GERMANY STILL FIGHTS TO WIN.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1407, 12 April 1917, Page 5

GERMANY STILL FIGHTS TO WIN.

WHY SHE RISKS WAR WITH THE STATES. We shall not fully appreciate the present situation unless we begin by recognising that Germany is still fighting to win (writes Lovat Fraser, the eminent English war authority, in the London “Daily Mail”). My personal surmise is that the German Government did not deliberately seek to bring about a rupture of their diplomatic relations with the United States. They simply took that risk because they had what they conceived to be a larger end in view. The Germans perceive most clearly that after the failure of their insolent peace manoeuvres they can only hope to win the war by encompassing the overthrow of Great Britain. They have the most intense faith in Vheir swarms of new submarines, not altogether without reason. They believe their latest submarine campaign will starve this country out within six months. If they can accomplish their purpose, they are meanwhile not inclined to trouble very much about the United States.

The German policy of sea warfare inaugurated at the beginning of this month is desperate and criminal, but not in the least mad. It is plainly the outcome of long and deep calculation. The widely prevalent theory that Germany has sought to force war on the United States merely in order

to enable herself to yield to the whole world in arms does not bear examination. The Germans still think they can snatch some sort of victory.

No Government in their senses who wanted to win would deliberately try to range another 90 millions of people against themselves .The German authorities have evidently been guided by two main considerations. They have persuaded themselves, on the evidence of the last two and a-half years, that in any case the United States probably will not fight. They have possibly become further convinced that even if President Wilson took the extreme step of declaring war he can do nothing effective in the field for the next six months. The Germans are staking all their chances on victory in Europe within six months. They think that in the meantime anything that the United States may do does not matter. Whatever events may follow the severance of nominal friendship between the United States and Germany, we have to keep our thoughts fixed on the great problem which lies before us and is still unsolved. Our problem is that of countering the new submarine campaign, and in the main the task must devolve upon ourselves, for it is against us that the menace is chiefly aimed. The campaign is the logical development of Germany’s unparalleled ruthlessness in warfare. It is so bold, so measured, it has been planned with so much foresight, that we should neither scoff at it nor treat it lightly.

Nor should we waste any more breath in denouncing its violations of law and its manifest inhumanity. Above all, we should not make the mistake of regarding it as simply the last despairing effort of a beaten foe. It is fai’ more serious. Consider when this campaign must have been decided on. Germany must have begun her preparations more than a year ago. She must have begun building, building, building her new submarines when she still seemed in the full tide of success, when she had just overrun Western Russia and Serbia, and before she struck and failed at Verdun. The policy of Germany in the matter of war has always been to look years ahead. She planned the whole war long ago. She waited six years while the Kiel Canal was being deepened to permit the passage of Dreadnoughts, but six weeks after the

Canal was ready she went to war. Her earlier submarine campaigns were successfully overcome, but she quietly built flotillas of bigger, faster and better-armed vessels. They are ready now, and she has always meant to use them, remorselessly if she could. The “Daily Mail” foresaw this accurately enough in 1915. Germany hopes to starve us cut before we starve her out, and she will shrink from no crime to attain her ends. She is convinced that she can succeed, and that is the simple explanation of her present proceedings. There is nothing subtle about her course of action, save only the long concealment of her plans, which are crude enough.

There is far too much inclination to assume that the new submarine campaign has been devised because the Germanic land forces have shot their bolt. It is far too readily believed that Germany has lost all hopes of a victory on land. If we realise that Germany has been steadily building hosts of submarines for considerably over a year we shall perceive that these pleasant conceptions are misleading. The submarine policy is only one side of the huge and mighty final effort which Germany is preparing. It does not seem to be generally understood in this country that Marshal von Hindenburg has been placed in supreme control of both the land and sea forces of the Germanic Powers and their allies. The order for “an unrestricted U-boat war” came from Hindenburg. The German Chancellor himself has said so. It is further reasonably certain that now the High Seas Fleet is under the unfettered direction of a soldier he will order it to put fortune to the test when he thinks the right moment has arrived. Hindenburg is undoubtedly not relying upon submarines and battleships alone. He expresses confidence in the military situation, as he is bound in any case to do, and he is inevitably preparing great strokes upon land also. They must come, if anywhere, in the west. He cannot waste another year upon unprofitable adventures in Russia and the Balkans while marking time before the immense array of French and British forces in France and Flanders. The disappearance of Bulgarian divisions from the Rumanian front suggests that General Sarrail may soon be hotly engaged, but Hindenburg’s gaze is assuredly turning westward.. This year should decide.