GERMANY’S PEACE ARMY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 121, 23 May 1919, Page 3

GERMANY’S PEACE ARMY

THE TREATY LIMITATIONS

BRITISH REPRESENTATIONS.,

ORIGINAL PROPOSAL REDUCED

Tlie original proposal of the Supreme Army .■Council of the Allied and Associated Powers as regards the limitation of the German. Army was. that the number of effectives in all German. States should be fixed at 200,000 men, excluding officers, to be raised by anmiial recruitment, says 'Mr. R. Riley, journalist with the New Zealand Peace Delegation, writing from Paris on March 20. lire grouping of that army was to.be limited to infantry divisions and five, cavalry divisions, 'with not more than five aaauy corps staffs and one army staff. Ihe period of service was for men to be it ' months, after which they weie to e under no further mii.tary obbga ion. The number of officers was to be limited to 9000, When these and other proposals came before the Council and the_ Powers it was announced that the British de ega es could not accept euch teims wi ou substantial modifications. the rnajoi I in which the original Proposals respecting the future atrengtfi of the GemYan Army and the system of enlistment weio reduced and altered represents a tiiumph ior the British stateenltv 1 111 Council of the Peace Conference- , . At a meeting of tlie council at wh,-c the Allies’ military expert® were pt*>I sent, it was explained that the proposed German army of 200,000 men could bo I ipilseoX by annual recruitmunt wnicli i, could be cither voluntary or by dra\ving lots, or by any other system. *ne men so raised could, serve for only ° llv year, and no longer. This method was challenged on the ground that under such a system of recruitment with service restricted to one year, two minion men would have been trained: in ten years. It was admitted that an annua renewal of personnel would produce so • diet's of a sort, but as against that there would be no 'corresponding staffs; It wts the old principle over again that it would be better to have an army ol sheep commanded by a lion than an army of lions commanded by an ass. The 'principle was not acceptable to shrewd .statesmen on the council, whose main argument was that Germany possessed great numbers of highly-trained officers and' non-commissioned officers, who. for the next twenty years, would be ready to come forward, thirsting l° l revenue. It was possible that wnlh-n a I score of years Germany could hate a.i j army of four million trained men led not by donkeys, but by olliceis wi i j considerable war experience. A more i dependable system of German chsavma- I ment was required. It was made de I that the Br’.t.sh point of view was that I Germany should not be permit e to 1 maintain; a .larger army than Great Bn- I tain possessed,. , „ nrl I This view' prevailed m the «•..<!, ana I the original proposals were revised ana i orovisiou made for the I German, military force® to I including officers ami establishment Ql I depots, the number of officers not t I exceed 4000, grouped m not JJ9 re I seven divi ions oi infantij and | divisions of cavalry, with only two army I r r M r I also made for the abolition of conacnp- I tion from all German States, ar.d the I abolition of the Great German Genera I Staff and all similar organisation®, a I the entire suppression of all seciet ana I aamoufluge methods of raising a I training goldiers. I