PROPHECIES OF WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1931, Page 13 (Supplement)

PROPHECIES OF WAR

LUDENDORFF’S BOOK

(By

“Scriblerus.”)

Prophecies, whether they originate in a tea-cup or from the Dean of St. Paul’s, are always full of a discursive interest, but really the most entrancing pastime is a study of the prophets themselves. There is no need to attempt a classification, but perhaps it would be as well to exclude all socalled religious prophecies. Dean Inge frequently points out, in a caustic manner, exactly where present conditions will lead if there is no change. Similarly G. B. Shaw, principally owing to the innate “cussedness” of his nature, delights in revealing the incongruities under the present social system. Haldane and Birkenhead both made prophecies regarding the drift of modern science. Haldane’s assumptions at least were based on a very thorough realisation of what had been accomplished in the scientific world. Now we have Erich Ludendorff who, according to a recent Cable, has written a book “The Coming War,” in which he visualises an outbreak of hostilities in May, 1932, unheralded by any formal declaration of war.

The rivals for supremacy, as portrayed, are the Pope, the Soviet and the Fascists against Freemasonry, directed by France, ’ Europe being split into battlefields by these super-national Powers and aerial warfare devastating entire nations. “Germany,’’ says Ludendorff, “rendered impotent by the Versailles Treaty, will bo the principal cockpit of war; the horrors of the campaign will transcend those of the Thirty Years War, when cannibalism was practised.” Eventually, according to this prophecy, Western civilisation brashes into economic ruin, Asia and Africa profiting by the destruction of Europe. Von Ludendorff's contention is that, in oYder to avoid this holocaust, the British Empire should ally itself, in defiance of France, with the Roman Fascist group, which would welcome it with open arms.

" This last prophecy should nob be scouted at once, for it is made by the man who, after the first 18 months of the war, made himself master of the German army, leader of Hindenburg, and ruler of the Emperor. Writing of Ludendorff’s power Emil Ludwig says “The Emperor began to chafe under the fetters he had riveted on himself. The man whose ‘sergeant’s face’ he reviled ho now felt to be more and more his despot, and so he was. The Emperor fled from him to the milder atmosphere of the Field Marshal (Hindenburg), though he was aware of the latter’s subjection to the General (Ludendorff). Under such a tyranny th© last vestiges of ■ his authority disappeared.”

Ludendorff’s career until the end of the war was one of continual progression under tho dominance of his iron will. He was born at Kruszevnia, in the province of Posen, on April 9, 1865, and when he was .I'B years of age he entered the. Prussian Army. Eleven years' later he joined the general staff and, except for a two-year interval as camp commandant he remained on it until 1013; working under Count Schlieffer and the younger General von Moltke. As chief of the Aufmarschabteilung from 1908 Ludendorff played a prominent part in the mobilization and preparations for the last great increase in the strength of the army of 1916. At the outbreak of the war he was quarter-master of the Second Army. Hia voluntary assumption in the beginning of August of a decisive role which resulted in the capture of the fortress of Liege, gave him. his first great opportunity. From then on his progress was rapid. He was made chief of staff to Hindenburg’s Eighth Army in East Prussia, and .his Victorious generalship in the battle of Tannenberg and in East Prussia did much to undermine the Russian morale. Had he and Hindenburg had their way Russia might have been put out of the running sooner. Then in 1916 when Hindenburg was made chief of general staff Ludendorff was appointed, quarter-master-general. The course of the war from then on is well known. The last great attempt for a decisive victory and the collapse of the German allies completed the story.

Ono writer says of him: “He was a ■man of action above all, and his understanding of the moral factors in warfare inspired the German army with boundless confidence in his leadership.” Just before the end of the war there was a turning point. Ludendorff seemed to lose heart, and he broke down. Bernstorf! said: “Ludendorff is as unpopular as Hindenburg is popular. Although the people regard him. as a great general, they consider that the war was lost through his insistence on interfering in polities, and making all the blunders which caused our defeat.” Whether or not he was responsible for the German blunders is a moot point, but it is, certain that he was the guiding force behind the German attack. “If like Hannibal and Lee he failed in the final issue,” says another writer, “it was through no fault of his own generalship, but through slowness to realise that his weapon had grown •blunt, and that the population at home had no more endurance.’’

But although Ludendorff was exiled to Sweden after the war for a short time, and although his boorish “Prussian” manners helped to maintain the popular dislike, he was by no means spent. Writing shortly after the war the journalist Hayden Talbot said: “It may sound needlessly fearful—in view of the calibre of this petty, self-im-portant, ignorant individual—'but in leaving Ludendorff I must repeat: — 'Look out for him.’”

Since that time he has been the focus of all extreme reactionary conspiracies. In 1923 ho emerged in the open with the attempted coup of Adolph Hitler. The coup was a fiasco at the time, but the Hitlerites are a reality now. There are sure to be. a large number of people who will scoff at his book. All the world is in a state of flux just now. Perhaps it would be just as well to follow the lead of the journalist 10 years ago who counselled: “Watch him.” -

Tn the forthcoming census King George will fill in the usual form describing himself as head of the household, and describing the occupation of Queen Mary as “Home Duties.” This form will contain, the names of members of the Royal Family only. At the end of last year the tonnage of merchant vessels under construction in the world was 2,32'6,086. The proportion under construction in Great Britain was 39 per cent. Great Britain’s nearest competitors were America with 10 per cent., and Germany with 9.4 per cent.