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Show W 111 a 'Trial of the 'War Criminals' )c Allmnalh oriJncondilional Surrenl(T? Von Hlndonburg and Von I.udemlorf Their niinu-s bended the list of Gorman "war erlnilnals" of 1H14-18. man aggression plunge the world into another holocaust. The kaiser, however, was not the only German leader whom the victorious vic-torious Allies had mnrked for punishment. pun-ishment. Another article in the Versailles Ver-sailles treaty stipulated that "the German government recognizes the right of the Allied powers to bring before military tribunals persons accused ac-cused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war . . . The German government govern-ment shall hand over to the Allied powers all persons accused of such offenses." A list of 900 names, which included in-cluded almost all of the military and political leaders of Germany during the war, was prepared in accordance accord-ance with this article. The publication publica-tion of this list, which was headed by the names of Field Marshal Von Hindenburg and General Ludendorf, stirred up a violent protest among the people of Germany and the new rulers of that country pleaded with the Allies not to force them to hand - 4. Thfv lUdu't '.u K.tiscf' la 101s. but Will Adolf IV as Lucky? Pv I'.l.MO SCOTT WATSON "1 T NCOMMTIOX AI, sur-I sur-I J lviulor" is the wnK-h-word of the Allies nnd, after that has been brought about, the Axis leaders lead-ers who plunged the world into war will be placed upon trial for the crimes against humanity which they nnd their followers have committed. commit-ted. Such is the promise of President Pres-ident Roosevelt and Frime Minister Churchill nnd it is not likely that there will be any objection to that program from Joseph Stalin and Generalissimo Gen-eralissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Certainly if the people of Poland, Po-land, France, Belgium, Holland, Hol-land, Norway, Denmark, Greece and Czecho-Slovakia have anything to say about it. Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito and their fellow international gangsters will not escape punishment pun-ishment as did Kaiser Wil-helm Wil-helm a quarter of a century ago. Back In 1917-1S "hang the kaiser" was a popular slogan in the Allied countries even after the German monarch had abdicated and found refuge in Holland. That slogan helped continue Prime Minister Lloyd George in power in the British elections of November, 1918, and that the promise in it might be made good was indicated by Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed a few months later. The article said: The Allied and Associated Powers publicly arraign Wil-helm Wil-helm II of Hohenzollern, formerly former-ly German emperor, for supreme su-preme offenses against international interna-tional morality and the sanctity of treaties. The Allied and Associated Powers will address a request to the government of the Netherlands for the surrender surren-der to them of the ex-emperor in order that he may be put on trial. Accordingly it was proposed that a tribunal, consisting of five judges, one each from the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, should be organized to serve as a court of justice for the arch-criminal, arch-criminal, and in January, 1920, a formal demand was made upon Holland Hol-land for his surrender. But immediately imme-diately the plan struck a snag. For the Dutch government announced that it was not a signatory to the "Versailles treaty, therefore not bound by its terms and, moreover. Its national honor forbade the surrender sur-render of the royal refugee. Expressing the fear that the kaiser kai-ser might flee from Holland, the Allied governments repeated their demand. But Queen Wilhelmina and her ministers announced that this lear wras groundless since by royal decree the kaiser would be restricted restrict-ed to a certain section of Utrecht and forbidden to leave it. Warning the Dutch government that "the responsibility re-sponsibility is now that of the Netherlands," Neth-erlands," the Allies left the matter there and so the Prussian war-lord retired to his wood-chopping at Doom where he lived to see an Austrian house-painter revive his old dream of world-domination and Ger- Turkey nnd It Is doubtful If any of these would welcome the arch-crim-Inul of nil history. The present Fascist-minded government of Argentina Argen-tina might if he could get across the Atlantic, either by U-boat or airplane. air-plane. But that is a remote possibility, possi-bility, so it looks as though the Austrian Aus-trian house-painter has little chance of living to a ripe if dishonored old age in exile. Perhaps, like Napoleon, he wotdd exclaim "I prefer death." That was what the French dictator said when told that the British government was sending him to the barren rock of St. Helena. After his defeat at Waterloo, Wa-terloo, he