Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 19 August 1915, Page 21

Current Topics

Sir Edward’s Changed' Role 1 The Westminster Gazette, on the announcement of the personnel of the British Coalition Ministry, declared that the appointment of Sir Edward Carson as Attorney-General was a conspicuous example of poacher turned game-keeper and an American paper, the Antigonish Casket, puts the same point still more vividly: ‘lf the poor workingmen of England should have a not this summer, they will have the novel experience of being prosecuted by a man who, last July, was threatening his King with civil war and challenging the Government of which he is now a member to pass laws to his liking or “come out and fight.” ’ Even the heist ion World, one of the staunchest supporters of the Liberal Party, launches severe condemnation against the appointment. ‘ The inclusion of Sir Edward Carson, especially- as a Law Officer,’ it says, ‘ is the one item in the new Cabinet that offends. Sir ‘Edward Carson has stood during these last few years for open defiance of constituted authority, and vet he is now a Law Officer of the Crown. lie has gloried in being a rebel, and he has preached rebellion. How he would act if there were Labor troubles during the war it is difficult to imagine. It may be, and probably is, that the Unionists insisted on Sir Edward’s inclusion as the price of their support, but it would have been better for the internal peace of the land not to have offended the public sentiment of the larger part of the nation in this way, and we are sorry that the Prime Minister has succumbed.’ The. appointment of this lawless lawyer was, in short, a scandal ; and there have been persistent demands that, it should be cancelled. The Russian Line : * Wail and See ’ It is not a pleasant thing to see the Russians driven further and further back, albeit our regretmust certainly be tinged with admiration at the utter absence of panic and disorder with which the retirement is being conducted, and the fine and determined stands which are being made whenever the opportunity offers. We freely confess that it would be more cheerful to have the position of things reversed, and to witness the Germans having their turn at beating these strategic retreats. That, no doubt, will come in due time: and in the meantime there is no occasion to attach undue importance to Germany s present successes in the east. Their moral effect on the Russian army is evidently unite negligible : and from the heavy losses which he is inflicting upon the enemy whenever a stand is possible, and the eagerness with which he is looking forward to a resumption of the. offensive, it is apparent that the clan of the Russian soldier is in no wav impaired. Nor do the German successes appear to have made a substantial impression upon the neutral nations; for the latest cables make it perfectly clear that Bulgaria- the only doubtful neutral in the. Balkansis wilting and ready, in spite of the German advance in the cast, to take up arms on the. side of the Allies the moment her demands arc granted. * As to the military significance of the eastward advance, it must be admitted, of course, that it represents a considerable stretch of territory to be recovered, and that it will so far mean a delay in the final defeat of Germany. But both German and English press writers are clear and definite on the point that so long as the Russian armies remain intact there is no element of decisiveness about the operations that have been in progress in Galicia and West Poland during the last couple of months. ‘ Since the position on the BzuraRawka front was given up,’ says the Cologne Gazette, the possession of Warsaw has lost its military importance.’ ‘No fortress, not even Paris,’ says the Vossische Zei*ung, ‘can be regarded as the final object of military operations. Peace will only follow the ruin of our enemies’ armies.’ English press writers

take precisely the same line. Apart from, the sentimental considerations involved in the abandonment of the Galician capital, Lemberg, so dear to Russian hearts, there are legitimate grounds for congratulation on the preservation of the Russian armies intact with an unimpaired capacity to resume the initiative when the psychological moment arrives,’ says the Times Petrograd correspondent. ‘ If the Russians have received blows they are all the time giving them, and with a. new and powerful Ally, we in the west are not in least dismayed by the fear of any harm that can be done us by the German armies now in the east, or such of them as can be extricated after the present exhausting conflict,’ says the Westminster Gazette. ‘ Our enemies will do well to understand that we are going to endure to the end, and that we are confident of our power to make the “fruitful peace when it comes, a peace which will rid us of their menace in the future.-* ‘The incalculable wastage of the German new formations involved in the strategy of the Grand Duke Nicholas is a factor that outweighs the geographical venue of the struggle. And while this protracted luemorrhage goes on Jo lire and Kitchener and French are calmly and secretly perfecting their plans. Wait and see,’ says the Loudon Star. ' So long as the Russian line remains unbroken,’ says Mr. Belloc, there can he no decision, and if the Russians maintain it intact until the great offensive is delivered in the West they will have done all that was expected of them. The chance of its being broken now is more remote than since the end of April.’ These words were written at the end of June. The principle then laid down still holds, and the Russian line is still unbroken. ‘The higher military authorities,’ says one of last week’s cables from Petrograd, regard the Russians on the Vistula as an army out of danger. The troops are taking up positions without- precipitation at the rear, and are not at the moment threatened, showing indications that the impetus of the Austro-German attack is weakening.’ Each side naturally tries to-make the best of its position : but after making full allowance for this weakness, there appears to he good ground for the assertion that there is nothing permanent or conclusive about the German eastern successes of the past two months. The Long Way to Constantinople The fresh batches of heavy casualty lists which have been published during the past week serve to bring vividly home to us the tremendous difficulty of the task which the Allies have undertaken in attempting to force a way to Constantinople. The progress made is, indeed, sure; but it is as slow as it is costly. Our troops landed at Gabatepe, by a feat of gallantry which will go down in history, on April 25; We are near the end of August, and the Allies have not yet secured a sufficient, hold on the peninsula to be able to protect the whole of the part which they occupy at its extreme toe from being shelled by the enemy. The immediate obstacle, as every reader now knows, is the hill called Achi Baba. It is only 700 feet high and from the Allies’ side is the culmination of a gradual rise of the ground from the sea. But until our troops can take Achi Baba and post their batteries upon it the Turkish guns mounted on that hill and the others round it can bombard all the part which the Allies now hold. Achi Baba, is Spion Kop, on a smaller scale; and the natural features which, give it exceptional strength as a defensive position have been taken advantage of to the full. It has been cunningly entrenched under the direction of German sappers who have learned all the lessons that the war in the west has taught. Even when this vital and dominating position has been taken, our men have still to carry out the object which the landing- on the Gallipoli Peninsula was intended to effect —namely, the capture of the forts on the European side of the Narrows. To accomplish this, the troops will have to advance a good deal farther—about eight miles—over very broken and difficult country. ° As it has taken nearly four months to

