Salt Lake Tribune | 1916-07-30 | Page 1 | National Leaders Review the War German Defeat is Held Certain

NATIONAL LEADERS REVIEW THE WAR GERMAN DEFEAT IS HELD CERTAIN Some Expect Early Ending; Others Look for Prolonged Pro-longed Struggle. SOME of tho most noted men In the world leaders In all walks of life In the belligorent nations of Europe, Eu-rope, today, on the eve of the second sec-ond anniversary of the opening of the tltantic conflict -which is shaking the world, answer vital questions regarding the gTcat war. Statesmen, financiers, military experts, editors and othors of fame, in cabled dispatches dis-patches to the International News Service, answer the following three , questions: 1. How long will the war last7 2. What will another year of the war cost In lives and money? 3. What will be the condition of the four principal belligerents as to means of continuing war at the end of another year? These questions were asked by cable by the International News Service. The roplics follow: By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. LONDON, July 9. 1 From six to nine months. 2 This is immaterial when weihoil against tho fulfillment of honorable obligations. 3 (iennany aiul Austria will be bankrupt. The allies will he faced J by a long period of taxation and economy. By Lord Derby. lONDON, July 29. 1 Till the allieJ forces are victorious. 2 Impossible to. estimate,. 3 England, France and Russia victorious, with Germany and Austria Aus-tria accepting' terms which will insure in-sure the end of militarism in F.U-ropc F.U-ropc and peai-c for many generations gener-ations to come. By Sir Gilbert Parker. LONDON. July 29. 1 For another an-other nine mouths. 2 More than this year has cost. 3 Germany and Austria will be terribly hurt, financially, morally and territorially. England, Franco, and Russia will be hurt, but not in the same proportion of injury. France will have got back Alsace and Lorraine; Russia will have back Poland and will have the freedom free-dom of the strait of the Dardanelles; Darda-nelles; England will give South Africa permission to annex German southwest Africa. By Jerome K. Jerome. LONDON", July 29. 1 Till the people take the "matter out of the hands of their governors and end it. 2 The same as usual. 3 Richer iu wisdom; poorer in goods. By Dr. Arthur Lynch, M. P. LONDON, July 29. 1 The allies al-lies cannot achieve victory decisively de-cisively within two years from this date and unless there be great changes in the government of this country. 2 Another year of war will cost JEROME K. JEROME, who says war will end when people take the war out of the hands of their governments govern-ments and settle it themselves. 'ml i.V far more in men and money than the year ju?t ending; probably as much as the two years together. By Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge. LOXDOX, July 29. It is very largely a matter of opinion how long the war will lat. It certainly cer-tainly will last until the "German" armies are so thoroughly beaten that the German people iu general will become aware of it. Tbe thorough defeat of the German Ger-man armies is necessary tp allow the people of Germany to see how terribly they have been exploited by the Prussian junker and militarist militar-ist element and the Flohenzollern family, who have wilfully brought this awful calamity upon Europe and the world. Tho real question, then, is how long will it take to defeat the German Ger-man armies thoroughly! Tho German high command knows that, man for man, their men are no equal as fighters to the British, French nnd Russians that is why they depend on fortifications, fortifica-tions, trenches, heavy artillery, poisonous gas and lachrymatory shells. Their men cannot stand up against their enemies in the open field, so the further length of the German Notables Still Speak Confidently of the Outcome of Conflict. wnr depends on the time at which the German armies will be forced to fight in tho open. In my opinion this is not likely to happen before next year, perhaps per-haps not till th1 autumn of 1017. The casualty lists till the end of the war will be enormous quite probably 3,7jM,0QO killed, wounded and prisoners. Further expenditure of money by the name powers will be equal, perhaps per-haps exceed 7,."jOO,000,OuO pounds sterling. Austria is already bankrupt; Germany soon will be. Though the entente allies will suffer heavily in the economic domain, the open sa will for them have prevented anything like bankruptcy. The condition of the five belligerent bellig-erent states when -the war ends will be: An almost irretrievably ruined Austria-Hungary, a ruined Germany, deprived of her colonies, except siu-h as the mer y of her victors vic-tors leave Jit; having to begin all over again t!ie development of her maritime commerce ; a heavily burdened bur-dened but economically expanding Russia; a straitened but far from crushed France; a seriously indebted indebt-ed but commercially and industrially industrial-ly vigorous British empire. There will be a multitude of desolate deso-late hearts and ruined homes. All these conditions ere a gift of the Hohenzollern family and its PoU-dam PoU-dam advisers to the world. By General Robertson, Chief of the British General Staff. LOXDOX, July 2. The British Brit-ish empire has now, at the end of tho second year of the greit war, put her now armies to the proof, and they have not been found wanting. She has still men, guns and munitions to bring into the field, and enters the third year of thii great struggle for right and liberty with confidence. By Archibald Hurd, . Naval Expert. LOXDOX, July 29. 