GERMANY NOT DISARMING

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 24

GERMANY NOT DISARMING

VAST STORES OF WEAPONS. Every week brings fresh evidence of Germany’s defiance of the Allied Powers (says a London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus, writing on February 23-). You have heard much respecting her endeavours to avoid payment of her debts, and how those methods are affecting the whole field of world finance. From time to time, thanks largely to The Times, the veil is lifted to reveal her underground methods for avoiding the reduction of her armaments. Apart from her navy, the war strength of Germany is becoming formidable, instead of weaker, as required by the Peace Treaty. She is adopting the tactics of Scharnlhorst and Gneisenau to rebuild her military machine. We now know, from German admissions, that in 1920 Germany had a million men in arms. Though the Versailles Treaty limited he’r army to 100,000 regulars, she had 350,000 regulars at the colours, over 350,000 other effectives at call, machinery for mobilising SQO,OCO at any moment, and mobilisation papers for 7,000,000 men. All regimental traditions are being" keenly fostered; men are enrolled in so-called police or other corps, under numbers which, link them to the old regiments; fictitious leases are given for remount depots, for motor transport services, for army clothing shops,. and powder magazines are leased to so-called “commercial” companies. Many artillery and other depots are all neat and cleanly kept for immediate occupation. Wherever they go in discharge of their duties, the Allied Control Commission is being thwarted and bluffed. Even Dr Wirth is bluffed, for in response to inquiries he states that the various free corps are now dissolved, and he blandly assures the world that anyone attempting to reform them “will be exposed to legal penalties !” M. Lefevre, French War Minister in 1920. has given some damaging exposures of German chicane. Some time ago he announced the discovery of 140,0C0 mitrailleuse tubes. He also tells us the Germans are supplying themselves with a new short carbine, which Dr Wirth explains is only an arm for instruction; other apologists call it a sporting rifle “for big game —presumably for shooting Frqnch beais. Besides the mobilisation papers, abovenamed, the Germans are now provided with what is called a new “Regulations Book, it has a preface, dated last September, by General von Seckt, who seems to make it a point of daily calling for “Revenge. This fire eater says, as apiece of camouflage, that his regulations are not merely written in the interests of Germany, but they xelate to the equipment, etc., of' any mill tary Power, and not merely the German army of 100,000 men, formed in execution of the Treaty of Peace.” “The memory he goes on, “of the kind of arms of wh.eh we are' deprived should remain present m our minds, and Aheir absence ougflit not to turn us aside from the idea of the often S ‘The Germans so successfully threw dust in the eyes of the Allied Commission that in September our War Office issued a comnantique announcing that the commission, “having practically completed the work of receiving and destroying all aims handed over by Germany, was now considering the control of the various police forces. U was added that by the middle of Septemfcei “only 102 guns remained to be broken up Germany had plenty of men, but armament and equipment- were lacking. Vie now read that in the month prior to last Christmas 600 howitzers, some of large calibre, were discovered walled up in the Rocksroth works, near Dresden, and that all these weapons had been made since the armistice. Many oh these guns—343 according to one account —were 4.lin. Another statement mentions the size of some at 10.5 m. There was a further discovery of breechblocks and component parts for 342 howitzers; and, concealed under the flooring ot tlvj workshop, were five rifling machines, which are wholly forbidden by the treaty. It has been found that the guns abovenamed were constructed under the personal supervision of a representative of the German Government. Official correspondence has also been unearthed which shows that the Berlin War Office directed these weapons to lie kept in the works, and not to be sent to Spandau. They were so well concealed that the officials and workpeople employed at the factory almost succeeded in bluffing the Allied Commission who visited the place. The guns were bricked up in large cellars, and some ot the forbidden thing’s were spirited away from the building before the commission had completed their inspection. Yet Dr Wirth has explained that the guns were made during the war, and were bricked up to prevent their seizure by the revolutionary party. On the top of the Rocksroth incident comes another, revealed to us this week by a correspondent of The '1 imes. For two years the Control Commission has been demanding a return of the armament establishment of Germany at the date of the armistice, in order to enforce reductions ordered by the Peace Treaty. ’lhe German Government always excused the non-production of these documents hy sayiu,r they had been lost- The Allied Commission, however, know how little the German word is to bs trusted, and quite lately they made another descent upon Spandau,' where they found two rooms stored from floor to ceiling with the very documents which the German Government had declared non-existent. These papers could not be removed at once, and by arrangement with the officials a German guard was placed over them. The doors were locked, and the guard was duly but next morning the Control Commission found that the whole of the documents had been taken away during the night, by "order of the superior authorities.” But all through their researches the commission has been flagrantly flouted by the German military people. It is believed that thousands of weapons are concealed in remote and isolated places. It is not long since a large depot of arms was found appropriately convenient for use in the Silesian trouble; and it is known that lnuidieds of thousands of weapons, large and small, fallen from the Russians whon they were driven back by the Germans, arc hidden somewhere near the Eastern frontier. The whole business reads like a farce. It is not so counted by Frenchmen. '1 hey know their German better than we do. At. any rate, they trust him less than we do; and for that reason they are more insistent than our own authorities that the disarmament shall lie properly carried out. The insolent abstraction of the Spandau papers may lead to some member

of Parliament questioning the Government upon this matter. From Mr Lloyd George downwards, everybody in authority here seems disposed to allow the Germans to recover their war strength in defiance of treaty obligations, without a word of protest, though German artifices and falsehoods are of unblushing frequency. There is now a likelihood of the Allied Commission closing its labours, as was suggested after their September report. On the contrary, this last act of bad faith at Spandau has provoked a newspaper demand that the commission shall be increased in number. The Times has largely made this subject its own, and has provided the public with many illustrations of the German methods of chicane and lying. It is surprising how much it has been able to discover.