CAUSES OF GERMANY'S COLLAPSE.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15027, 22 March 1919, Page 5

CAUSES OF GERMANY'S COLLAPSE.

AN OFFICER'S LETTER

'Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.)

(Received March 21, 11.20 p.m.) Paris, March 15

A German officer, writing to a prisoner of war in Germany, throws light upon the collapse of the German Army. He states that the collapse \>'as not due to the revolution. Discipline had considerably deteriorated during the last year of the war, especially among troops on the Eastern front. Theso went unwillingly to the Western [front. Headquarters no longer had any influence at the War Office, so Ludendorff, after much disputing, took matters into, his own hands from top to bottom. There was also a lack of fresh battalion leaders, and war weariness was constantly met with. The first' great mistake Germany made was in underrating Englishmen as land fighters, and the second mistake was in the underrating of America's capacity to build ships and raise an army. . The writer says: "We got false information from our Navy," which was thoroughly spoilt by the great fuss made over it from the Kaiser down-, wards and by the injudicious distribution of distinctions made to submarine commanders, who reported larger sinkings than was the case. Thus the Army and its staff worked on a wrong basis. Gur Navy was unable to disturb American transports, and when this truth was realised we had to take the offensive earlier than we had planned and before our army was sufficiently trained. As a result we lost 180,000 in our first offensive, and Germany had scattered her troops in every theatre of war instead of having every man at the decisive point. Our offensives at Soissons, Kemmel. and Rheims were miserable attempts. After the failure -at Rheims, Ludendorff lost his nerve and risked all iipon a throw. Then followed a- fight of 'despair. The moment to try for peace had now slipped by." • The letter concludes by .stating that the Entente never lost their stubbornness. The revolution was not the cause or the result of Germany's dei feat. When American leaflets ■under--1 mined the Germans' confidence the use " of tanks completely broke it down. Order was entirely "lacking in the Gcr--7 man finances, and there was no money to spare i'or efficient preparation for a v.orld w.ir. The organisation for the revolution began a year prior to November last, without the "help of Russian Bolshevik capital. Later, when the Kiel mutiny occurred, a large portion of the'troops at the front and at ■' h0p.30 were alroady infected.

CABLE NEWS.

[Peess Association.—-Gopybight.]