1. I believe Kitchener's statement that the war will last three years will prove to be the outside estimate. Ten years intervened between Trafalgar and Waterloo. I am convinced that owing ow-ing to industrial developments and the increased needs of the central powers, our sea power is far more effective and swifter in its action than it was, in spite of the defensive defen-sive value of the mine and submarine. subma-rine. I doubt whether, after the blow inflicted in the battle of Jutland, Jut-land, Germany can face another winter, win-ter, that is, the three dead months of January, February and March. 2. I cannot answer. 3. Germany and Austria will have reached a point iu physical economy and exhaustion such as no (Continued on Page Nineteen.) iii lSers REVIEW THE IR (Continued from Tano One.) powers in the pat have experienced. Pliey have been besieged by urn and land for t w only four months, and with the progress uf t inio const fiction fic-tion has becomo more, not less, severe. se-vere. On (ho other hand, Knglnml, in particular, and Prance and h'usn'ui, though they will have big dchls, will recover rapidly from the eiVects of war. By Sir Hiram Maxim. LONDON, .luly liP.Tho present war is unique in character. In wars of tho past some great principle has been involved, some nMion wanted something it could not got without war. In the present case there is no fTcat principle involved. The war las been brought on simply because one man wanted war. Kaiser Wilhclm, after many yenrs of td re into 1 is effort, created the greatest and most efficient army tho world ever knew. Having gotten it into perfect condition ami supplied it wit h enormous quantities of war material, ho was extremely anxious to seo what it would do, J'lo wished to try it on somebody. He did not reckon on Kngland .joining the war, hut as J-mlnnd did join in and has created an army of 4, 0i 10,000 men, and is exerti ng her every resource, the war cannot Inst much longer. ( Jenna ny already is near tho end of her tether and will have to yield before the crops of next season aro ready to be harvested. har-vested. The war is costing England about b 00Of0i)0 sterling a day." It is probably prob-ably costing (lermauy half as much, Pra'ace about J.tMn,000, Austria prohablv 2.Oim).0O0, Kussia 4,000,000 and Italy l.uOO.'tuO. About"i0m,t)n0 moro lives will probably be lost. All the nations engaged in the war will be enormously enor-mously in debt and the inhabitants will be taxed to the point of exhaustion. ex-haustion. Otherwise the public debts will have to be repudiated. By Dr. Seigfried Heckscher, Vice Chairman of the Reichstag Committee on Foreign Relations. BERLIN", July 20. Continuance of the war turns essentially upon the question of how long the French people will remain sufficiently suffi-ciently fanatical and blinded to sacrifice sac-rifice their blood and their national strength in behalf of sea tyranny and commercial world hegemony of England and upon how long tho Erench people will cling to the superstition su-perstition encouraged by complaisant complais-ant ministers and newspapers that Germany is waging a, war of annihilation an-nihilation against France. When France will awaken from English hypnotism I do not know. Its process proc-ess of recovery seems to be lasting considerably longer than the awakening awak-ening of Russia, which recentlv, through a treaty of alliance with Japan, gave clear proof of entrance upon an independence of England. On the other hand, I am certain the German people, with unswaver-ing unswaver-ing sacrifice and with iron energv, will continue the struggle for self-defense self-defense until they have received the necessary guarantees which will make impossible within a measure-able measure-able space of time a repetition by England of a world war recognized and directed by it against its peaceful, peace-ful, but successful and uncomfortable uncomfort-able competitor, Germany. By Eugene Zimmerman, Editor-in-Chief of the Lokal Anzel-gcr, Anzel-gcr, and iu Confidential Relationship Relation-ship With the German Government. BERLIN, July 29. In my opinion, opin-ion, it is certain the war will last another year, unless Germany's enemies en-emies reach the conclusion that all efforts to break our lines will prove fruitless. Another possibility for shortening the war certainly exists, but it lies exclusively in the hands of the Fnited States, which, by prohibiting prohibit-ing the sale and export of arms and ammunition to whomsoever it may .be, could easily save a hundred hun-dred thousand human lives. I do not believo in any change in tho military situation to favor our enemies. I consider, on the contrary, that improvement in the German military position is certain. As for the situation, it will certainly certain-ly grow worse for our opponents, who will become more and more dependent de-pendent on foreign countries. Germany's Ger-many's economic position will improve im-prove when the distribution of our foodstuffs, of which there is no real scarcity, shall be completed. Respecting finance, Germany has nothing to fear, because all the money remains in the country as a necessary result of our geographical geographi-cal seciudedness. This unintentional uninten-tional advantage was conferred by the "blockade." Germany's position is certain to bo better next year than it is to- day. Franco will find herself in e ven g renter dependence on England En-gland Until now. and Kngland her-Helf her-Helf will feel the effects of tho great conflict much mure next year than at I he conclusion of the hoc-ond hoc-ond yeiir of t ho war. IfiisMii will understand mnro clearly than ever her enormous Ipsnch (hat are entirely In the interest in-terest nf Kii gland, and will nee.lc closer relations with Jnpati. Smaller Small-er allies of our opponents will further fur-ther wait in vain for rehabilitation by Eneland. The economic position posi-tion ot Ihn entente will bo a difficult dif-ficult one and it will be too Into to regret not having responded to Germany 'h present inclination for an appropriate pence. Tho war will ond only with appalling ap-palling hiss of humanity in its entirety. en-tirety. The most precious capital, the fife force of this earth, will bo diminished. How littlo wo think of ourselves in our wish for peace may bo proved .by tho fact that wo shall suffer bust of all from loss of that precious capit a I men for we know already that hundreds of thousands ot young Germans now in foreign countries will compensate, compen-sate, after tho war for a considerable consider-able part of our losses. By Professor Ludwigstein, Germany '8 Most Distincniflhcd Pbiloso-, pher and Historian. 