"DEPOSE THE KAISER."

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15191, 11 April 1917, Page 5

"DEPOSE THE KAISER."

"THE ONLY WAY OUT."

A REMARKABLE PAMPHLET-

"The Only Way Out" is the title of a Bavarian pamphlet which reached Rome via Zurich. It is published at Munich under the auspices of the "Association of Male Citizens" of Southern Germany." The thesis, developed by its pseudonymous author, "Heinrich Seiger, n is no other than that Germany's only practical course to avert final rum lies in the dethronement of the House of Hohenzollern.

Reviewing the actual military situation, the author likens the series of German victories to those of King Pyrrhus. They arc, he says, purely ephemeral, and nobody can be more keenly alive to this fact than Hindenburg, whose colossal forward movement on the Eastern front has merely succeeded in shifting the scene of trench warfare a few hundred miles, and whose war-worn forces, for a long time inert inert and impotent in front of Riga and Dunaburg, have still before them vast, untrodden stretches of the Russian Empire. "Germany cries, 'We will fight till the last man, and when no more men are left we will enrol the women and old men ' but the people itself is convinced that no manoeuvre of this sort can avert ultimate defeat, which, despite all efforts and all sacrifices that we have made and will make, and despite mountainous ruins still increasing day by day, is at this moment mathematically certain." The pamphleteer regards Germany's present situation as identical with that of the French Empire a century ago. When the crucial moment comes, will William 11., he asks, stand prepared to sacrifice 'himself for the German •copies as Napoleon I. sacrificed himself for the French nation?

"When Germany becomes convinced that a sufficient "outlay of men and money has been already made, and that national honour has been saved, then will come thp time for abrogating the Treaty of Versailles, and for changing the constitution which granted to the Prussian Crown the privilege of heredity and the German sceptre. "Even as France avoided the terrible peace conditions by deposing Napoleon, so Germany, faced by *he vision of final catastrophe, will one day be driven to decide the deposing of the King of Prussia in favour of a Bavarian ruler. The House of Wittejsbach has fulfilled all its duties to the Empire, its escutcheon is unstained, and in this war it has won its laurels again and again. "Not only would the German Empire under the Wittelsbach dynasty offer the necessary security for a European peace, but also the possibility of realising a still greater Germany." The writer then draws distinction between the Pan-Germanist i:nd Grand Germanist party, stating that the latter is represented by the Socialism preached by Marx and En;cels, and counts numerous adherents throughout Bavaria, even among the Conservative politicians; also in Meeklenb'irg. Hanover, Silesia, and Saxony, wnd aims at re-uniting with Germany 'hose Germans whom Austria annex*! in 1866.

Sieger vieVs Austria as .approaching its death agony, and 'argues that tha maintenance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by force of arms und police tyranny is no longer worth while now that the Empire has ceased to serve as a bulwark against the encroachr.ients of Turkey.

He foresees that England, France, r.nd Russia will never consent to negotiate peace with the present Kaiser or rhe German Crown Princ?, whereas ''with the disappearance of ihe Hobenzollerns it will become possible for Germany to promote and cement corfiral relations with Englawi, as has happened in Britain's relations ith France." «

The Zurich Volksreciit says that the document voic«« a state of <'. pinion very widely diffused in Bavaria, and, indeed, almost everywhere in Southern Germany, ns well as in influenzal mid-dle-class circles and among the lower orders.