AN INTERESTING DOCUMENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15519, 24 May 1918, Page 4

AN INTERESTING DOCUMENT.

What the various attaches of the Allies in convention at Tokio thought of the scheme, the writer says it is impossible to say. It is said that they all approved of it. One report, however, has come to hand. It is unsigned, but its internal evidence may possibly reveal the nationality of the writer. It is as follows:—■ “Some observations on what will be the certain advantages by the creation of a new front of attack in southern Germany by the aid of the Japanese coming from Salonika and Galicia. These advantages would be : 'T. The annihilation of the last Aus-tro-Hungarian forces. “2. Germany, already isolated cammorcially in the north by tho British fleet, would be entirely cut off from Austria and Switzerland. She would no longer be able to receive food supplies Her economic isolation would be so compkle Hint the rigour of it would only make it a. question of time before her absolute and unconditional capitulation. “3. 'flic necessity to defend southern Germany would oblige the General .Staff of William 11. to withdraw considerable forces from France, Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine. An advance of the Frauco-Anglo-Belgian Allies on the Western front would thus be an easy achievement. “4. The taking in the rear of the Black Forest by soldiers of Nippon would permit French troops, already in control of upper Alsace, to pass up the right bank of tho Rhine, and thence to at lack tho formidable fortress of Istoin, for now, in the present conditions, the pas-age of the Rhine could not bo realised except at tho price of very considerable difficulties and losses. “5. The possibility for the AngloFrench troops to carry flic war into the heart of Germany, thanks to their junction on the . right bank of tho Rhine with the Japanese troops, would permit tno Allies to lift the horrors of the war from Belgium and the departments of invaded France, and also avoid the violent conquest of the rest of Alsace-Lor-raine. because the formidable sites of Metz and Strasburg would bo “covered.” Beennso of the obligation of Germany to defend her centre she would be forced to evacuate France and Belgium the more rapidly, and because the re-occupation of Alsace-Lorraine by France would become a fatal consequence of the defeat im.jmsd on the very heart of the German Empire. For ought we not to do everything in our power to stop the merciless "bombardment of the villages and towns of the departments of invaded France and of Belgium, and spare nnr brothers of Al-sace-Lorraine from the nn’neard-of sufferings and devastations attendant upon a conquest by force of arms? “(i. If we presuppose a new FrancoNippon front established in Southern Germany it is perfectly clear that the German Empire would not be able to resist a general attack of the Allies, who, advancing from the East, West’, and South, would finally be in a position to impose at Berlin itself all the necessary conditions for a peace which should never again be broken.” buch is the text of one curious document which survives in tho light the plans made in the winter of " 1914-15 for Japan to aid the Allies in Europe. Why were these plans not carried out, or, at least, attempted? It may be surmised that the Allies were not then quite sure of Roumania, that Bulgaria was even then turning to Turkey, that Greece, under King Constantine, would never have joined the Allies, and that snob a movement as Japan proposed would only have hastened the second invasion of Sifl’bia. But all this is shown to lie incorrect, according to the Greek White Book, in which it is made clear that a show of strength, moral and material, on the part of the Allies in the Balkans in the winter of 1914-15, from whatever source, would have completely changed the face of the peninsula. Vcnizelos, since tho dethronement of Constantine, has emphasised this repeatedly in his speeches. What then was the reason? asks tho writer, who concludes: It was in the days of the “old diplomacy,” and it is said that Japan required as a quid pro quo—for an attempt to end the war by a wonderful stroke which had the approval of high and collective military authority—a naval station on one of the islands of the Levant. This concession, one of tho members of the Entente declined either to make or to allow.