RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1929, Page 9

RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR

FIRM DENIAL BY KAISER

INTERVIEW ON HIS BIRTHDAY

VIEWS ON CURRENT EVENTS

‘U.S.A. MASTERS OF WORLD’ By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Australian Press Association. London, Jan. 27. Coincident with his birthday the exKaiser has become suddenly communicative. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express he declared that the centre of gravity had shifted to the United States, which was master of the world.

Asked if America’s naval expansion would lead eventually to a collision with other Powers, he replied that he saw no cause for alarm in the Atlantic, but, as regards the Pacific, if the United States desired .to avoid a conflict in that sphere it must refrain from even countenancing the colonial imperialism of . certain European Powers and must recognise the right of Asia for self-determination.

He expressed self-satisfaction that American scholars were unravelling the intrigues which led up to the war, and said he did not doubt that when their conclusions were released the American people would “set themselves to repair the wrong committed against my country and use their paramount position to free Central Europe from the nightmare of the peace treaty.” The Sunday Times published an article Iw the ex-Kaiser through the British United Press, in which he asserts that he continued the peace policy of his grandfather and father, thereby securing Europe 43 years’ peace. He stresses Germany’s restraint at the time of the Fashoda, Boer War, Morocco and Bosnia crises, and declares that Germany never formed any alliances bearing the stamp of offensive policy, whereas “the Allies succeeded in forging around the Central Powers an iron ring of military and naval conventions which were defensive alliances only on paper.” He concludes by affirming that the documents published have proved to the world that the statement that Germany was responsible for the war was “the great lie of Versailles and does not bear examination.’

A‘message from Berlin says that Republican and Democratic newspapers do not comment on the ex-Kaiser’s birthday celebrations at Doorn, but all tho Nationalist journals combine in describing him as a man not deserving of his fate. They say it has been proved he tried to prevent the war, and always sought peace. Every newspaper except the monarchist Press agrees that the republic has been so fairly established that it cannot be shaken by a Hohenzollem attack. Wilhelm must be regarded as the last of the German Kaisers.

The Left Press is angry with a semiofficial news agency for allowing itself to be used on Sunday to disseminate the apologia from Doorn in which the exKaiser claimed to have been the most peaceful of all pre-war rulers in Europe. Thousands of the old generation still regard the ex-Kaiser with veneration. Monarchist organisations met throughout the country and sent messages to Doorn; also ex-soldiers, members of tho Steel Helmet organisation, and ex-imperial army and navy bodies dispatched a message. Even the Nationalist leaders sent congratulations.

MOST SCATHING COMMENT. “KAISER WON GERMANY ENEMIES” GERMAN NEWSPAPER STRICTURES Received Jan. 28, 5.5 p.m. United Service. Berlin, Jan. 28. The Vorwaerts, representing the largest party and believed to be acting with the Chancellor’s approval, responds to the feting of the ex-Kaiser most scathingly.

“If one German ought to be silent about the question of guilt for the war he is the ex-Kaiser, who for decades won for Germany enemies throughout the world by his language and lunatic megalomania,” says the Vorwaerts. “German people will not, use his testimony. Their real guilt consisted of tolerating the Kaiser for ten years after the Daily Telegraph affair, for which he paid most dearly. We would not have interfered with the tranquility of his old age if he had kept quiet, but the interests of the people compel us to say the nation does not want any more to do with this man who was an evil omen.”

The Germania emphasises that the Kaiser voluntarily abandoned Germany. “His dazzling throne collapsed, but the Republic of German people lives and will live.”

ILL-WILL AGAINST ENGLAND-

INACCURATE DENIAL IN 1908.

“Not all Prince Edward’s correspondence about the Boer War proved quite welcome,” writes Sir Sidney Lee in his biography of King Edward VII. “From one quarter he was besieged with expressions of sympathy " uncannily mingled with somewhat ambiguous comments and counsels on the varying military developments and with dark hints of a contiuental coalition against England. To both the Queen and the Prince the Kaiser was sending from the early days of the war elaborately phrased condolences on the heavy losses in the field and on the military repulses.” On December 21, 1899, and again on February 4, 1900, the Kaiser sent to Prince Edward his reflections on the military situation. The Prince r icnted his nephew’s interposition. The Kaiser first gave his own account of the preparation of these advisory "notes” on August 11, 1998, in a long conversation at Cronborg with Sir Charles Hardinge, who was at the time

in attendance on King Edward, says Sir Sidney Lee. The Kaiser repeated in fuller detail his version of the sending of the notes in the interview with him published in the Daily Telegraph of October 27, 190 S, in which he generally defended himself from a charge that he ever showed England ill-will. The Kaiser’s story was inaccurate in many particulars. “Investigation has been made at tho Windsor Archives and elsewhere with the result that the Kaiser’s plea of innocence meets its doom,” says Sir Sidney,