GERMANY’S WAR PLANS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18455, 17 January 1922, Page 6

GERMANY’S WAR PLANS

CAREFULLY THOUGHT-OUT SCHEMES. SURREPTITIOUS PREPARATION'S. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 30. For some weeks past Ihe Times has been publishing a series of articles bused on what is purported to be unimpeachable sources oi information regarding the existence of a carefully thought-out plan to restore the old German Army to what it was before the war. Evidence has been produced that all the material for mobilisation alike in regard to records, recruiting organisation, classification of officers and men, is baing kept up, so that at any moment the cadres of the new Reichsheer may be expanded to the old' peace-time strength of 800,000, and ultimately, -.when the plans for resumption of armament production have been matured; to a war strength of many millions. The work is being done, it is said, by two official institutions—the "demobilisation" organisation, which foa-s been .kept en nearly three years after the Armistice, ostensibly to demobilise an army whose officers and men have long sine© returned to civil life, and a "pensions" organisation, which, ostensibly devoting its attention to the unfit, has prepared a complete classification of the fit, classifying every officer and man according ' to his pre-war. unit, his musketry, and otuer certificates, hid yearly l "class," his arm of the service, and his place of residence in the event of his being called up. THE ■ GENERAL STAFF. The German General Staff is kept on almost en bloc in the demobilisation organ know as the Reichsarcbiv, ostensibly demilitarised and ostentatiously engaged in writing the official history of the war, while 47 generals and innumerable officers of field rank, who have also put on. mufti, are engaged m the pensions organisation, on pay equivalent to their army rank and seniority, doing work ] which, if it were what it professes to be. would be that of an ordinary second division clerk. The German Officers' Corps, whicn was the very bono and sinew of the old army, is practically intact; not only does it exist unofficially in the powerful' Deutsche Offizier Bund and keep up all its_old regimental institutions, but it exists officially in the records, carefully kept up to date, of a "Personal AbVeilung" of the old demobilisation organisation, which, continually changing- its name and flitting from; one civil department to another to escape control, is busily looking after its own. At present it is being "kept on the run" by the commission, but, as in the case of so many other of these official organisations, it is being, maintained, long after its nominal duues have ceased, in" the hope that it will survive the commission long enough to resume, or rather to quicken, its . real duties the moment the commission has gone. CONCEALED ARMAMENT PLANS. Under the Treaty of Versailles, German armament production was to be'limited to a scale sufficient lor the, requirements of the 100,000 army, and it was to be restricted to certain factories approved by the commission, the vest being put out of action. Tno German Government demanded the authorisation of a number oi factories with a special plant sufficient for an army of three times the size, and * so organised as to be capable, especally by working overtime, of indefinite increase of output. The commission cut down the list to a third, and made it a point of principle that no State arsenals 3uch as those at Spandau and Erfurt should be allowed, having at the same time repeatedly ordered that all armament, production, in view of the existing surplus stocks, should cease. The Spandau arsenal, nominally transformed into a private commercial factoiy, x but 'with the German Government holding all the shares, baa continued to manufacture millions of so-calkd "blank" cartridges (they have since been found to bo indistinguishable, from service cartridges) under the very nose of the commission, and cncealed its plant The Erfurt establishment lias gone on surreptitiously manufacturing spare parts for machine guns, and has taken on hundreds of extra workmen to manufacture "sporting arms" and ammunition in quantities out of all proportion to the requirements of the trade, in order to keep their rifle-making plant intact. Only the other day millions of rounds of small arms ammunition were at Frank-furt-on-the-Oder ' A SECRET, CONFERENCE. Most significant of all is a. secret conference, reported from a very reliable source, 'at Wurzburg, in Bavaria, on September £6 and 26, of representatives of the leading industrial firms in Germany convened to discuss the resumption of large-scale armament production by firms which had failed to secure authorisation from the Control Com- ' mission. That such a conference could, -and should, be held at the present moment lends a new and sinister significance to the recent discovery by the Control Commission at a factory at DusseJdorf.t-(whkh: had long ago been given ft clearance' certificate alllowing it to turn over to commercial production) of a large number of hidden machines for the* manufacture of rifle bullets. Evidently Colonel Sprosser knew, what he was talking about when, at the conference of the Deutsche Offizier Bund at Pforzheim on June 24 he declared: —"Measures have been taken to maintain the productive capacity of German armamente with the object of having an army ready to enter the field in as short a time as possible; -the industrial organisations hove fully justified the confidence reposed in them." In regard to tanks and transport, it is believed the German Government has never mode any declaration or surrender at all, and in regard to this matter the disarmament section of the commission appears to have been strangely lax. As for the military clauses of the treaty, whioh forbid the ynport or export of axms, their evasion has been open, flagrant, and have been exported to Tirol, to Hungary, and to Ireland—and the Control Commission has encountered nothing but continual obstruction from the German Government in its attempts to ensure 'that this article should be given the necessary legislative and administrative sane tionev SERIOUS SIGNIFICANCE. "Such are the facts," says The Times. "We believe the Control Commission ; s almost unanimous in its interpretation. of their serious significance, and that it has made strong representations to the Supreme

Council in, Paris on the subject, emphasising th-e need at present ior the continuance ot strict control. Time is required for the German plane to-mature; for the same reason time is required for the Commission of Control to defeat them. , ” -Unfortunately, the British representation as a whole is not as strong as it might be. We believe the British position to have been prejudiced from ®tho -start by an incurable tendency to under-estimate both the duration and the magnitude of the task. An impression appears to exist that British officers who show zeal and pertinacity' in detecting the tricks and bad faith of the ■ Germans are discouraged end on the ground that they ‘make* trouble', with the German authorities. It to be forgotten in some quarters that the Control Commission was never sent to ! Germany to cultivate personal popularity with the Germans.