SCAPA FLOW PENALTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17347, 19 December 1919, Page 9

SCAPA FLOW PENALTIES.

, GERMANY'S EXCUSES.

RESERVATION TO PROTOCOL.

■ ARBITRATION SOUGHT. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright A. and N.Z. PARIS, Dec. 17. The German reply to the demand for the immediate signing of the protocol to the Versailles Treaty yields on all points except the Scapa Flow penalties. It says that the German Admiralty's letter, which was stated by the Allies to be an instruction to Admiral von Reuter to sink the ships, referred to instructions sent to the German' delegates in Paris, not sent to von Reuter. The reply reiterates the suggestion to refer this matter to The Hague. The Supreme Council is generally satisfied with the terms of Germany's reply.

The Protocol and Note sent by the Supreme Council to the German Government at the beginning of November, regarding the terms of the original armistice and its various extensions which Germany has failed to fulfil, contained the following

passages : — Such grave violations of the armistice as the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow and of the submarine U.O. 48 off Ferrol, and the destruction in the North Sea of a certain number of submarines on -their way. to England to be handed over, cannot be overlooked, and Germany accordingly pledges herself to deliver up within a period of sixty days from the signature of the Protocol the five light .cruisers Konigsberg, Pillau, Graudenz, Regensburg, and Strassburg, and within ninety days such number of floating docks, floating cranes, tugs, and dredgers as shall be equivalent to a total displacement of 400,000 tons. It is also provided that the officers and men of the German warships sunk at Scapa Flow shall, with certain exceptions, not be repatriated until Germany has satisfied the above demands. ■ In compensation for the destruction of U.C. 48 Germany is to deliver up the engines and motors of submarines U. 137, U. 138, and U. 158, as well as the thrfee motors of submarine U. 146, which still remain to be delivered, as compensation for the submarines destroyed in the North Sea. Gt-many has also to pay the Allied and associated Governments the value of the aeronautical material that has been exported. In the event of Germany not satisfying these obligations within the periods herein provided the Allied and associated Powers reserve to themselves the right of taking all military or other measures of coercion which they shall consider appropriate.