Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-02-06
Germany'S Motive.

OSTWuHV HOLLp6.
What is the method in Germanys madness?
What advantage or profit does she expect FROM
submarine havoc that turns the entire neutral
world against her in moral if not military force!
Several explanations suggest themselves
Germany's own version is that she expects to
starve England into a cry for truce, and thus
bring the Allies to terms I'VE stake ALL ex-
claims Chancellor Won Bethmann-Hollweg, and
We shall be victorious" Unrestricted U-boat war
fare would have. been launched months ago, ne
adds, if the necessary number of craft had been
available. 1t is reported, indeed that Won Tirpitz
was retired as head of the Admiralty, not because
of his insistence upon ruthless submarine activity
Americans then led to believe but be-
cause he had failed to prepare amply and betimes
for the intended campaign. That Germany stakes
all this desperate stroke, it is not difficult 10
believe. The British blockade is telling feartully
on her economic endurance, and the military pres
all her fronts threatens to become irreslst-
BILE in the next concerted offensive of the Allies
But that she will succeed in starving the English
people into capituation is improbable, to say the
least, however numerous her submarines may be
and however ruthlessly she may employ them. This,
of course is a matter which only the event itself
can determine. But it may be assumed that Eng
land will not let her sea power lie wholly idle,
while her means of living cut away; and it may
be assumed that the United States will take prac-
teal measures to protect its shipping to English
ports against rampage of terrorism that has no
semblance of lawful blockade.
1t cannot be denied, however that an onslaught
of this kind will cut great gap in British shipping
and in neutral shipping we'll Since the begin
ming of the war, England has lost about ten per
cent of her merchant tonnage as a result of Ger
man submarines and mines. The losses of Holland
and ba
have been proportionately much greater than those
of the Allies. Suppose then, that U-boat pillage
is doubled trebled in intensity and scope, sup
pose it destroys three ships, enemy and neutral,
every has destroyed heretofore, and main
tains that rate for four or five months. Suppose
that then the should end, as suddenly as it be-
gan. Germany, though defeated, would have
pronounced advantage in the world-trade contest
that would follow because while she is destroying
the merchant fleets of the Allies and of neutras,
she is creating one of her own German newspa-
pers declare with much complacency that their
empire is building great merchant marine which
will start out to take up the worlds trade
Immediately peace is declared" This, then, may
be the method in Germany's Madness at least
contributing motive in her desperate course.
Still another explanation rests on the theory
that the German rulers realizing the inevtableness
of defeat are counting the whole worlds hostility
as a way to the least humiliating surrender Long
ago they the futility of the ambitions for which
they started the More recently they have
seen that the longer the fighting continues the
heavier will be the penalty they must pay not only
abroad but also at home; not only in loss of pres
tige but also in loss of power among their
people. They have tried repeatedly, therefore, to
draw the Allies into peace negotiations before the
war entered up a decisive stage. Having failed in
that attempt they now seeking to bring about
a situation in which they can say to their people
1--WE could have defeated the Entente, but we can
not defeat the world which our enemies have en-
battled against us. We must yield to overwhelm-
ing odds?
Perhaps, all these Motives hope of starving
England TO terms, hope of destroying large part
of the worlds mercantile marine with a view to
post bellum commerce, and hope of ending the
war before the Allies decisively victorious-are
intertwined in the desperate which Germany
has taken.