The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY FEBRUARY 11 1919. WERE THE GERMANS BEATEN?

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11754, 11 February 1919, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY FEBRUARY 11 1919. WERE THE GERMANS BEATEN?

MAXIMILIAN Harden seems to be one of the few Germans who frankly recognises tbe situation of the hour whatever it might be. He seems, indeed, to have a most un-German regard for truth. When Germany (’first made war it was the fashion cf the Kaiser and the Junkers to blasphemously call theAlxaigbty to witness that they did not will the war. But Harden disagreed. He asserted that Germany did will the war, and he gloried ingthe fact that it was so and in the fascinating prospect of annexation and world power which it opened out to Germany. When the war was going against Germany he frankly told the authorities that in hoping for a favourable termination of the war they were deceiving themselves. Now, apparently, he finds another hypocrisy which calls for his trenchant criticism. The German civilians welcomed the armies back on their evacuation of French and Belgian territory,, with the acclamation dne only to victors* They called it “Tbe unbeaten army.” Evidently the Germans are endeavouring to keep up the fiction by continuous repetition and Harden feels called upon to prick tbe bubble. Consequently he assures the Germans that they lost tbs war and that their army was beaten faiily and squarely on the field of battle, Harden might well suggest that if they have any doubts about tbe extent of their beating and are inclined to try another bout they can find the Allies doing the “Watch on the Rhine.”

Fcch will never cease to regret bat they clamoured for an armistice

Just in time to prevent their suffering one of the greatest defeats of the ages, Bat in any case he has no doubts that what the Germans designate their g“unconquered army” was thoroughly disorganised and._ beaten. If it were not a nation of fools it might ask itself why the German high command agreed to the signature of as armistice which one of their Socialists at the Berne Conference characterised as the severest ever imposed npon any nation? Why the Allies stand upon the Rhine? Why the great German fleet, which was to win * ‘The Day,” lies rotting at Scapa Flow? And why the whole Hnn community fearfully awaits the judgment of the Peace Conference? Somebody in England suggested even before the signing of the Armistice that the Gsrman people would never consider themselves vanquished unless Entente troops marched through Berlin,>nd that be one of the peace terms. A hnnrded thousand men marching through the streets would furnish a demonstration of the degree to which Germany was beaten upon the field that could not fail of impressing its lissom The capital of a country is the sacred heart of a nation. An enemy may occupy other towns without very materially affecting the pride and conscious majestv of a people But to occupy and overawe its capital—to defile its streets with their marching feet—is a humiliation unspeakable. That was why the Arc of Triumph in f-’aris was closed for forty years. The German victors had defiled it by merely pasing through it.