RESIGNATION OF GERMAN SECRETARY TO NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16670, 15 October 1917, Page 5

RESIGNATION OF GERMAN SECRETARY TO NAVY.

POLITICAL CRISIS CONTINUES UNABATED. Admiralty per Wireless. (Received 5.5 p.m.) AMSTERDAM, Oct. 18. Admiral von Capelle, Secretary to the Navy, has resigned. Australian and N.Z. (Receiveds.s p.m.) AMSTERDAM, Oct. 13. The German political crisis continues. The newspapers are demanding the resignation of the Chancellor, Dr Michaelis. Admiral von Capelle has apparently been offered as a scapegoat. It has been announced that he gave the Reichstag many more details of the naval mutiny than Dr. Michaelis intended or approved. The Liberal and Socialist newspapers, however, are not satisfied with Admiral von Capelle's resignation, but reiterate that Dr. Michaelis must go. Australian and N.Z Cable Association. WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 It is believed that the mutiny in the German navy is more serious ' than was announced, and indicates that the morale is cracking under the strain of submarine drafting and the failure of the realisation of Admiral von Tirpitz's boasts. The Kaiser now hesitates to send out his fleet. His recent grandiloquent praises to the navy seem ironical. Some officials believe that Admiral von Capelle's reference to Russian revolutionary ideas are an intimation that the President, Mr. Woodrow Wilson, in his reply to the Pope's peace Note, drove a wedge distinguishing between Kaiserism and the German people. The New York Volks Zeitung, recently deprived of its mailing privileges, joyfully hails the mutiny as "the first gleaming of the approaching dawn lighting up the international sky." It predicts further and more important revolts. The New York Times and New York Sun warn the public against attaching undue importance to the mutiny in the German fleet. The movement must be well controlled, otherwise the censor would not permit a word to go out. The New York Tribune is of opinion that the time is not yet ripe for a proletarian revolt in Germany. Admiral von Capelle succeeded Admiral Tirpitz as Secretary to the Navy on March 16, 1916. He had held no command at sea after his promotion to the rank of captain, but was for many years working in the- naval department under Admiral von Tirpitz. His principal duties were to deal with naval estimates and to watch the course of naval policy in the Reichstag. He is 61 years of age.