THE GERMAN ARMY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16302, 30 November 1918, Page 7

THE GERMAN ARMY.

MUTINOUS TROOPS. Not onlv is the German army filled with despondency, wrote Mr. Leonard Spray the Rotterdam corresondent or the London Telegraph at the end ot September, but it is seething with a mutinous spirit which has found repeated and open expression. I learn that outbreaks of an alarming character have occurred in several units, principally Bavarian, and Silesian, the most actions case occurred a short tinfe ago, just previous to the successful Biitisn attack in the Scarpo area. There was a wholesale revolt against orders among the troops on the Arras front. Inn* terminated in a whole Bavarian division being disarmed, and placed in close trains with Prussian Guards, and transported to Bavaria, where they are now in a prison camp, Reccntlj’, too, certain units belonging to ono of the most famous fighting Silesian regiments mutinied, with the consequence that nearly 1(H) soldiers were executed. These sensational outbreaks, amazing as they are in themselves, are at the same time only symptoms of the general collapse in the morale of the German army. Another is the huge number of desertions that are taking place. It is estimated that in Berlin alone, at the present moment, there are over 200,QU0 deserters. These consist Mono of soldiers who have not returned from leave, and exclude the large number of deserters from the fighting front, wno are scattered about all oyer the country. The authorities meet with the greatest difficulties in tracing deserters, who have both the latent _ sympathy and the active connivance in hiding themselves of the mass of the working classes. Notwithstanding that, hundreds of defaulting soldiers have been arrested, and it is not an uncommon sight in the streets of Berlin to see deserters handcuffed and under escort being taken to prison. As a matter of fact, the stream of deserters has been flowing steadily for several months past, though it has greatly increased in volume during the last few weeks. The death sentence has not been imposed, and instead- defaulters are sentenced generally to 15 years’ imprisonment. A large number, having had their spirits broken by solitary confinement, have been released and sent back to the ranks.

At the front, refusal to obey the orders of officers is of an almost wholesale character. This not only applies to commands to attack, but to orders of a purely disciplinary character. For instance, officers going into the frontline trenches to rebuke men for petty infringements of disciplinary rules have simply been told to clear out, and in some cases have been threatened with assault. I am told that the spirit of discontent is not confined to tho men, but that many of tho officers, realising the hopelessness of Germany’s military prospects, are in a- bad humour, and have lost much of their keenness.

The prevailing mood in the army is more than reflected, at any rate, among the proletariat. I learn that in the munition factories there has been adopted a general policy of “ca’ canny,” to which the men have been urged by the womenfolk, as a possible means of ending the war. Despite the drastic steps of the authorities, the evil is spreading and has resulted in a seriously-cfecrcased output of munitions. The above facts explain to some extent the series of appeals which tho authorities have, recently caused the German newspapers to make to the public not to believe the rumours which are circulating. The latest of these, published yesterday in the Lokalanzeiger, complains that, despite the War Minister, von Stein’s, recent speech, “the evil has eaten its way in.” The paper appeals to the patriotic elements to “close their ears to unproved reports and rumours which are calculated to create bad feeling among the masses.” Tlie patriots in question are further called upon to report “incorrigible storytellers” to the authorities, so that they may “receive their well-deserved punishment.” What I have recorded above, however, are facts, not rumours; and it is probably these which are causing what the paper calls “bad feeling among the masses.” The matter is referred to by the Vorwarts in a remarkable article dealing with the Crown Prince’s interview. In passages of biting sarcasm the Socialist journal contrasts the Crown Prince’s war defence remarks with some of his earlier utterances, and also points out that the heir to tho throne’s declaration that he does not regard it as desirable that the enemy should ho destroyed “because there is room in the world for all nations” is singularly different from his father's pronouncement of June 16 that the war was between two world conceptions, “one of which must conquer over the other.”