QUESTION OF WAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 25

QUESTION OF WAR.

♦ I SENSATIONAL GERMAN ARTICLE. BERLIN, January 6. A sensation has -been created here and throughout Germany by the newspapers announcing that tbe Kaiser, when entertaining his generals at dinner on Sunday, read to them an article from the Deutsche (Revue on war in the present day, and expressed his cordial approval of the same. The Kaiser attributed the authorship of the article to Count Scbheffan, a former Chief of the General Staff. The article discusses the military isolation and Hemming in of Germamy and 'Austria. It next emphasises the destructiveness of modern fire, rendering speedy tactics essential to a nations existence. Referring to the political aspects, it mentions that Germany's commercdal and industrial progress have made Great Britain an unforgiving enemy. Technical reasons are also adduced to show that the danger of a joint attack on Germany and Austria •*• less real than they ©light supposa.

owing to the fear of any assailant that its remoter allies might arrive too late. Yet the existence of such a combination ] permanently menaces and automatically affects German nerves. The London Times' Berlin correspondent says that the alleged high approval of the article has not yet been officially denied, but it is permissible to doubt whether such approval extended to the writer's political speculations. January 9. In connection -with the article in the Deutsche Revue on war in the present day, a well-informed Berlin correspondent of the Hamburger Nochrichten says that the Kaiser confined his approval to the military passages, but did not read the political passages. He approved Count Schlieffen's and Vendergolz's theory of lines in skirmishing order and little depth as alone of practical use on the modern , battlefield. January 10. • Some circles describe the publication of the Count Schlieffien article , incident at the regimental dinner on January 3 as an ill-advised attempt to court that section of the military which asserts the Kaiser's authority against Prince von Bulow.