THE GERMAN GOLIATH.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3296, 16 July 1918, Page 7

THE GERMAN GOLIATH.

SIDE-I.KiHTS OX GERMAN* ASPIRATIONS. A STRIKING ARTICLE. An e&teenud correspondent ha- kindly translated the following article, which appeared iu the well-known Paris newspaper "Gaulois"': — In the pi.iins, over-heated by the sun. there are men painfully trenching beetroots. These are the German prisoners lent by the military adminUtntion to cultivate them. I approach two of them ; tliey raise their heads, salute, andrttop working, resting on the handle <>i their too!-, tor two years have they been i.u France. 1 hey have learn d to speak our language, for these an men to -e'.Ze an advantage—men who profit even by their mistortune. fli-v talk freeiy. They do not any long.i believe in their country's victory. and they have lost all respect for their Kaiser! They say. "*We van now see i< plainly, th.it it was the Kai«er and the Crov.n Prince who started tlie war* We were attired that we were fighting to defend Germany. But it is tor conquest that -o much blood has been spill, ed. The whole world is Mire of it. All the pap.T- sav so. Oi the whole world, only in Germany do tliev believe German lies But there they believe, if they have to die for it. The Kais-r has said it, and that suffice-. Germany bjievos the Kai-er. who lor her i 5 a God.''

The prisoner who has explained the--ideas is \ young student at the I niv;rsity of Zoettingcii. very intelligent, neaiv-ighted as a mole, and who reciteGreek ver-e while attending the machine °n the farm. I have taken him a little ar-ide to let me know what his compatriots are thinking. How was Mich confidence and such devotion able to get over the defeat ot the Kaiser s policy and the bloody reverses of ais armies? It is because, divining dete.it and l'eV' r-e-, he 'the Kaiser) has kept up the attitude of the demi-god win symbolises the German -pirit for forty years. It i- because lu- continues to prophesv th t . conquest of the world by the German super-man. and because lie hats succotded in making Germany believe that -h.> i- the nation elected to reorgan's t . the world, and that nothing cou id stand against that furious and in-ane mania of inequality.

Then- is the whole secret. Germany, a- represented by the Kaiser. sees herself ab'nv all humanity, and cannot bear the thought ot not being successtu 1 iu the strife now engaged in. She mu«t either win or go under. Herein lies the giavity of the situation, almost in comprehensive for those who cannot get- av.av from this first principle of the " Teutonic superiority." I have left the young philo>oph>"' who has started oncv more to cultivate his beetroot, and I have meditated on the opinions he has just stated with such bright sagacity. Evidently, what he said is correct. Favoured by Wagner's mythology and also by the habitual mysticism of the Germans, th" Kaiser has become a sort of John of Leyden. claiming—the Bible in one liand and the sword in the other —to be a greater prophet than the Emperor. With a still more German rouiiInrdise. he has exploited the naive ambition of his people by leading them into irreducible fanaticism so far, that to-day it will need the total destruction of the German armies in order that the nation should accept ks fall and consent to lie 110 longer treated as a people o; masters. For William has persuaded his people that there exists a hierachy amongst the nations, as there are classes in society, and that everybody who has the honour ot being a German should be in the van and take first rank. f l hi- illumines many obscure part- ot the incidents of the last three years. The 1111explainable infatuation of the Teutons to -peak, even to-day. of annexations and indemnities, when they have been irretrievably beaten, and even after the Russian defeat, which gives them time to breathe, are sure of being chased out of France, forced back out of Belgium, Servia. etc.. by the supreme push of America, reduced to submit to such a peace as we shall be pleaded to impo>e on them —how will they harmonise this total defeat with their superiority a< supermen? What will th".v think of their demi-god. jostled end bruised"r Will they still dream of organising the world, when they will be fully disorganised themselves? I hen there will be tragic hours when the nation. disillusioned, ruined, bled, ana brought low. will have a fear.ul account to settle with him whom it adored as the incarnation of All-mightiness, and in whom it will see only the dismal mummer that he really i-.

The unique resort of Germany will have been her colossal confidence in him who has exalted his ambition until mad. This grandiose assurance of being the nation elected to govern :>U the other nations of the whole earth, has sustained the Teutons throughout 'Jit- violent ferocities and savageries of this monstrous war. Everything wi s legitimate if the Kaiser wanted it • massacre. incendiarism, destruction, pillage, improved slavery, lies crushing truth, (rime baffling reason and justice. He i.s the incarnation of the whole German nition. A\ e have seen the intellectuals, the ignorant. tluphilosophers. the soldiers, the Junkers, and the peasant* with one accord with artists and illiterate-, endorse the cflicial lie-. D. mi-god William rules a nation of super-men. who will not renounce his primacy until he. like Goliath. will have his enormous and lousy head under the 11 -illt foot ot tbe simmer David. There is in France the necessary p..1 ble. .several David-, and good slings to >lll a-h tin -ku 11 of the German superman —Written bv Georges Olniet, in the " Gaulois." 9-^-17.