advance to the point where the British and' Australasian front trenches now areabout four miles from the landing-points—it is evident that it is a long way yet, not alone to Constantinople, bur even to the Maidos and Kilid Bahr forts. If, therefore, the cable item in Saturday’s , papers can be relied upon which states that a vulnerable point has been found further up the western coast of the peninsula, it is very welcome news. It is evident, at least, that a determined forward move is being made, and the heavy casualty lists are the measure of the vigor and intensity of the offensive. * The long and hard road to Constantinople would, of course, be made very much shorter and easier if a back-door entrance or way round to the Turkish capital could be found; and, as everybody knows, the Allied diplomats have for months past been bending all their energies to attain that end. If Greece joined the Allies, she could send an army to land at Enos or at Bulair, at the root end of the Gallipoli Peninsula; and £he Turks would either have to fall back and let them advance or they would be compelled to withdraw troops from Gallipoli to meet them, and so lighten the Allied Army’s task. If Bulgaria threw in her lot with the Entente that would probably settle the matter so far as the fate of Turkey is concerned, and the end would be rapidly reached. Bulgaria, from the military point of view, is important for two reasons. She has one of the best armies in the Balkans, and by geographical position holds the key of the back door entrance to Constantinople. ‘ The Bulgarians boasted to me when I was there last month,’ says Mr. G. W. Price, correspondent to the Dad Mail, ‘ that they would be in possession of Adrianople a couple of days after the declaration of war on Turkey. It would not take them long, with most of the guns from the forts and the garrison sent to the Dardanelles. And from Adrianople you have got the railway and open country right down to Constantinople, with only the Chataldja lines, which are weak in comparison with the Gallipoli positions, to cover the capital.’ But Greece is afraid of Bulgaria, and until she definitely knows that country’s intentions will probably want to keep her army at home. That is why so far the Greek General Staff has set its face absolutely against sending a single Greek battalion out of the country. t Bulgaria, according to Saturday’s cables, is willing and waiting to join the Allies if her demands are granted, and there is at least this satisfaction about the situation that everybody knows exactly what her terms are. She wants Macedonia from Serbia and Kavalla from Greece—the territories that were originally allotted to her by the Balkan Confederation that defeated Turkey. So far the Allies have either not been disposed or have not been in a position to pay Bulgaria’s price ; and it is • generally understood that Serbia has been the obstructionist. Considering what she has suffered and what she stands to suffer by a prolongation of the struggle, it is difficult to understand why Serbia should be so obdurate, for it seems clear that the Allies could offer ample compensation—in the shape of an outlet upon the Adriatic and the cession of the strip of Hungarian territory called the Banat—for the few miles of Serbian territory involved. It looks as if a little gentle pressure would have to be applied.. As Mr. G. Ward Price puts it, ‘ This diplomatic nettle of the Balkans will have to be gripped, and England being the one Power whom all the Balkan States agree in trusting, it is to her that the initiative should fall.’ A Repudiated Interview The cabled accounts of the La LihrDe interview with the Pope, published in our dailies of June 24, was immediately followed by a message from Rome in which it was stated that the Osservatore Romano denied the correctness of the French journalist’s report of the in? terview, and declared that it contained ‘ many inaccuracies.’ The official repudiation and disavowal of the Librrto version, however, was in point of fact much more positive and emphatic than the mildlyworded cable supplied to us would lead the public to