1 B Kit LIN, July -'.. It is in principle possible, but in thought inconceivable that tho war fever 1 will endure another twelve months. Thero is a point at which a fever must subside and health return or ! death supervene. I cannot beliovo in the death of Kurope. I cannot admit to my mind thut Europe will commit miirido. Tho third year of war? Yen, it is possible in principle. Germany can prolong tho war. England, I think, also can prolong it. England Eng-land is losing money and prestige, but her loss in men has not been overwhelming. But what uf the rest of Europe! If this nony is prolonged into next winter 1' ranco will cease fo exist otherwise than its a glorious recollection. recol-lection. Franco is, historically, a perfectly per-fectly recognizable stale under the law "of centralization and decay when each family has two children. A winter campaign would mean literally lit-erally and simply tho extinction of France. Russia cannot endure. Phe has men enough, but cannot feed them and cannot maintain her ' agriculture. agricul-ture. The continuance of war for Russia means starvation and revolution. revo-lution. Fence or self-destruction are the alternatives that will face Europe. By Dietrich Schaefer, National Liberal Leader and Professor of History at the University of Eeriin. BERLIN. July 9. How long the war will lat no one knows; guesses are valueless. j Germany and her allies in respect : to mi lit ary and economic resources can hold out as long as tho war needs to be carried on. As to what position ours will be at the end of the third year of the war no one can say with any certainty. Wo Germans are convinced that a third year of the conflict will bring our opponents more disadvantage than . it will us. By Yves Guyot, Ex-Minister of Commerce and Foremost French Economist. PARIS, July 29. The war will end by December next, provided continued favorable weather enables en-ables the allies to keep up the strong and steady military pressure pres-sure against Germany and Austria which they hpvo now begun to combine com-bine with their economical offensive. offen-sive. The enemy defenses consist solely of three fortified lines. Onco the Franco-British troops have smashed the third lino, as they have already in the Sommo valley smashed tho first two enemy defenses, there will be a German retreat comparable for speed only with that of their advance across Belgium in August, 1914. I say in all sincerity that never before has tho allies' military situation sit-uation looked brighter. From special access which I have had to official estimates of the belligerents' bel-ligerents' reserves, 1 can say that at the moment when Germany is embarrassed to find troops to sweep back the tide which is swamping her lines in so many parts of tho front, England and France have 10,000,000 effectives. , The French have 2,500,000 men at the front and as many in reserve, to nay nothing of 250,000 at Saloniki. The trained and equipped British force, counting colonials, is at the lowest figure 5,000,000. I have no definite figures of the present strength of the Russian, Italian, Serbian and Belgian armies, but together to-gether they certain! v exceed 10,000,-000. 10,000,-000. To the aggregate of 20,000,000 troops fighting under the allied flags I question very much whether Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey can oppose more than 10,-000,000. 10,-000,000. The great Russian offensive in Galicia has had the desired effect on Rumania, who will shortly take up arms on tho side of the allies in order that sho may win Transylvania Transyl-vania with its population of 4,000,-000 4,000,-000 Rumanians. An allied offensive from Saloniki is imminent, and with the French and British attacking her on one side and Rumania on the other, Bulgaria Bul-garia will have no other course but to capitulate. ; The secret of the allies' favorable favor-able situation at this moment is that after two years of warfare they have been able to pool their forces and strike simultaneously. By Joseph Reinach, Famous French War Historian. PARIS, July 29. Wo have turned the corner. After a careful consideration of all the factors, I believe that Germany cannot held out for another twelve months, whilo Austria-Hungary must collapse col-lapse by the end of November at the outside. Economically the central cen-tral empires have, of course, been bottom dog since the beginning of tho war, and time only worsens their situation in this respect. But, as Lloyd-George said, to defect Germany wo must smash the prestige pres-tige of her armies by defeating her in the field, otherwise the allies will never be able to guarantee Europe Eu-rope a permanent peace. This wo shall do. The German feet are now at the top of a slippery incline, and from now on she will slide steadily backward back-ward till she falls. The monstrous Verdun offensive I and the Deutschland's underwater I trip to Baltimore are alike novel advertising devices, but to all such pretensions the allied armies are now dailv giving the lie, and the mathematically certain result of their efforts will be that an armistice" armis-tice" will be sought by a beaten Germany before August, 1917.