Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-07-15
The Change Of Chancellors.


ministerial changes at Berlin comes the
positive announcement that Chancellor
Won Bethnann Hollweg has resigned
and that DIR. Michaelis. prussian under
secretary of state and food commits
sioner, has been named as his successor.
Thus after many conflicts the man who
has retained the confidence of the kaiser
since before the war began has yielded
and the emperor has granted conces-
sion to his enemies 1t is impossible to
know, in the murk of confusing reports,
the true meaning Of this change. 1t
cannot signify the prosecution of war
fare upon q more ruthless basis, for it
Is now at the extreme of German
savagery. I. may mean that the reac-
tionarics have gained the ascendaney,
or. CT the contrary, that the liberals
now dominate the situation.
Won Bethmann Hollweg has recently
found it impossible to reconcile the an
tagonistic elements. He has undertaken
to define the peace basis, but without
winning the allegiance of either faction.
His declaration against peace without
annexations or indemnities failed to
stem the current setting against him.
That the kaiser has yielded to the pres
sure and named a new chancellor may
mean that the parties demanding q
peace definition that will more surely
elicit response from the allied CAPT
tails are in control in the .eiehstag, so
far as political control is possible in
a'body so diverse and so finely divided
between small groups.
These are undoubtedly troubled days
for Germany. The military situation is
most unpropitious. At no point, despite
the slight success gained the other day
on the User against the British. are the
German arms ascendant. With Russia
revived in powerful and thus far sue
cessful offensive, with America entering
the war and placing men on the lines in
France, and with the submarine warfare
failing to accomplish its object of starv-
ing England and depriving the allies
of munitions, the outlook on land and
sea is dark. At home there is the ever
increasing distress of the people, who
now have not enough food and who are
faced with failure of the crops and the
virtual certainty Of terrible suffering in
the winter. That at such a juncture the
German parties should be qnarreEng
over personnel and the question of suf-
frage extension, rather academic than
practical in view Of the postponement
of effectiveness until after the war, in
dictates a failure to appreciate the
gravity of the situation.
Discussion of the terms of peace is,
from the standpoint of the allied pow
ers, wholly beside the mark so long as
the issue turns upon whether or not
Germany shall make peace on the basis
of annexations and indemnities. It is
plain to us here that Germany cannot
be permitted to make peace upon her
own terms. It is equally plain that
there can be no peace founded upon
German annexations or Preparations"
When peace comes it will be either upon
the basis of annexations and indemni-
ties for the allies. or none. That issue,
in truth, belongs to the entente, not to
Germany. But it may convenience the
political forces at Berlin to permit a
discussion of peace terms to becloud the
true state of Germany's ease. which is so
critical that abdication may, indeed,
prove suddenly to have occurred as the
first stage of great revolution.