"PREARRANGED."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 21 October 1918, Page 2

"PREARRANGED."

SIDELIGHT ON "PLANNED" RETREAT.

Peculiar light on the reiterated German assertions that the retreat of the Teuton forces on the Western front was prearranged, and carried out according to plan without undue haste, is cast by A. S. Meyer, war correspondent of the Essen Allgemeine Zeitung, who gives an account of bis visit to a high Staff officer of General yon Hutier's army, to whom he was referred for information. The officer, who had not slept three hours 'at a stretch for days, showed traces of excessive fatigue.

"In the midst of the officer's explanatory statement," says Meyer, artlessly, "the telephone rang, and news came that the enemy had rushed in on the left flank of the army of Yon der Marwitz, and that his right flank was endangered. A sudden stream of telephone orders directed the retirement, and the officer's story was cut short.

"We had to leave hurriedly. We were to lunch with General yon Hutier, but during the luncheon the telephone never ceased ringing, and Yon Hutier himself was hurriedly called away by a young orderly, who was to have given us the rest of the story." As the correspondent does not produce it, the assumption seems to be justified that there is no story that day. Such incidents do not prevent Karl Rosner, generally considered the press agent of Emperor William., from declaring that superior leadership and skill are on the German side, and the Lokal Anzeiger of Berlin finds it necessary to print in large cross-column type this assertion from-Rosner: "Further developments may be awaited with complete calm." .

APPEAL TO CARRY ON. On the other hand, General yon Salzmann, writing in the Vossische Zeitung, makes hysterical appeals to Germans to set their teeth and to carry on.

The German public, who so often have been told that France was at her last gasp, are now asked by- General Salzmann. to remember that the boundless resources of the Entente Powers lie at France's back, $nd that even the capture of Paris and Calais would not change that fact, and would not bring France to her knees.

"If we possessed those resources," Salzmann exclaims, "the Germans would long have been victors in Paris and all over the world."

That not being; the case, General Salzmann concludes his article with this statement:

"A peace dictated by the British means that the JFatherland will be wiped off the map, and that its sons, rich and poor, will be reduced to slavery and beggary." _.•-■ An illuminating insight into Teutonic mentality, is provided by the Cologne Yolks Zeitung, which, lamenting the terrible bloodshed and destruction caused by the. war, 'saya: ;/ "Much as we detest it asf human beings and as Christians, yet-we, exult in it as Germans."