The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1914. THE GERMAN WAY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15443, 4 September 1914, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1914. THE GERMAN WAY.

We can admire the German war machine as we could admire the car of Juggernaiit, pressing over the writhing mangled bodies of its victims, if it had any pretensions as a car. The Gei-man war machine is a great machine undoubtedly. It claims more victims daily than the car of Juggernaut ever did in the most fantastic missionary imaginings, but there is no question of its manifold efficiency. "We can marvel at it even while we loathe it. The Brussels correspondent of the '' Daily Telegraph '' has told us how it moves. A quarter of a million men of every department of the German army Avent through Brussels. Each company had a travelling stove, and the fire was never allowed to go out. In a hostile country, while the men were marching thirty miles a day, and doing so day after day, there was always hot food for the troops. Airships and, aeroplanes were their pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. The description may be exaggerated, but we can well believe that this was an amazing march. The machine had been well tested in all its parts; there was not a loose bearing anywhere, not a crank that required adjustment; all had been foreseen and looked to before the great instrument of destruction left the soil of Germany. The Germans are fine organisers, fine mechanics. The machine was worthy of the Kaiser and his military staff; a dreadful weapon to afflict the innocent Belgians, taught to look to Germany as their kind protector. And the men of this ma chine were not men, but "parts." The correspondent says that he saw non-commissioned officers kick them when they fell asleep, prod thenj 'with bayonets, and curse them with unrepeatable oaths, and then give them hot coffee or soup, and replace them in the brfaken ranks like tin soldiers upset in a nursery. " The human element does not count in this army. The men are slaves of routine and terrorism of the officers.'" That is the German system, the German machine. General von Bernhardi has himself said before the war that men, even the best men are animals, and when the spirit fails or endurance flags under stress - of heavy marching or in the violence of war they must be encouraged to new efforts by the officer's sword or pistol as animals are stimulated by the goad. So the German armies are being driven into slaughter, and for what P . To make the Kaiser first of War Lords, to give him a victory at Paris which would not make one German soldier or husbandman happier or richer, even if a land great, in peaceful arts and industries could be subdued and ruled by Germany—would only, in fact, cause him to be more than ever fleeced for the expense of greater armaments by which alone the conciuests which ihe Kaiser longs for could be held secure. The German is accustomed to coer-cion-he lias hardly learned to question ihe imperious authority of the Kaiser. There is only one master of the nation, and that is T. and 1 will not abide any oilier.'' said ihe War Lord in one historic speech.'' and ;untin he has declared: "The soldier should not have a will of his own. but you should luive but one will and that is my will: there is but one law for you and that is mine."' The German soldier makes the best of this Avar about which he was not consulted as ;>. citizen :tn<l from -which as a citizen or soldier he can gain nothing. but how long will he endure continuous slaughter for so mad an object !' When he is being forced back towards Germany, and the war becomes one for the safety of his own land, he will have something at last to fight for. That is why we can look forward to a long war. But so far as the wicked and unprovoked attack on France and Belgium is concerned we need have no fear for the result. A war machine may be a perfect thing, mechanically, but nations struggling ) for their freedom, fighting against unjust oppression, are not conquered by machinery. They are not conquered by big battalions. War has its spiritual factors, and a righteous cause is worth many machine guns. The loss of half-a-dozen army corps would be a less injury to Germany, and do less to stimulate the resistance of helloes, than the abominable Louvain atrocities which have shocked the world. Greece was

not conquered by the myriad Persians. Small Switzerland threw off the yoke of Austria. The great Spanish armies could not hold the Netherlands beneath their sway. Whether we attribute it to divine ruling or the streugtli and contagion of the spirit of man winch strives foxfreedom, history shows that- the ambitions of a Tamerlane, a Napoleon, a Kaiser William, are never more than briefly realised. Moral forces keep their strength and power of inspiration after brute force is exhausted. The Cossack eats Poland, Like stolen fruit; Her last; noble is ruined, Her last poet mute: Straight in double band

The victors divide; Half for freedom strike and stand; —■ The astonished Muse finds thousands at - her side.

Without any division of the Germans, who are not yet victors, Germany is doomed to fail in her mad onslaught on the rights of others.