THE REASON WHY

Southland Times, Issue 20201, 11 June 1927, Page 2

THE REASON WHY

GERMANY’S LOST WAR. DEATH PENALTY IN THE FORCES. London, April 11. No one factor probably can be regarded as having made Germany lose the war. If we are to believe some Germans it was the self-centred stupidity of its politicians and High Command, and these no doubt played their part. One other factor, however, which played a decisive part in 1918 is being once more discussed in Germany itself, the naval mutinies in 1917. Here again it was not so much the hardships that the rank and file had to endure as the knowledge that the officers did not share these hardships, and one can hardly refrain from the reflection that this had its effect in helping along that revolutionary movement which reached its culmination in the demand for the Kaiser’s abdication. The Reichstag is holding an inquiry into the naval mutinies of 1917, and it is clear that while the discrepancy between the condition of the higher ranks and the lower ratings was the chief agent in tormenting mutiny, other causes helped to increase the discontent the monotony of the life on board, the absence of any kind of interest or diversion, the harshness of the discipline, and the extreme rarity of home leave. All these were aggravated by the complete inability of the oficers to understand the psychology of their men. Trouble began when one of the crews went on hunger strike and refused to eat their mouldy ration of dried vegetables. At the same time, some men overstayed their leave on shore. It was decided that a few of the men should be selected and punished as an example, but on the announcement of this the whole crew of 400 men left the ship in a body, demanding that either all or none should be punished. The trouble did not stop in one boat; it became widespread. The naval authorities took drastic action. Ten men received the death penalty and cruel sentences of imprisonment were passed on many others. These severe sentences, however, had to be reviewed. Only two death sentences were carried out and those sentenced to imprisonment were of course released in little more than a year by the German Revolution. This revolution, it should be noted, began in the Fleet, and the immediate cause of its outbreak was the news which somehow leaked out of the secret plan of the German naval officers, unknown to the German Government, to sacrifice the men in one last battle against England. The German mutineers had a more potent effect than they dreamt of, for undoubtedly, had this battle taken place the negotiations for the Armistice would have been held up. The reports of this inquiry by the Reichstag reveals an extraordinary fact about the death penalty, for it Is now shown that the two executions in 1917 made an impression that was all the deeper because executions had been unknown in Germany naval and military forces. Indeed, in the German army the death penalty existed on paper, but was not enforced throughout the whole war. The inquiry, which promises to be a most exhaustive one, will reveal in an extraordinary way the psychological reactions of the German people and the German fighting forces—reactions which undoubtedly had a far-reaching effect. It is abundantly clear, for example, that the Magistrate who drew up the charges in 1917 was completely ignorant of the real causes of the outbreak and that, moreover, he was himself of that very overbearing type which had played a part in producing the outbreak in the navy. More than that, the inquiry has brought out very clearly that Weber and Becker, two of the men condemned to death but reprieved and sentenced to imprisonment instead, were men of high character and intelligence who acted entirely from unselfish motives.