Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1917-07-20
rHErEsr

After a week of rumors and denfals,
the fact Is announced from Berlin that
Chancellor Won Bethmann-Hollwegh has
been forced out of office and replaced
by Dr. George Michaelis, typical Prus-
sian bureaucrat.
On its face, this is signal victory
for the war party. The junkers who
rallied at .Hollweg because OF his op-
position to submarine ruthlessness will
! find the new chancellor one particu-
larly to their liking.
In reality. the appointment of Mi
chaelis looks like more than an act
of approval Of the pan-German party
BY the kaiser. 1t looks like bold
stroke on the part of the emperor. to
test the strength Of the chains with
which he has bound the German people
to his throne.
Hollweg, according to every reliable
indication, was unseated at the de-
mand of the crown prince, with the ap-
proval Of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
because he had been swayed by the
demands for peace. His retirement
certainly cannot be viewed as victory
for the radical element. for his sue
cessor represents the same views that
are held by the army general staff and
the most pronounced pan-Germanists.
Had Hollweg's removal been con-
cession to Phillip Scheidemann. Karl
Heine, Eduard David and Matthias
Erzberger, the new chancellor obvious
ly would have been a man sharing
their views, at least to greater ex-
tent that did Hollweg. Instead. the ap-
pointee is described as the one man in
the whole empire best calculated to
do the bidding of the kaiser and the
crown prince in their desperate po-
litical game.
Since 1879, when he was 16 years
old, DR.. Michaelis has been in the i'm
perial governments service. 2 In 1897
he became the chief director of the
department of church and school af-
fairs, and 1t has been largely through
him that the doctrine of militarism
has been drilled into the brain and be-
ing of the German youth.
In 1905 he was decorated by the kali
ser for faithful service and four years
later he was appointed under secre-
tary of the Prussian ministry of fl
nance For the past few months he has
, been food dictator for Prussia.
Throughout the war he has been iden-
titled with the faction which now is
bound up in the junker party. His
biographers say he lacks political orr
ginality and force of character. APP
parently he is just the sort of man
the kaiser would be expected to choose
for mouthpiece and buffer between
the German throne and the people it
Expresses.
If the hold OF the Hohenzollern on
Germany and Austria-Hungary truly is
! Of iron-like tenacity, the new chan
cellor's appointment will mean subjec-
! ton of the wilder spirits in the reich.
tag and. outwardly at least. support in
| that body for the government in its
war of conquest and destruction.
! Today it is announced in dispatches
| from Europe that the majority of the
reichstag. comprising the socialists,
the Catholic centrists and the radicals
of various minority parties. are deter
mined to force through the reichstag
/ a resolution declaring for peace with
out annexation and without indemnity.
! If this threat is carried out, and II
1 the Spirit 1t indicates really goes deep.
err than mere words, revolution is the
reply that may be expected as the re-
suit o. Michaelis' appointment
There is every indication that the
attitude of Austria-Hungary had much
F, to do with the kaisers choice of MI
chaelis. Emperor Charles is counted
/ for peace. His cooperation with the
German emperor is continued through
! fear rather than through sympathy.
/ For weeks there have been reports
that he was growing tired of the war,
and these annarantlx ware con firrn or