GERMAN ARMY UNPOPULAR.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1414, 22 November 1904, Page 5

GERMAN ARMY UNPOPULAR.

SOLDIERS ATTACKED BY CIVILIANS. With great anxiety the Kaiser and liis Govcrnmcut watch the growing hatred towards the army, not ouly among the lower classes of the people. but also among the middle classes and more well-to-do business people (telegraphs a Berlin correspondent in October 15). The high-handedness of army officers and their plainly shown contempt of everybody who does not wear a uniform are daily becoming more unbearable, and in many places citi/.ens' associations have been formed whose members bind themselves to show towards army officers only the some politeness which a civilian has a riirht to expect; and the associations will then pay all costs of suits which au'v member may incur by refusing to allow- officers special privileges. While the associations recruit their numbers from the Well-to-do middle class, the lower classes of the population, often adopt more strenuous measures to show their hatred of military uniforms, even when worn by pri-a'-cs. Even in this city, where the streets are crowded with officers and soldiers, shaqi encounters often take place between them and workino- men and in parts of the city it has become necessary to issue" orders to the soldiers not to leave their burruefc* without sidcarms. How necessary this is is shown bv an affair which took place in Totsdam the other night, when two privates of a regiment of the Guard, while returning to their barracks from a danco hall, were attacked bv live laborers with knives. One soldier was nearly dead when the police arri/ed and in the last moment arrested one of the men, a y,, un g bricklaver who was kneeling on the chest of the ,h -ing man, and about to stab him to" the heart because. he refused to promise to desert from his regiment. In Court the accused man said that they had no intention of robbing the soldiers, against whom thev had 1,0 personal ill-feeling, but that thev hated the army, and used their kni.es wjien the. two privates refused to take off their uniforms and trample <.u them. If this case stood alone it might be overlooked, but affairs of similar nature occur almost daily in all parts of Germany, and even more conservative papers no longer conceal the fact that high army officers are in part resiwiisiblc for the bitter feeling against the artny. Officers and men have repeat,'llv beili upheld by their superiors when they have insulted or attacked citizens, and often even praised for having maintained the honor of tie army. The following incident v!ii;h recently took -place at Slrassburg is typical:—A young sub-lieutenant, faeiirich. as they are called, in the 'h-r----man army, on the street met the footman of a well-known lawyer, v ho. wearing the livery of his master, was riding a wheel. Mistaking the livery for a military uniform, the lieutenant began to abuse him for not saluting. The footman, a good-natured Bavarian, laughingly told the officer that he had belter go back to the military academy and learn the difference between a livery of a servant and the unifpnn of a soldier. At this rebuke, which was heard and enjoyed by several bystanders. the officer became furious, ami ordered a policeman i<> arrest the footman, who, still smiling, went along to the police station, where he was released. His master caused him to make a complaint to the colonel of the officer's regiment. who. however, said that his lieutenant had acted perfectly right, and that he could only admire his patience, as he himself would have run his swonl through the man who had insulted him in the presence of civilians and made him appear ridiculous in their eyes. It is incidents of this kind which. occurring as they do in some form or other almost every day," incense even the most peaceable citizens against the army, and add to the number of voters who hope some time to become strong enough in the Reichstag to vote the army out of. existence.