COMEDY OF SHAM FIGHT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20906, 21 December 1929, Page 27

COMEDY OF SHAM FIGHT.

MANOEUVRES IN GERMANY. DEPENDING PARTY’S BLUNDER. _The sham battle arranged by the Steel Helmets, in which Prince August Wilhelm, who is generally believed to be that organisation s candidate Jor the Imperial and Prussian ,thrones played the part formerly taken by his father in the manceuvres of the old German Army, was Zeitung desc " bed by , th e Eheinischc

f°, re 92 engaged were provided-, bv tbe tsteel Helmet groups in West German industrial districts. They were divided into ( three parties of about 1000 men each. The problem of tbe manoeuvres was the defence of the Rhineland Broadcasting Station at Lanenberg against at* w-Zi. numerically superior enemv. With this object, the heights round iianenbcrg were occupied and the roadster tmed.

Walking sticks figured as rifles. Urn rattle of drums represented that of machine guns, and the fire of field howitzers was mimicked by the discharge of maroons... Officers issued their orders vilh the» gravity and peremptoriness of real war.

«o impetuous was the spirit of the troopS' that .when the order for attcalc was Riven the defenders rushed forward and, blinded, by their zeal, captured their °u n on^ eral Staff ” which consisted of about 200 -persons and occupied a hill better qualified for observation than safety This misadventure naturallv caused a great deal of confusion, A happy ending was put to a strainer! situation by the arrival, in a motor car of Prince August Wilhelm, who. like the Kaiser of old, received reports on the course of the manoeuvres and then reviewed the troops. The officers afterward proceeded to the “ Councillors’ Cellar ” tu Lanenberp Town Hall, where, with the participation of Prince August Wilhelm an/i one of the sons of the es-Crowo Rvincf’. they so noisily drank and sane Death to the German Republic ” ’ha* outraged democrats who happened to be present in the restaurant laid information against them.