suppose and in view of the fact that the bogus report has already been reproduced in full in this country and that it is not unlikely to crop up again in the tfolunius of, some of our newspapers, it is well worth while to place the definite official disclaimer upon record. First of all there was the statement of the . sservaiore Romano— is, for such purposes, the official organ of the Vatican— which it denied that the representative of La Liherte, M. Louis Latapie, had interpreted aright the mind of the Holy Father on the grave situation brought about by the war It called attention to the fact that there ,is ‘ an essential difference between the official public documents of the Holy See and private publications/ and continued: As to that which concerns the European conflict, the thought of the Sovereign Pontiff is not doubtful because it has been clearly expressed at different times in numerous pontifical documentsnamely, the Encyclical of November 1, 1914, the Christmas discourse to the Cardinals, the Consistorial allocution of January 22, 1915, many letters from the Pontiff to Cardinals and prelates, and the recent letvor on May 20, to the Cardinal Doyen.’ No attention, therefore, it urged should be paid to any statement purporting to give the views of the Holy Father on important questions unless it bo contained in the authorised and official letters signed by the Pope himself or by the Papal Secretary of State. * Then came a still more emphatic and categorical disavowal by Cardinal Gasparri, the Papal Secretary of State, embodied in an interview published in the high class and reliable journal, the Corriere d’ Italia, of June 28. His Eminence declared that M. Latapie had garbled, distorted, and wrenched the Avoids of his Holiness from their plain contextual sense in many passages, and that he ' had invented entirely many grave assertions. We give the terras of this important u.terancc m full. 'M. Latapie,’ said the Secretary ot State, invented entirely many grave assertions", Ton must remember that a phrase isolated from the context cannot reproduce faithfully a thought, or, what is worse, it gives a meaning entirely false. ’ For instance, take the quotation regarding hostages in Berlin. What confusion! The Pontiff is made to mix the Jews of Galicia, the Austrian priests of Cremona, and the Belgian prelates, all of which according to M. Latapie, was covered in the allocution of January 22. With regard to the Jews, it was in March that Austria-Hungary sent a protest to the Holy See. The protest was not mentioned, as the Vatican could not condemn Russia on the sole affirmation of Austria-Hungary. The Pope was informed that Italy had taken some parish priests of the towns occupied as hostages, but the Bishop of Cremona informed him that they were being treated with every regard. The Pope knows all this perfectly. How, then, could he put them in a category with the Belgian and French hostages or with the Jews of Russia? With regard to General von Bissing, the German Governor of Belgium, neither the Holy Father nor the Secretary of State ever received a letter or a communication from him directly or indirectly. Thus the Pope could not refer to such a letter, and he did not. The letter was born of the fervid imagination of M. Latapie.’ Cardinal Gasparri denied that Pope Benedict said: It was under the pontificate of Pius X.,’ when asked by M. Latapie if it was necessary to inquire whether the neutrality of Belgium had been violated. ‘But much graver/ continued his Eminence, ‘is the confusion of M. Latapie when he speaks of the relations between the Holy See and Italy. The following is the real opinion of the Pontiff: It is true that he wished Italy to remain outside the conflict upon receiving concessions from Austria, because he desired that Italy should not suffer the horrors of war, and he was preoccupied with the delicate position of the Church if Italy entered the conflict. v War once declared, the Church became entirely neutral. It has not in any way tried to prevent Catholics from doing their duty according to their consciences, and it has done every-

thing for the spiritual welfare of the soldiers.- ' The Pontiff recognises that the Italian Government has done - everything possible to attenuate any difficulties that might arise between it and the Holy See. The Vatican’s correspondence is not being touched. ' But that does not mean that the situation of the Holy See is normal. It does not intend to create embarrassment for the Government, s The Holy Father much deplored the sinking of the Lusitania, but he could not pronounce directly on it because there was before him a question of fact regarding which each side makes different assertions.’ Cardinal Gasparri ended the interview by saying: With regard to what concerned me personally I saw M. Latapie only a few minutes. In that time the diplomatic relations between the Holy See and France were not mentioned. M. Latapie would have done better had he maintained the promise he formally gave me not to publish anything without previous authorisation. But as that formal promise was not sufficient to preserve the Holy See from such deplorable indiscretions M. Latapie will have the honor of being the last journalist to be received by the Holy Father during the war.’ * There are good grounds for believing that the Liherte interview was deliberately cooked and doctored and turned and twisted with the express purpose of creating friction and ‘ bad blood ’ between the Governments of France and Italy and the Holy See. The attempt has failed; but there will be general satisfaction at Cardinal Gasparri’s ’announcement that henceforth the Vatican doors will be locked against all journalists and correspondents until after the conflict is over.