OCR Text |
Show STRANGLING? What with the German TJ-boat warfare, war-fare, food riots at The Hague and new restrictions on coal consumption in Germany, Ger-many, the world war is entering a new phase. We cannot guess closely what will develop even with the aid of the prophets, and yet we can realize that more than ever the conflict will be a war of supplies. The war gods have summoned famine to their aid in the hope that hunger may deal the fatal blow to some one of the- belligerent powers. pow-ers. Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg told the world what Germany expected to accomplish by ruthless U-boat warfare. war-fare. First of all, Germany hoped to starve England, but, failing in that, to so reduce the fuel supply of France and Russia that these nations na-tions would be compelled to close factories fac-tories needed in manufacturing muni-, tions and perhaps even to shut down some of their railroads. Industrial paralysis, par-alysis, according to this theory, would be but the prelude to military paralysis. paraly-sis. German calculations have fallen just short of realization since the first assaults as-saults on the fortifications at Liege. Figures have invariably deluded the Germans. They have pinned their faith to certain magical numbers, only to find that the numbers failed them in the test. Perhaps they have deceived themselves them-selves once again in the figures they have assembled to demonstrate the early triumph of submarine warfare. Doctor Paul Rahrhar-h, 'a leader of the German Socialists, writing in the Berlin Deutsche Politik, declares that the crops on hand in Great Britain, FTanee and Italy, together with all possible pos-sible imports, will not suffice until "April, 1917, when the entente will be where they wanted us to be: facing starvation if the Dardanelles remain closed. And our army, our navy and our allies will see to that." Doctor Rahrbach then quotes an elaborate set of statistics prepared by the economist, Doctor Herman Weil of Frankfort, in an effort to demonstrate that the entente en-tente will not be able to import enough food to save itself from starvation. This will be due, he says, not only to the shortage of ships, but to the shortage of crops. Only by opening the Dardanelles can the entente be saved. But while Doctor Rahrbach figures j thus triumphantly comes word that the j German government, in order to save I fuel, has closed schools, theaters and public halls, and will heat the museums just enough to prevent the collections from being injured. This may be greatly great-ly or but slightly significant. The Germans Ger-mans have ever been forehanded in preparing pre-paring against the evil days of dearth. By taking the food problem in hand almost al-most at the outset, they became self-sustaining self-sustaining and have lived without importing im-porting much of anything from overseas. over-seas. Nevertheless, the outsider cannot can-not but be impressed by the fact that while Germany assumes to be starving England and freezing France, she herself her-self is starving and freezing. The seas are still open to the entente for importations; impor-tations; they long have been closed to the Teutons. The German U-boats have not yet proved the correctness of the figures prepared by Doctor Rahrbach and Doctor Weil. If Germany imported anything of help to her up to the time the U-boat warfare began in all its lawlessness law-lessness she must have been dependent depend-ent to a certain degree upon the outside. out-side. Unrestricted submarine warfare, we may conclude, is not without its effects upon Germany. And we have the evidence of the food riots at The Hague to show that our conclusion is not without merit. In other words, Germany cannot cut off the supplies of the entente and the neutrals without at the same time- cutting cut-ting off a certain part of her own supplies. sup-plies. If we assume that the neutral, countries, Sweden, Norway, l5enmark and Holland, were able to give Germany some of their supplies we are reasonably reason-ably safe in assuming that they can do so no longer. The riots at The Hague support the view, for surely if Holland has not sufficient food for her own people she cannot have any food to spare for Germany. And if Sweden has not enough coal and iron for her own uses she cannot send any coal and iron to Germany. .Is there not danger that Germany, clutching at the throat of the foe, may be strangled to death by the violence of her own exertions! |