surrendered to the captain of the British man-o'-war, Bellero-phon, Bellero-phon, and threw himself upon the mercy of the prince regent, who later lat-er became King George IV. Napoleon Napo-leon believed that he would be allowed al-lowed to settle down In some comfortable com-fortable little place in England and great was his dismay and indignation indigna-tion when he learned that his captors cap-tors had other plans for him. A Dictator in Exile. It was then that he declared his preference for death and it is said that Lord Liverpool, the British prime minister, was quite willing to accommodate him, just as millions mil-lions today would be glad to accommodate accom-modate Adolf Schickclgruber if he expressed a preference for death to exile or imprisonment. However, delegates from Great Britain, Russia, Rus-sia, Austria and Prussia who formed the "Convention of Paris" in 1815 to pass upon Napoleon's war guilt overruled over-ruled the wish of the British prime minister and the exile to St Helena was the result. On that cheerless little island in the South Atlantic, he spent the next six years as a military mili-tary prisoner with the rank of a British Brit-ish general "out of employment." Under instructions from the British government, he was treated as Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, not as the emperor em-peror of France. , One of the horrors of civil war is the bitterness of feeling between citizens of the same country which frequently transcends the bitterness the people of one nation feel toward "foreigners" with whom they are at war. During the Revolution many Patriots had a greater hatred for their former friends and neighbors, ! - - iT v i V: . I , -v s fh " : i . A: ; 7-.-v.u--- -NTs. : I , , i- . KAISER WILHELM II wno were, loyalists, or lories, uian they had for the British soldiers or the Hessian mercenaries. Similarly four years of war which began in 1861 engendered animosities that were to linger for generations. If many Southerners hated "that ape in the White House." there were 7 an equal large number of Northerners North-erners whose favorite fa-vorite song was a promise to "hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree." For the North, which could admire ad-mire the military genius of a Lee or a "Stonewall" Jackson, apparently appar-ently could not Jefferson Davis I over these war criminals, declaring that it would mean the overthrow of the government and the resultant chaos. Farcical Trials. In response to this plea, the Allied governments cut the list down to 45 persons and permitted the Germans to conduct the trials. The result was a foregone conclusion. The Germans stalled as long as possible on the matter and it was not until three years after the war ended that a court in Leipzig went through the motions of staging a trial. All of the war criminals were freed either because their "innocence was proved" or because "their misdeeds were not covered by German law." By this time the Allies were no longer allied and public sentiment among their peoples was largely indifferent in-different to the idea of retribution. As a climax to the whole farcical affair, the outstanding "war criminal," crim-inal," Von Hindenburg, was elected president of the republic of Germany and the weakness of this hard-bitten old warrior as the head of a civil government paved the way for the rise of Adolf Schickelgruber. So the "war criminals" section of the Versailles treaty remained as the only dead letter in it until this same Schickelgruber made the others dead letter also by tearing up the whole treaty and hurling it in the faces of Germany's conquerors. Will the "war criminals" of 1939 "get away with it" the same way that those of 1914 did? . Will Schickelgruber Schick-elgruber emulate the kaiser and find sanctuary in some "neutral" country? coun-try? The list of such possible havens is small indeed Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain and v y L h i V- ? i t i ' ix - i . V O' ''fti A concede that "that archtraitor," Jefferson Davis, had a single admirable trait. So their wrath for all "rebels" was concentrated concen-trated on the head of the president of the Confederacy. After Lee's surrender Davis, with members of his cabinet, fled south and he was captured in Georgia. He was imprisoned in Fortress Monroe and subjected to unnecessary indignities indig-nities through the influence of certain cer-tain revengeful members of the radical wing of the Republican party who were determined to bring him to trial for his "war guilt." Finally, after two years, Davis was released, with Horace Greeley and other Northerners, who had been his bitterest bit-terest enemies during the war, providing pro-viding his bail bond. His health broken by his prison experience and the public outcry for revenge having died down, no further effort was made to prosecute him. Napoleon at St. Helena |