UNEASY ATMOSPHERE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 296, 12 November 1934, Page 7

UNEASY ATMOSPHERE

ARMISTICE DAY ARTICLES

INTENTIONS OF GERAIANY

CONTROL OF THE SAAR

(United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received November 12, 9.40 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 11.

The newspapers take advantage of the Armistice Day celebrations to emphasise war dangers. The Dispatch, under the streamer heading, “Trembling on the Brink of War; Even Our War Office is Driving Us,” says the War Office is recruiting Britons for the special Saar police which All* G. G. Knox requested. All is done secretly and the successful applicants are paid at the rate of £6OO per year and guaranteed compensation in the event of death or injury. All* Robert Blatchford, in an article in the Sunday Chronicle, says he is convinced that Germany again means war, which she will prosecute with satanic hatred and ferocity. Though the hatred is directed against France, sooner or later Britain will be forced to fight for liberty and life. The Sunday Times’s Berlin correspondent says that whatever is the result of the Saar plebiscite, Germany intends to be the unquestioned master of tlie Saar. The Government apparently means to treat those working against Germany as guilty of high treason directly the plebiscite is over.

HORRORS OF AVAR,

THE GENERATION AVARNED,

LONDON, Nov. 10

Opening the Daily Express exhibitions of pictures depicting the horrors of war, Mr David Lloyd George said: “I do not believe war to be imminent, but its ferocious grin is just above the horizon. Tha.t is why I decided to tell the truth in my memoirs to a generation almost ignorant of war. We must educate them regarding its horrors. Such knowledge will not prevent them if necessary from being willing to defend a noble cause, but it must Jbe certain that if calamity comes again it must' be for an adequate cause. Friglitfulness was not particularly German. _lt is an integral part of war, which means killing, mutilating, drowning, shattering and starving. In the next war children will be in the front line. The same bombs and the same gas will kill and strangle them as they did their parents. Humanity must not be rushed into war for motives of ambition, racial hatreds and racial jealousies.”

CONTROL OF THE SAAR.

FRANCO-GERAIAN MEETING

LONDON, Nov. 10

The Paris correspondent of the Daily Alail says there was a dramatic meeting between AI. Laval, the French Alinister of Foreign Affairs, and Herr Ivoster, the German Ambassador, when the latter presented Germany’s protest against the possible use of French troops in the Sarr. AI. Laval forcibly replied that the French Government could not understand such a protest, and could not agree with Germany’s interpretation of the facts. He pointed out that any French intervention in the Saar would not be French intervention as such, but an international undertaking ordered by the Saar Governing Commission. in accordance with the League Council regulations, against which Germany did not protest. To the protest that the Saar was German territox'y, that it would interfere with the freedom of the plebiscite, and that it would be contrary to the Locarno Treaty, AI. Laval replied that only a plebiscite could restore to Germany sovereignty over the Saar. He pointed out that by article 49 of the Versailles Treaty Germany specifically renounced the territory in favour of the League as trustee. The League, as governors of the Saar, therefore clearly were entitled to call in troops to restore order if necessary, and these- troops acting with such a mandate would have an international character.

“HIDEOUS AIUDDLE.”

LLOYD GEOItGE’S DISCLOSURES IN WAll MEMOIRS.

MR CHURCHILL’S REVIEW

Mr Winston Churchill, commenting on the fourth volume of the memoirs of Mr Lloyd George, the war-time British Prime Minister, in the Daily Mail, London, says that the lay reader will accept the fact that the decisive victory the Allies gained was a hideous muddle, conducted throughout by knaves and fools. “Luckily things were worse on the other side,” lie added, “so thank God we won. Mr Lloyd George rightly saw that the defection of one ally from the enemy coalition would bring the whole structure clattering down. “For that reason he was anxious decisively to attack Turkey, yet FieldMarshal Sir William Robertson, the Chief of Staff, would not hllow him to take more than half measures. A renewed thrust -in the Dardanelles would have brought the Turkish position to an immediate crisis.

“I always held with. Mr Lloyd George’s view on Passcliendaele and have not read a more massive and sombre indictment than Mr Lloyd George’s attack on Earl Haig and Sir William Robertson, whose drive through the mud at Passcliendaele lost 400,0U0 men and almost broke the heart of the British Army.”

CABINET DECEIVED?

PASSCHENDAELE A ‘PET BABY.’

Following Mr Lloyd George’s indictment ot Earl Haig’s conduct of tlie British campaign at Passchendaele, in the fourth volume of his memoirs, the Weekly Dispatch, London, says that pressure will be put on Earl Haig’s trustees to publish the war leader’s diaries. Earl Haig sealed these documents and deposited them in the British Museum, directing that they should not be opened until 1940. Senior war-time officers hope that the diaries will refute Mr Lloyd George’s attack regarding Passcliendaele. Accordingly they urge that advantage be taken of Earl Haig’s will authorising the trustees to publish the diaries and other papers at any time they think fit. it is pointed out that Mr Alfred Duff Cooper is writing Earl Haig’s biography, which will appear in 1935 arid in which, it is expected, there will be a reply to Mr Lloyd George, but it is doubtful whether lie will be permitted to utilise trie diaries. Mr Lloyd George says that he does not fear a reply. He lias received many letters from men who fought at Passchendaele, declaring that they are glad the truth has been told. . “What I said about Earl Haig is nothing compared with what 1 shall

tell about the other generals,” Mr David Lloyd George told the London Sunday Chronicle. “It is a great pity that Earl Haig is not alive to-day. I would have preferred to criticise him in his lifetime, hut was not able to write earlier, as the true facts onlv came out gradually. “Earl Haig and Field-Marshal Sir W. Robertson deceived the Cabinet about Passcliendaele. They stated that all officers under Earl Haig and also Lord French were convinced of the advisability of the attack. “This has now been proved n deliberate lie. Cabinet was completely in the dark and had to support Earl Haig, despite private misgivings. It was impossible *o supersede li'in, as the effect on English and French morale would have l>eert disastrous. . “Passchendaele wn Earl Haig’s pot hal>y. He considered that if he were successful there be wou’d he regarded as the greatest general i.n history. Germany, however, was contemptuous of Britisli generals who were as inferior to those of the French command as the British Tommy was superior to the French rank and file.”