“DICTATED BY MADMAN”

Southland Times, Issue 18990, 11 July 1923, Page 5

“DICTATED BY MADMAN”

TIRPITZ’S RESPONSIBILITY.. MORE WAR REVELATIONS (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, July 10. (Received July 10.11.10 p.m.) The Daily Express states that Baron von Ekardstein, who was Chancellor at the German Embassy in London before Bernstorff, has returned to London to arrange for the publication of a book covering ten years before the war. Ekardstein is no longer the dashing Prussian guardsman, but is now grey and bearded and is proBritish, as when he said that Britain could put 4.000,000 men in the field. Interviewed Eckardstein said: “I have dealt with the events leading up to the war in a manner which may displease many of my countrymen. The war would never have happened, if that madman, von Tirpitz, had not hoodwinked the Kaiser into a policy of aggressive naval expansion. At the outbreak of the war the Kaiser had me imprisoned for saying Britain could win. I had stated Germany’s policy would inevitably drive Britain into an alliance with France and Russia, but this advice was ignored. The fact that I had lived in Britain and the United States and thoroughly understood the Anglo-Saxon psychology, counted for nothing. Germany’s policy, during the war as previously was dictated by a madman."