THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1914. THE KAISER'S COMMAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15730, 3 October 1914, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1914. THE KAISER'S COMMAND.

The ■■ sorrowful" ; Kaiser,, whose

" fight for booty"—as it is approvingly termed- by -his loyal official, Dr. Solf—is rapidly being changed into. a • fight ( for , dynastic existence, has evidently .-; not been under any delusion as (to., tho particular rock upon which,his monstrous ambition is being 'wrecked.- The perturbation of the German Chancellor, passionately protesting to the - British Ambassador against England's re-

spect for "a scrap of paper," is reflected in the Army order addressed to his troops by the despot- who found British ■regiments contesting foot by foot the intended dash of his myriads upon. unprepared Paris. On August 19, when German hopes were being ruined by tho terrific losses and unforeseen' delays, the Kaiser,issued au order which will be immortalised by historians because of'its unintentional testimony to the priceless value of British intervention and its unqualified evidenco of German desperation. "My royal and imperial command to you," proclaimed the Kaiser to his army, "is to concentrate your energies for the present upon One single purpose. Address all your skill' and valour to exterminate ' the treacherous English! Walk, over General French's contemptible little army!" Nobody will be surprised at the vituperation embalmed in these - sentences. Desperate villainy is always vicious and no villainy is greater than that of the crowned head of an organised and consummate brigandage, who has become hypnotised by visions of world-conquest and who finds unexpected resistance when he ventures to unmask his plot. The Kaiser and his councillors had calculated that Belgium would' submit, that Britain would look tamely on until her turn came to bo butchered, The treatment accorded to Belgium for daring to assert rights guaranteed by the Kaiser himself is a. crime

against high heaven; the treatment that the Kaiser would visit upon Britain, if he could, is sufficiently indicated by this " royal and imperial command." Can we wonder that the Kaiser is "the most sorrowful man in Europe," according to Mr. Andrew (Carnegie? Our British regiments

refused to -bo ''exterminated.'' General -French's , contemptible little army'-' fought unbroken back to tho walls of Paris and gavo the French time to make effective preparations. : All tho concentration of German energies on " one single purpose" only added to a slaughter which ■ sowed among the decimated German hosts distrust of tho skill of their commanders and . shook German courage to its very foundations. The weeks have passed and the months , aro being numbered since British first met German at Mons and the British still keep the field. They are but a handful among the armed millions who fight with them or against them, but they inspire every friendly fighter with their own dauntless courage and they weaken every foeman by the dread of the British million who are mustering to carry on their battle. Through all the wide lands of the British thero is not a man worthy the. name who does not long to be with them, sharing their dangers, sharing their hardships, shaving their unblemished honour. This " contemptible little army" has certainly taught tho boasting Kaiser why it is that tho British are a power in the world even though ho is morally incapable of understanding the motive that makes it strong and the idea that makes it unconquerable. This modern barbarian, who burns cities in his despair and massacres civilians in his frenzy, who violates neutral territory ho is pledged to respect and tears up international agreements that bear his signature, whoso one conception of civilisation is that it is easy to sack because it has not dedicated all its resources to the making of war, can -no more understand the passion of a free people for - international • rights and ! national liberties.than he cau understand why "a scrap of paper" will compel a peace-loving British government to plunge headlong .into war. This crowned bandit is so little versed in tho ways of progressive and ;' democratic peoples that we arc in his mind " the treacherous English" ' because without direct and immediate cause for quar-

rel Britain ' struck ' for Belgian liberties and refused to see her Fiench friends become the victims of a wicked and deliberate plot. This has been the Prussian temper from the beginning. Happily for civilisation the day, of the Prussian, the rule of the Kaiser, ; is fast drawing to a close. ■- - ''.... -■ • i"\ -- ; The s - insane . hatred of Britain, which is shown in the army order of - the melodramatic despot and in the echoing abuse of a Berlin which thought to';'prosper,:on, booty. and. finds the; Allies too strong for international brigandage triumph, may be expected to find vent in a lastdespairing effort to destroy and injure. ( The German Navy hides in the Kiel banal, but. although its

fate if it sallies forth to battle is fore-written, there.,is. obviously reason' to expect some such enterprise, 'As long as there is, in the scheming minds of the Kaiser and his advisers, any hope of securing a compromise-peace which, will leave them in-a'position to renew their attack upon us on a more advantageous and promising occasion, the German Navy will be withheld from a battle royal with the British North Sea fleet. Let the Kaiser become convinced that his 1 Navy! cannot be . thus saved from '. annihilation or confiscation, that to nurse it behind fortresses neither injures Britain nor advantages Ger many, and he can hardly avoid the temptation to. make with it. a lastdesperate throw of the iron dice of war. A sudden rush of this great German battle-fleet into the North Sea, with submarines and torpedo boats as scout%, cruisers in the van and Dreadnoughts in the main fighting ' line, with Zeppelins and aeroplanes overhead and packed transports, waiting behind to seize any sudden opportunity of a ferocious raid-upon. Britain, cannot be considered at all improbable. The German Army has failed to crush Prance and is, being exhausted in what may very well be only the preliminary movements of a struggle that must wax more, intense as the Allies develop their full strength. The German Navy remains, and it requires no vivid imagination to tell us what the German' Army and the German people think of its inactivity. The atrocious German plan

of sowing tho high seas with mines in defiance of international agreement has not succeeded in noticeably reducing the British strength,' while the work of German submarines, though somewhat more . successful, has been equally futile in its main purpose. The "royal and imperial command" which drove overwhelming German numbers 'to win barren victories from a "contemptible, little army" which they could neither break nor , exterminate, may call upon an inferior German fleet to attack the guardian fleet of Britain. It is true that this 1 would not be tho Kaiser's free choice, for the Kaiser's Prussian heart yearns for initial superiority, 1 but what else can he do? Should ■ such a Jash bo made by the Gorman ; Navy from its lurking-place British ; seamen will justify our trust in them

as have British soldiers. An odd cruiser or so may escape from the melee to the open sea and thus increase 'the anxieties of the Admiralty for the commerce it watches over, but this is the worst we have to * fear from such "royal and imperial command."