holland. “The situation was clearly reported to England, but still the cry continued. I was having luncheon one day at a house in Grosvenor-square. Princess Beatrice and one of His Majesty’s Ministers were there. I explained the position which was being created in Germany, and was amazed to hear the Minister reply, ‘The Kaiser will stand in the dock within a year. I myself, have already read part of the case for the prosecution.’ ”

NOSKE'S DESPAIR Noske, the German Minister of Defence, whose machine-gunners had saved the Republic on “Bloody Thursday”—February 13, 1920 —was especially bitter on the Allies’ demand for the surrender of War Criminals. “ ‘ln God’s name,’ he said to Col. Roddie, ‘what kind of people do you think we are? Even of our self-respect you would strip us. “ ‘I can easily afford to risk my life; I have little to live for. My only son you shot to pieces . . Oh, he’s not dead. He’s only in a madhouse. That is the end of my family. “‘Get-your country to see that they ask an impossibility; they will if things are explained. Then for us —a little confidence awakened, a little will born born of confidence; a little work born of will; a little success born of work, and with the help of all-healing time we may, who knows, turn the corner.’

“And then the iron snapped. Noske buried his head in his hands, and to himself—or to heaven—-more than to me, cried, ‘I can’t—l can’t go on ruling with the machine-gun!’” This dramatic scene so impressed the author that he drew up a long memorandum and showed it to General Bingham, his chief, who, realising its importance, said “Go to England with it to-day.” He went straightway, saw Sir Henry Wilson, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Balfour, and the last arranged for the document to be circulated to the Cabinet, with the result that the extradition clause of the Treaty was subsequently modified. To the Communist peril succeeded the famous Kapp Putsch. Kapp, a. miserable creature, who was a mere tool of others, proclaimed himself Dictator, and gave out. that the British Government were sympa< thetic to the idea of a Hohenzollerri restoration and prepared to recognise it. The lie spread dangerously, and as his superiors were absent from Berlin, Col. Roddie determined on his own initiative to beard Kapp behind his barricades.

This he did, and the next morning Count Brockdorff-Rantzau telephoned to warn him that Kapp was actually using his visit as evidence of British support, and obtained authority to deny Kapp’s false statements. If the Kapp Putsch had promised success, Gen. Ludendorff was waiting to step in and take military command. Col. Roddie describes an interview with him: “I waited in the empty room. Ludendorff came in. A big, heavy-cheeked, dour looking man, and I felt—but no! I did not feel—that was just it. There was something about him that reminded me of a dead fish. The face seemed to be without expression. He gave me his hand —it was cold and clammy —and politely piloted me to the sofa. His voice, too, was expressionless. One understood why he was not popular. “This was a man who gave nothing. He exuded not one scrap of human feeling. I daresay he had some, but if it did exist it was bottled up for Ludendorff himself. I felt there could only be one point of view on any question for this man—his own.” Ludendorff laid before his visitor a plan for a gigantic move against Russia, Germany to supply 750,000 men, France 250,000, and Britain 100,000. Col. Roddje innocently asked if he would be willing to serve under Foch. The answer was a brusque negative. “Well, then, under Haig?” Yes, that he was prepared to do. But it was plain that his idea was to be generalissimo himself.

The author records a magnificent tribute to Lord Haldane passed by Gen. von Plessen, known as “The Power behind the Throne” in Germany, for he was Adjutant-General to the Kaiser. VON KLUCK’S TRIBUTE

Col. Roddie went to take wine with him on his eightieth birthday at Potsdam, and they talked of the war. But for the British Expeditionary Army, said the General, the German armies must have swept on to Paris. He added: “I believe when prejudice dies, and the world can study dispassionately the true course of events since 1914; when it has determined the basis on which the military success of the Allies was built, and the rock on which Germany’s hopes foundered, the finger that points the verdict will trace these letters, “H-a-l-d-a-n-e.’ ” Gen. von Gluck, who commanded the extreme right wing of the German invaders of Belgium, was equally out--spoken. 1 “In the whole history of the world,” he said, “there is, in mj r opinion, no military feat which has excelled, and few which have equalled, that accomplished by the first British Army in this last war. My admiration for that Army is greater than 1 can express.” Of Haig he spoke with admiration, expressing his desire to meet him. “We had him with us,” he said, “for six months once, attached to the German army. Everyone liked him. Our

trouble is that we taught him too much.” Col. Roddie gives the English-born Duke of Coburg’s explanation of the offensive telegram which he' had sent to England at the opening of the war, that his loyalty to Germany was so distrusted that he was forced to send it.

From the Princess Frederick Charles, the daughter of the Empress Frederick, Col. Roddie learnt this: “She told me that her mother had asked Sir Frederick Ponsonby to take her letters to England in order that they might not fall into the hands of her son, the Emperor William the Second. She told me, too, that she had all Queen Victoria’s replies to her mother’s letters, and added that she would not permit them to be published. ‘ln the interests of everyone, it is better not to publish them yet awhile.’ ”

Another passage throws light on the character of the ex-Kaiser, of whom it is shrewdly observed that he always needed a background to be effective: when alone and unsupported he usually appeared at a disadvantage. KING EDWARD The story relates to King Edward’s last visit to Germany. He wished to see tho Kaiser alone and talk matters out with him, and accordingly King Edward told the Crown Prince to arrange that when his father came to his sitting-room after dinner he should come, contrary to Palace custom, alone. “ ‘I begged my father to go alone,’ the Crown Prince told me. ‘but he insisted that my brother. August Wilhelm. and I should go too. I told him that it was the King’s wish, but that made him more obstinate, because he always had the feeling that King Edward could get the better of him alone. “ ‘With us there I knew "my father would never be natural and would only put. the King’s back up, so when we reached the door I pulled my brother hack and we retreated down the corridor. But. it, was no use, my father followed us and commanded us to go with him. “ ‘King Edward, who was sitting at Ins writing desk, looked at the three )f us and just shrugged his shoulders in contemptuous resignation. He told is to sit down, and talked of a few I janal matters. It was the last chance —and my father lost it.’ ” On Lichnowsky’s authority, the au-

thor flatly contradicts the legend that Kuhlmann was the evil genius of the German Embassy in London and checkmated Lichnowsky’s own sincere efforts for peace.

Of Lord D’Abernon, whom he describes as magnificent and regal, he says that the Germans at first did not like his appointment as Ambassador because they feared his expert knowledge of finance. Here is modern history in authentic and fascinating form, and it will help to correct many serious misconceptions still current both of men and events. •