GERMANS AND CORPSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19168, 6 November 1925, Page 11

GERMANS AND CORPSES.

A MISREPRESENTED SPEECH.

REPETITION OF A DENIAL

Sun. LONDON. Nov. A. General Charteris, who has returned from America, has explained to Sir L. Worthington Evans, Secretary of State for War, the circumstances of the misrepresentation of his recent speech regarding the so-called German "corpse factory." Sir L. Worthington Evans states that he is perfectly satisfied. General Charteris repeats his denial that he invented tho story for propaganda purposes. A cablegram from New York, dated October 20, stated: —The origin of tho story - that Germany was boiling down the bodies of her dead soldiers in the world war to utilise the fats for fertiliser purposes was revealed for the first time to-day by its author, Brigadier-General J. V, Charteris, who was chief of the British Intelligence Department at the time. He said the tale was circulated as a piece of British propaganda in China. Tho revelation was made in the course of an address to the National Arts Club. "When England was worried over the seeming pro-German proclivities of China," said the general, "I concocted the idea'of exchanging the titles of two pictures taken from dead German soldiers. One was entitled 'Cadaver. This showed a train full of dead horses being taken to fertiliser factories. Tho other depicted a train taking dead German soldiers to the rear for burial. I labelled tho picture of the dead soldiers with tho caption 'Cadaver,' and sent it to the Chinese newspapers. Then I forgot about it. The story swept over the Continent, however, and aroused England. Eventually it was the subject of a debate in the House of Commons." General Charteris stated subsequently that he had been misreported.