The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-12-30
THE GERMAN ARMY.

minister of war, General Won Elnem, dealt with the recent cases of maltreat- ment of soldiers and with other abuse
 in the, German army. With reference to the Forbach case c'Aus einer kleinen
 Garrison'), he said that Lieutenant Bilse's book, which he had read with disgust, was disgrace to a Prusslan officer. Nevertheless, part of it was un- fortunately true. He would not admit 1 that Dr. Schadler had established the necessity for modifying Prince Bis marck's remark with regard to the in- comparable qualities of the Prussian , lieutenant. There were doubtless black sheep even among the clergy, to whom | Dr. Schadler belonged, and just as such men disgraced their cloth, so it might be said that officers like those at Forbach were only outwardly soldiers of the kings army. Although some of
 them might still be in name General
 Won Elnem's comrades, he had no hesi-
 tation in declarig that they were not true Prussian officers.
 The Social Democratic press set down
 these abuses to "militarism." If the German military system were really at fault, then the nation must have dete- riorated during the last hundred years, since the army was the nation in
 arms" On the contrary, the German nation, by it's unparalleled energy, had conquered great portion of the mar
 kets of the world-a fact which the So- cial Democrats ought to be the first to recognize. Others had said that the fault lay in the isolation of officers as class and their exclusiveness, espe- cially in small garrisons, He himself had experience of small garrisons, and he had often found that the relations between the officers and the civilian population were as friendly and as cor dial as could be desired. If he were asked for an explanation of these dis dressing disclosures, he would almost be inclined to say that perhaps there had been too great catholicity with regard to the class from which officers were now being taken, and that they had now | reached a class of candidates who were I not qualified to meet the high demands made upon men who choose this profess sion. At Forbach there was not sim l gle officer who had been sent to that small garrison by way of punishment, and it was not true that the Army Ser vice Corps was officered by those who had been transferred from other com mands on discliplinary grounds. The reason why certain officers of the artil- lery and cavalry were transferred to the Army Service Corps was that. all though they might otherwise display admirable capabilities, they were not quite au fait in the technical duties of those arms in the field.
 He attributed the chief blame at For bach to the officer in command of the battalion, who would have to bear the consequences of having tolerated a state of things which was contrary to every dictate, human and divine" There were certain statements in Lieu tenant Blise's book regarding the con- duct of officers which he could dismiss with the utmost confidence as inyen- tions, and he was prepared in any case to declare that there is not another Forbach in the Prussian army" He
 
 general character and motherly kind ness of wives of officers, who would rightly be insulted by being compared with the women whose conduct had been gibbeted at Forbach.
 Passing to the question of maltreat- ment of soldiers, the war minister first of all gave some statistics Between July 8, 1902, and June 30, 1903, the num- Der of officers who had been punished for maltreatment of soldiers was fifty, of on-commissioned officers 525, and@of private and lance-corporals fifty-two. That was total percentage of twenty six of the officers of the army, .SS of the lnon-commissioned officers and .01 of the privates. There had been worse years in the course of the last decade and the figures in one of them were sixty-seyen officers, 792 commissioned officers and seventy-two privates. There had, therefore, been a decrease in these of- fences in recent years. It was true that the number of men who had been mal- treated in the course of last year was 1,2S9, but that was only percentage of .32 for the whole Prussian army. and he did not think that this was a percent age which warranted the description of this evil as epidemic" The Social Democrats would reply that the cases which were discovered and punished only represented a small proportion of the offences which had really been committed. The house would be inter- ested to hear, however, that of the cases in point 6S2 had been reported by way of complaint to the authorities, whereas only thirty-two per cent. had been discovered by other means.
 He had no intention whatever of min- imizing or excusing the jmaltreatment of soldiers. If there had only been one hundred cases, that would have been far too many. These cases of mal- treatment in which a non-commis- stoned officer seemed to take 8 brutal delight in inventing tortures for his men were the most horrible thing that could be imagined. He did not hesi- tate to say that if continued mattreat- ment prevailed in regiment or a com- pany it was bound to come to the knowledge of the superior officer, and it was inexplicable to him that superior officer should not be able to distinguish such cases. Such an officer must either have trained his sergeants badly or he mhst be altogether destitute of knowl- edge of men.
 Tho war minister added that he was convinced that this evil would be eradi- cated, and he declared that no one