THE GOD OF MILITARISM.

West Coast Times, 28 January 1914, Page 3

THE GOD OF MILITARISM.

CABLE NEWS

| ARMY EXCESSESS IN GERMANY. ! ECHO OF ZAliKlf\ DISTURBANCE. MILITARY AUTHORITIES CHECK.MATED. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.— COPYBIOHT.] RERUN, Jan. 20.

The I’nblic Prosecutors’ Department at Zahern has dec-lined to proceed with the military authorities summonses against twelve civilians.

ARMY ABUSES ALARM GERMANS

It takes a good deal to undermine the Germans’ pride in their army as an institution or their confidence in it as a fighting machine, hut the extraordinary events taking place in southern Alsace are calculated to do both. -

In consequence of the blazing indiscretions of a harebrained young lieutenant of infantry at the garrison of Zahern, Baron Von Foerstner byname, the entire Alsatian populace has been plunged into a stafe of excitement bordering on revolt. Their indignation does not spring from anti-German motives, for Zabem happens to be a district where Francophile sentiment is not especially strong, but from resentment over brutal and high-handed treatment of tha population by tho military authorities.

Military Men Lose Their Heads. Hatters came to a climax with tha formal usurpation of police authority by the army, which threw thirty peaceful citizens into the barracks lockup—a coal cellar—for the night, set up martial law in Zabern for twenty-four hours, and generally inaugurated a reign of military terror. It has become amply clear that the military people completely lost their heads.

The arrested people included two judges, the State’s Attorney, and a well-known lawyer, who happened to be passing through the public square on their way home from the Courthouse. The offences committed by' the other misdemeanants consisted of j’eering at military officers and refusing to disperse. The entire country is deeply stirred hy this miniature attempt to establish a military dictatorship. The Kaiser summoned his army chieftains to hurried conferences, and the Reichstag, to which the citizens of Zabern appealed for protection against the martinets, devoted several days’ debate to the Zabern episode. Causes Germany to Think.

The army is a truly popular institution in the Fatherland. Men look back upon their service with the colour. as the proudest recollection of theii lives. The right kind of a German boy anticipates his Dienstzeit with genuine pleasure. Zabern is designed to shatter such sentiments if radical action is not taken to convince the country that the Government does not approve, and will not migrate, the tactics Colonel Reuter and the other officers of the Ninety-ninth infantry have seen fit to practise.

Zabern “gives furiously To think” on another count. If Alsace-Lorraine is garrisoned by hotheads of the Reu-ter-Foerstner calibre, into what untold disasters might not German troops be led by men of such glaring lack of self-control in the hour of a genuine crisis on the French frontier? Tir<ng of Armament Burden ?

One of the most significant public utterances made in Germany for a long time has just issued from the lips of the Bavarian Prime Minister, Baron von Hertling. Reviewing the imperial situation in the State Parlia. uient at Munich, Baron von Hertling declared that Germany is no longer able to bear the strain of gigantic armaments on land and sea, and demands a rest “for many years to come” from fresh sacrifices in that direction. He declared that Bavaria had assented to the additional expenditure of 250,000,000 dollars on the Army because the Imperial Government had represented that the money was urgently required in the interests of the Empire’s security. Bavaria had not approved of this colossal tribute to the Moloch of militarism with any particular enthusiasm, and would think thrice before sanctioning further contributions. The utterance is notable not only because it emanates from Bavaria, the second largest Federal German State, hut because Baron von Hertling is one of the leaders of .the Roman Catholic Centre Party. Catholic votes are indispensable to the Kaiser’s Government for military and 'naval budgets. Without them the supreme War Lord would appeal in vain to the Reichstag for frmds for Dreadnoughts and cavalry battalions.

If Hertling voices the sentiments of his great Party, .it would look as il the era of military and naval expansion in Germany had really terminated, for a time at least.