CRISIS IN GERMANY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 141001, 20 April 1920, Page 6

CRISIS IN GERMANY.

“A MERE RUSE.” L’ross Association —Electric Tolegraph--Uppyrigl)t (Australian andN.Z. Cable Associationj ,;v' . ' LONDON, Monday. .11 is suspected, in some quarters that the prominence given in the German reports to various possible, and often impossible, combinations of militarists and political extremists, iii different specified plots, is a mere (ruse, intended to mask more general and far-reaching movements in other directions The Government at Berlin is either helpless, or,more probably, not unfavourable to the militarist plans, hoping thus to lie furnished witli a pretext for evading the Treaty obligations. Meanwhile, many Royalist officers now in Pomerania are actively organising armed forces in the vicinity of the coast. Anglo-French observers in Germany emphasise the persistent concealment of recently discovered guns, and serviceable but forbidden-aeroplanes, and point out 'that there has been an ominous post-war manufacture of ammunition. Hence Admiral Beatty's and the French and Italian admirals’ presence at San Remo is regarded as significant. The opinion held in many circles is that any ultimatum would only be effective if supported by the sending of a fleet to Hamburg and other ports, so as to render aggressive designs in any direction, or recalcitrancy, hopeless. Some writers compare the conditions at the actual conference at San Remo with, the closing sittings, of- the Congress at Vienna in 1814, resulting in a renewal of strife, terminating in Waterloo.

DETAILS OF LATEST PLOT BERLIN, Monday. Befalls of the latest plot against the Government show that officers of the Eeichswehr and Communist extremists were caught red-handed. They actually met at the War Office, with a view to organising a national Bolshevik movement. The. arrested officers claim that they were only negotiating to secure the peaceable surrender of the Communists’ arms. The civilians involved contradict this, and declare that a number of offi(eers, including General Eberhardt, have been negotiating with the revolutionaries, under the noses of the official i chiefs, since April Ist. The officers estimated that it was possible to arm 300,000 workers in Berlin alone.